TF5800 online manual

TF5800 manual: connecting up

Connecting up your PVR

As you can see, there is a wide range of connectors on the back of the PVR, and consequently you can set it up in a number of different ways. To some extent, the way that you choose will depend on the other equipment that you have. We’ll cover the most basic cases here.

Existing equipment

The first thing you need to work out is how you will connect your PVR to your television.

Most modern television sets have one or more connectors for other equipment, often referred to as AV, EXT or SCART connectors. If your television does not have any inputs, and can only receive signals through its aerial connection, you will need to use the RF OUT connector on your PVR; we shall describe how to do that shortly.

Connecting the aerial to your PVR

Whatever sort of connection you have between the PVR and the TV, you need to connect the PVR to your television aerial so that it can receive digital TV channels.

Note that in some areas, you may need to upgrade your aerial to ensure that you receive digital television broadcasts – good reception of existing analogue signals is no guarantee of good digital reception.

The first connection you should make is to connect a cable from your TV aerial to the ANT 1 connector on the back of the PVR.

However your PVR is connected to the TV, you must ensure that there is a connection to both the ANT1 and ANT2 connectors on your PVR, so that both tuners work properly. Normally, you do that by using the supplied loop cable to link from RF LOOP1 OUT to ANT 2.

However, if you are in a weak signal area, or are using a signal amplifier with more than one output, you may achieve better results by connecting a cable from the aerial or amplifier directly to the ANT2 connector, rather than using the loop cable.

Connecting the PVR to your TV using a SCART or AV cable

For best results with a standard television set, you should use the supplied SCART cable, plugging one end into the TV SCART socket on the PVR, and the other end into a free SCART socket on your television.

If you have more than one SCART connector on your television, you should choose one with ‘RGB’ (Red, Green, Blue) support, since it can give a better picture. You may wish to experiment with different sockets on your TV, since some may have different facilities, such as automatic switching when the PVR is turned on, while others may not.

Some televisions have inputs via S-Video or Composite video connectors, rather than SCART. If you have such a television, use an appropriate cable to link the socket on the PVR to the matching socket on your television.

Connecting the PVR to your TV using the RF output

If your television does not have an AV input, you will need to use the RF output from the PVR. In this case, you will need to connect a cable from the RF OUT socket (number 13 in the diagram) to the aerial connector on your television.

To ensure your television can also pick up existing analogue channels as well, you will need to connect a cable from your TV aerial or from the RF LOOP2 OUT connector on the back of the PVR to the RF IN connector (number 12 in the diagram). If you do not want to watch analogue TV channels any more, this link will not be needed.

After connecting the PVR’s RF OUT to your television, you will need to tune one of the buttons on your television to channel number 36 to see the output from the PVR.

Connecting to your HiFi system

If you wish to play the sound from the PVR through your HiFi or audio visual system, you should connect either the S/PDIF digital audio connector or the left and right audio connectors to an input on your audio system.

Next: switching on