Last Updated on September 15, 2023 by Dave Farquhar
It’s not always obvious how you connect a VCR to a smart TV. But just because it isn’t obvious doesn’t mean someone won’t want to do it. In this blog post, I will explain how to connect your old VCR to your new smart TV.
Whether you have a Samsung, Sony, LG, Vizio, Hisense, or some other brand of smart TV, for these purposes, they all pretty much work the same. Manufacturers followed the same standards in the 1980s and ’90s, and they still do today. You could connect any brand of VCR to any other brand of TV and it worked. All that’s different today is that we have some new standards, along with legacy standards.
Legacy connection types on Smart TVs and other newer TVs
Some smart TVs have more legacy connection types than others. So rather than just telling you to go and buy something, let’s talk about how to see what connection options your TV has, and figure out which one works best for the combination of equipment you have.
The first thing you will want to do is press the input select button on your TV remote. This allows you to choose different video sources from your TV. There is a perception that Smart TVs don’t have any inputs other than HDMI these days. Clicking the input select button on your smart TV remote is a quick way to check that.
Look for an input source labeled AV, composite, composite video, or possibly CVBS. If your TV has such an input, that means it has a set of RCA jacks hidden somewhere. Murphy’s Law says that it’s always going to be on the side of the TV that’s hardest to see and hardest to reach. This even surprised me. I have an LG TV that I was certain only had HDMI inputs, but the remote insisted it had composite. I found the composite inputs hiding on the underside of the TV, where I’d never looked.
If you are in the market for a smart TV and haven’t bought one yet, consider getting one that has RCA inputs at the very least. It gives you additional connection options without having to mess around with converter boxes.
TV connections
There are generally three types of connections suitable for connecting an old VCR to a modern TV. Your TV may only have one of these types or it could have all three.
HDMI
Converter boxes exist to translate the old fashioned composite signals from a VCR to modern HDMI. This is the most expensive option, but the trade off is that it allows you to use older devices that don’t have a modern equivalent with a new Smart TV.
There are a couple of options available.
RCA composite to HDMI adapter from Best Buy
I have reviewed this device and found it usually works rather well, and it is very convenient. This device can be hit or miss with certain game consoles but VCRs are generally well enough behaved to work well with this type of device, within the limits of the video quality VHS can deliver. You probably have a Best Buy near you, which means you can buy it easily, and that also means you can return it easily if it doesn’t work well.
Cheaper composite to HDMI adapters
You can also buy a knock off from Amazon for around $15. Keep in mind the cheaper converter will take longer to arrive, and returning it in the event of any problems maybe a little more difficult. Mixed results are the norm for these adapters. When they work well, you’ll never tell the difference between it and the adapter from Best Buy, except that you had to supply your own power adapter. But they are more likely to produce lower quality audio, lower quality video, or no video at all. These connectors usually need supplemental power, frequently in the form of USB.
If you aren’t using the USB port on your TV to power something else, you can use that to power the cheaper RCA to HDMI converters. Otherwise, an old phone charger is a common choice. For safety’s sake, try to use a name brand charger rather than a no name charger you bought at a gas station.
Connecting either type of composite to HDMI adapter to a VCR and Smart TV
In the case of either type of adapter, there is a switch on the side to choose 720p or 1080p output. If you aren’t happy with the output, flip the switch. The setting that matches your TV most closely doesn’t necessarily always give the best output.
Hook up is easy. Supply power to the adapter, plug an HDMI cable between the adapter and the TV, and plug the composite video plug into the RCA ports on the converter and the RCA outputs on the VCR. If your VCR only has two RCA connections, that means it has mono output. You can get an adapter cable to connect a mono output to both audio channels.
Select the appropriate HDMI input on your TV, make sure the converter box is receiving power, and power on your VCR. Double check all the connections and the 720p / 1080p switch, and you can usually get a usable signal without much fuss. If you see a no signal indicator, double check your connections. They are color coded. And make sure you’re using the set labeled OUT on your VCR, rather than the set marked IN.
