Sony SLV-835SV Setup Problem

The television has nothing to do with recording. It is only required for playback. There are a number of possibilities depending on what equipment you have. Do you have cable, satellite, antenna? Your signal source has to be connected to the VCR either through the cable connector, or RCA video jacks.
If you have straight cable, connect the cable to the "ant in" connector on the VCR. The VCRs tuner will select the channel you want to record. If you are on antenna, you will need a Digital set top box (STB) to receive any channels.
If you have a satellite, cable box or digital STB, you must go from the output of the box to the input of the VCR. You can use the standard coax cable,but I would recommend using the audio/video cables for better quality. If using coax, the VCR will have to be set to either channel 3 or 4, depending on the boxes output setting. Using A/V jacks, the VCR will be set to "Line" or "Video" input.

I will be assuming you have analog cable TV service, no cable box. If you have a cable box, the instructions would be different.

There are many steps to properly setup your Sony VCR and they should ALL be setup to correctly record channels, however just to cover your question here....

Press MENU on the remote control for the VCR and you should see on your TV screen, the main menu options. Select TUNER PRESET. Press OK. Set Antenna/Cable to CABLE. Next Select AUTO-PRESET. Available channels will be scanned. This may take a few mins. so be patient. Channels could go up to 125. This should make available cable channels ready to record/view.

You can ADD or Delete a specific channel also if one is missed or undesired by selecting MANUAL SET.

there must be a setup feature on the sony for channels that you get in your area?

I would be inclined to say that there are only two likely problems that you may be encountering. Either you are getting a bad signal feed, or the connectors on the cable are getting old and need replaced. The connection to the cable can break down over time, especially if they have been connected and reconnected several times. I cannot rule out problems caused by the transition to DTV, but that doesnt seem likely if there are only a few channels affected. As far as "selective failure" of the VCR's built-in tuner, I would say that that is also a very unlikely source for the problem If the tuning components inside the tuner had gone out, I would expect to see a problem on all channels watched through the system. If you are having this problem on all channels of the sony, then the tuner could surely be the problem, but if you haven't used it much that would indicate a problem at manufacturing, however since at least one of the machines is working fine on some channels and not on all of them, I would suspect the connections or the signal from your cable company. Contact them first ands see if they are having signal issues, if not try replacing your connectors.

Try changing the channels on the VCR itself. If you can do that, then it would indicate a problem with the VCR's remote. If you are still unable to change channels on the VCR manually, it could indicate a circuitry problem, for which you will have to get the VCR serviced.

the video recorder has it's own tuner you do not actually record from the tv... think of the vcr as like a tv but without a screen... connect to your tv via a scart lead and while you are on the vcr's 'channel' (so you could see a tape playing on your tv) and access the menu on you vcr (not the tv's menu) choos auto tune if the vcr supports it or manual tune if it has no auto tune and tune in the required channels on your vcr... it is simply then a matter of selecting on your vcr which channel you wish to record

make sure the tv is on channel 3. i had the same problem and it fixed by going to channel 3.

receivedsurroundoptimus

I had the same problem at first as well. After an hour of frustration, I broke out the manual (imagine that! :) Come to find out, you cannot set the clock when in COMPONENT or SVIDEO mode. When I got the "For this setup, TV connection should be to DVD&VCR output" message, I can immediately switch the TV to RF mode (coax input mode) and voila!... the clock setup screen is available. I think it has something to do with the auto time sensing through the cable tv input. So, my advice - always be in RF mode (CH3 or CH4 depending on what you have the SLV-D300 set to) if you want to set the clock.

Note*** Yes, I agree it was idiocy on the part of the programmers in choice of wording for that error. A simple "Must be in RF mode to set clock" would have been much more helpful.