Cobolt Speechmaster Talking Video Remote Control Instructions Introduction Your talking remote control can be used as a direct replacement for the standard remote control which was supplied with your recorder. It can be used to play, record, rewind and fast forward your recorder in exactly the same way but with the advantage of spoken feedback. It can also be used to automatically record television programmes while you are away. Normally you would have to programme the recorder using the handset and reading instructions on your television screen. With this device you programme the talking handset itself - in a different room or even building to the recorder if you wish. You then leave the handset pointing at the recorder and, at the appropriate times, it sends signals to turn the recorder on, select the correct channel, begin and end recording and turn the recorder off. The case has been designed to fit snugly in the hand with the buttons comfortably available under your thumb for single handed operation by both left and right handed users. If left on a table it will sit in a level slightly nose up position for optimum range when controlling the recorder. Operation With the handset held with the keys uppermost the speaker grill should be towards you, below the keys. The controls are arranged as follows:- Top Left Circular POWER button. Used to turn your video recorder ON and OFF. Central Slightly Below Power Button Triangular PLAY button. Used to start the recorder playing. Directly Below Play Button Circular STOP button. Used to stop the recorder playing, recording, rewinding or fast forwarding. To Left Of Stop Button Triangular REWIND button. Used to quickly rewind the tape. To Right Of Stop Button Triangular FAST FORWARD button. Used to quickly run the tape forward. Below Rewind Button Circular RECORD button. Starts recording immediately. When pressed you will be asked to press this button again to record. This is to avoid accidental recording. Below Record Button Circular QUICK TIMER button. Whilst recording or playing you can use this to select when you would like the video to stop - it is adjustable in 15 minute steps up to 5 hours. This enables you to manually start recording a programme then leave the recorder to turn itself off at the end of a programme. This timer can also be used in the same way to stop the recorder playing. If you wish to turn the timer off just press the button repeatedly and quickly until it says “Stop Timer Off”. To Right Of Record Button Triangular UP button. This triangle points up. Below it is a similar triangular button pointing down - the DOWN button. These are used for increasing and decreasing various functions such as changing TV channels, adjusting volume etc. There is a separate group of 4 diamond shaped buttons below the others. These are used as follows:- Top PROGRAMME button. Used to set times for recording. Like the Record button you are asked to press this again in order to start programming. You will be asked to set the start day, start hour, start minutes, stop hour, stop minutes and channel in turn each time you press this button. Use the Up and Down buttons to change each setting. To record today leave the day setting as it is. When setting the day on which to begin recording you have the opportunity to select a day or that same day every week i.e. “Thursday” or “Every Thursday”. It is not necessary to enter a stop day as the handset will work this out based on the stop time. You can select channels from 1 to 9, which correspond to your video recorder channels, or manual. With manual selected the channel will remain on whatever was last selected i.e. the handset will not change the channel before it starts recording. Provided your recorder always comes back on to its last selected channel when it is switched ON then this feature can be used to record from pre-selected channels. A last press of the Programme button will cause the settings to be read back to you and for the programme to be saved in memory. You can programme the handset to record up to 10 different television programmes. If you try to exceed this you will be advised that programming is not available. Once a programme is complete it will automatically delete itself unless it has been set to repeat the following week. It is perfectly acceptable to start recording a programme at exactly the same time as a previous recording is programmed to end. The handset will just stop the recorder, change channels and begin recording again. It is obviously not a good idea to overlap recording times i.e. to have a second recording start before a previous one has finished. If you do this you will find that you will lose the end of the first programme but all of the second programme will be recorded. Right CHECK button. Used to check what recording programmes have been entered. After a short pause the first programme will be spoken. Each press of the button reports the next programme in the list. These will be spoken in the order in which they will occur not in which they were entered. Bottom CLOCK button. Reports the time and day of the week on the first press. If pressed again quickly it goes into the clock setting mode. Each press takes you through setting the hours, minutes and day of the week, speech volume and video code. These are all adjusted using the Up and Down buttons. The video code should be set according to your make of video recorder as follows:- Video Code 1 Panasonic Video Code 2 LG Video Code 3 Philips Video Code 4 Sony Video Code 5 JVC Video Code 6 Samsung Video Code 7 Toshiba Video Code 8 Panasonic Left DELETE button. Used to delete individual programmes. Repeatedly press the Check button until you hear the programme you wish to delete then press the Delete button to remove it. You will be asked to press the button a second time to avoid accidental erasing of programmes. Operating Notes Please check that the day of the week and time are correctly set in the controller and check them periodically as it uses its own internal clock to decide when to record programmes. The clock in the recorder will have no effect when this controller is used. If you leave the handset in one of the set up modes for more than 1 minute without pressing any buttons it will revert to its normal operating mode. While setting or programming the handset the Power, Play, Stop, Rewind, Fast Forward, Record and Quick Timer buttons will still operate your recorder and will not interrupt your programming. If you press the Programme, Check or Delete buttons during setting up you will be taken out of the programming mode. If you have programmed the handset to start recording at a time when you are setting it up, provided it is pointing at the recorder it will still operate correctly i.e. it can automatically control the recorder even while you are programming it. In order for the handset to control the recorder automatically the recorder must be left in standby and OFF. This is because the handset turns the recorder ON and OFF prior to and after recording so must know that the recorder is initially OFF. This is true in most cases but there are a few recorders, such as the Panasonic, where this does not matter. These will still operate even if left switched On but we recommend that, as a general practice, you should select your recorder Off prior to leaving the handset to control it automatically. When being left to control your recorder the handset should be left pointing at the front of the recorder and with a clear path between the front of the handset and the recorder. The handset is much more powerful than most and you will probably find that it will work from almost anywhere in the room but a little experimentation may be required to find the optimum position. Using the talking remote control will not prevent you from programming your recorder using the standard controller in the normal way. Please note that if you do this then you will need to be careful that you do not programme conflicting times as the results may be somewhat unpredictable! The controller has been tested with the following models of video recorder. Panasonic NV-SD240 LG AC 2001 BC 969NI BD 2601 Philips VR 200 Sony SLV SE70 JVC HR J465EK HR J265EK HR J260EK HR J265ES Toshiba V857B If your model is not one of these then try each of the 7 video codes in turn as many modern recorders share codes. If your handset ever fails to work properly then insert something like a paper clip into the Reset hole (Right front face level with the Power button) and gently depress the reset switch. If nothing is spoken then the internal memory will have been retained and the clock should still be correct. If you hear something like “Video remote control 123 clock reset” then the memory will have been erased and the clock will need re-setting. Batteries 4 x AA size 1.5 volt Alkaline batteries are held in the battery compartment on the underside of the case. You can feel the release catch in the deep finger slot. Depress this to remove the cover. All the batteries are fitted with their positive ends pointing to the front of the case i.e. away from the speaker end. You will have about 2 minutes to change the batteries before the controller loses the information stored in its memory.