Composite
If your new HDTV or Smart TV or digital flat panel TV has composite inputs, simply run a common three wire cable with RCA jacks on each side between the composite video out jacks on your VCR and the composite input jacks on your new TV. Select the composite input on your TV, power on your VCR, and you should see signal.
RF
In the 1980s, RF was the most common type of connection people used. But smart TVs usually can’t decode an analog RF signal anymore. Older digital flat panel TVs made between 2009 and 2021 might, and those made before 2009 almost certainly will. But the video quality will be lower. So while you may be able to use RF by connecting the VCR to a flat panel that’s old enough to include an analog tuner and let its channel search find the VCR on channel 3, I don’t recommend this option except as a last resort.
VCR connections
VCR connections can be a somewhat confusing topic. There was a joke in the 1980s midlife crisis comedy City Slickers about VCRs, and the concept that you could tune a VCR to one channel, have it record a program on that channel, and tune your TV to a different channel and watch something completely different from what you were recording. This idea made total sense to Billy Crystal’s character, but it was anything but obvious to his friend, much the exasperation of both. Billy Crystal’s character had a better understanding of VCR connections than his friend. This discussion was extremely relatable when the movie was new. But I wouldn’t say the joke was timeless. I get it and my dad got it, but my sons would completely miss it.
Once you get your VCR connected, you may find it won’t take the current date. I have a trick to get it to display an accurate day of week and date.
Types of VCR connections
VCR connections can be confusing because not only are there different types of plugs, but there is usually a duplicate set of each type. For your VCR to work properly, you not only need to have compatible sets of plugs on both your VCR and your TV, but you need to select the right set.
Video in versus video out
On the back of your VCR, you will see The connections are typically grouped or labeled as in or out. The connections marked out are intended for connecting between the VCR and your TV. The connections marked in our intended to allow you to daisy chain another device to the VCR. In the past, this was how people connected to VCRs together so they could make copies of movies.
Today, this connection is more useful for allowing you to connect multiple devices to your TV even if you only have one set of incoming RCA jacks. It also works to translate signals that are incompatible with newer TVs. For example, early game consoles like the Atari 2600 only have an RF output, which means they broadcast their signal on channel 2, 3, or 4, rather than sending a composite video signal. Modern TVs don’t have tuners capable of decoding that signal anymore, but you can connect a game console to the antenna in connection on a VCR, then use the composite out connections to send a translated signal to the TV.
Admittedly, this is an advanced use case. If you are only interested in watching VHS tapes on your old TV, you can ignore the inputs and just pay attention to the output. If you have connected your VCR to your TV and have the appropriate cables and selected the appropriate input on the TV, and you see no signal, double check the connections on the back of the VCR and make sure that you connected the VCRs out connection to your TVs in connection.
Types of VCR connection plugs
VCRs typically have two or three types of connection plugs. The most common type is composite video, sometimes also called CVBS or simply AV. This type of connection consists of two or three RCA jacks. The yellow jack carries the video signal, while the red and white jacks carry stereo audio signals.
It is possible you may only have a single audio output on either the VCR or on the TV, depending on the age of both. If you have two connectors on one side and one connector on the other, you can use a y connector cable to combine them. In a pinch, you can just hook up one channel, but then the audio will only come out of a single speaker. It sounds better to have the audio coming out of both speakers, even if it doesn’t come out in stereo.
S-Video
High end VCRs had an additional connector called S-Video. S-video separates the color and the brightness into separate wires, which yields a clearer picture. If you have an s video connection on your TV and on your VCR, this will give you a slightly clearer picture. This connection is well worth using if you have it, but typically the only VCRs that had it were called super VHS or SVHS, and these VCRs were much more expensive when they were new, so they sold in smaller numbers, making them harder to find today.
