Usually as soon as you plug in the cable from the camcorder to the cable box, whatever is playing on TV will usually play on the camcorder too. That's how you get the video and you record the video whenever you want to. Then you'd take out the cable from the cable box. It worked for me. It also worked for "shaneomac1986" who has the Weatherstar 4000 in Florida. As far as VCRs, I'm sure it's similar but I never tried it with the VCR.