dvd problem - sound but no picture

[seneca]

hi folks,
My sister has bought a cheap dvd player (philips) to connect to her old vhs/tv in one combo. I connected the scarts up to it (with nothing else connected) and I got sound only. No picture, just a black screen. I've tried messing around with the input button on the tv and it still won't fix it. It says AV1 when I switch the dvd power on, but then when I cycle through the inputs I get rgb1 and av2 only.
I've disconnected the dvd player and tried it with another tv and it works fine (both sound and picture.) I've looked in the tv manual and it mentions "fast blanking" under the scart section. And something about the 16th pin on the scart. Doesn't say how to fix the problem and I don't know what the terms mean anyway. Can anyone please help?

many thanks.

 

[ChrisFrost]

Here's a couple of things to try.


1) Plug the DVD player in to the TV that it does work on. Make sure there is no disc in the player. Check the DVD players set up menu. Look in the Picture menu and change the output to "RGB" Move the player back to the TV/VHS Combi. Select the input that gives you RGB1.

2) Same as above, but this time change the Picture menu to PAL (or composite or Video....whatever is the other option name that isn't RGB or S-Video). Retest on the Combi, but this time you want AV1.


If these don't work then you might need to have a look in the TV manual about connecting external sources. It could be that because the combi has a recorder that it's trying to stop you from copying DVD to VHS. See if there's an input on the combi that bypases the recorder.

 

[seneca]

thanks chris. Will try it tomorrow when I am meant to go back to my sister's to have another bash at fixing it! One thing my sister has just told me over the phone is if she pulls the scart so that it's almost out of the socket, then a bit of the picture appears. I'll try a better scart cable too, though I did try 2 different, cheap ones and it made no difference.

 

[ChrisFrost]

Ah, right. Two things come to mind then...

Some cheap SCART cables only have the basic minimum amount of pins connected. This will affect what signals can be sent through the cable. You might not get RGB.

If you've tried two SCARTs though then there's a reasonable chance one of them was fully wired, so the next thing to check is "SCART control". That's when the SCART cable carries a signal to tell the TV that it has been switched on. Try that if it's an option in the setup menus: SCART control On/Off

 

[timtheenchanter]

make sure the output on the DVD player is set to PAL, if it has that option, some older sets just wont show anything if receiving a NTSC signal.

 

[seneca]

Sorted it out. Had to look up what "fast blanking " was on the interent. Apparently it's something to do with stopping the RGB signal. It's the 16th pin on the scart, so I removed it with a pair of pliars and hey presto.. I got both sound and picture. It must be down to the video/tv combi scart input and just as chris mentioned, it's probably to stop people copying dvds on to vhs. (It is an old machine and they probably were no dvd or hd recorders back then.)