RF video
Last and least, your VCR will also have a round threaded connector that will probably be labeled RF. RF was the old analog broadcast video standard that came over antennas prior to 2007. Modern TVs frequently still have this connector to pull in over the air broadcasts or broadcasts over cable TV, but the modern digital signals are not compatible with the old analog ones. TVs made within a few years of the switchover frequently had both types of tuners, but the newer your TV is, the last chance of it having an analog tuner. On old TVs, are off was your only option, but TVs started coming with composite RCA jacks in the mid-1980s, and that is a much better option when it is available. Like I mentioned earlier, this plug is most useful for connecting old game consoles to convert their RF-only output to composite.
But that’s what you need to know about VCR connections so you can connect your VCR to a smart TV or other digital flat panel TV. Always connect the output from the VCR to the input on the display, and when chaining multiple devices, connect the output from the downstream device to the input on the upstream device. Use S-Video if you have it, but since you probably won’t, you will probably use composite between your VCR and your TV.
Daisy chaining other devices
The other thing to keep in mind is that if you are using a VCR to connect other devices to your TV, select the VCR input on your TV, and then select the input of the downstream device on your VCR. You can usually do this with buttons on the VCR itself or on the VCR’s remote. Most VCRs will remember this selection and use it if you don’t insert a tape, so you may only have to do this once.
How to record video from a smart TV on your VCR
Recording video from your smart TV on your VCR is not supposed to be possible. The streaming providers and the studios who hold the rights to the content don’t want that to be possible.
What you usually can do, however, is to connect a set top box like a Roku or Apple TV to your VCR and record streamed content that way. Just keep in mind the quality of the recording will be rather low. Older set top boxes had RCA outputs that would connect directly to the inputs on a VCR, but most of those devices probably are no longer supported.
With the newer set-top devices that only have HDMI output, you can get an HDMI to RCA converter, which will convert the HDMI output from your set-top box to a composite signal over RCA that your VCR can understand. Best Buy sells these devices for around $40, and you can get knock-offs from Amazon for around $15. If you want something today, Best Buy is your better option. The device from Best Buy also has more predictable quality control. The cheaper devices you can find on Amazon sometimes work just as well as the Best Buy device, sometimes I don’t work at all, and sometimes they give uneven quality. Audio issues tend to be more common than video issues.
Note these devices are not the same as the ones that convert a VCR’s composite output to an HDMI output. These are the opposite, so they aren’t interchangeable.
Should I convert my VHS tapes to digital?
I’ve had a lot of people ask me over the years whether they should convert their VHS tapes to digital formats. My answer has always been the same. Convert them if there is a digital format that is more convenient for you, but don’t get rid of your VHS tapes. People who converted their VHS tapes to DVD 15 years ago aren’t necessarily happy with that decision now. DVD players are just as obsolete as VHS players, and recordable DVD is less stable. So if you want to convert those videos into video files that you can watch on your computer or stream from your Roku, there’s a greater chance those old VHS tapes will still be readable then there is of those 15-year-old recordable DVDs still being readable.
When you convert tapes to video files on your computer, go with and independent, industry standard file format rather than a file format locked to a particular vendor. That means MP4, not Windows Media and not Apple QuickTime. There is a much better likelihood of any random future video player working with the MP4 format then with whatever a particular vendor is pushing this year.
Long-term storage concerns
You also don’t want to just upload those videos to cloud storage and forget about it. I’m not comfortable with a cloud provider having that kind of data that belongs to me. You’ll have to make your own call on that, but it is absolutely not a good decision for that copy in the cloud to be your only copy of your home video collection. Save a copy of it onto a quality, name brand USB flash drive that you bought from a retail store, so you can have some level of assurance it’s not a counterfeit. Put a label on the drive so you know what’s on it, and store it in a safe place.
And if you want to be really safe, make additional copies and store them someplace else, or give them to family members. Consider using different brands of drives as well, since they will age at slightly different rates. While we will never completely eliminate any risk of data loss, we can minimize it.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.