I purchased the Toshiba D-R410KU for the main purpose of recording some tv shows. I'm connecting it to Time Warner cable's Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300HD box with DVR and Olevia HD television 237V.
Connection path is RF coax cable from wall input to cable set top box, RF coax cable out to television. RGB cable out from set top box, RGB cable in to DVD recorder.
HDMI cable out from DVD recorder, HDMI cable in to television.
All units are turned on. Television works when Tuner source is selected (bypasses DVD recorder). When I change source to HDMI I should be able to see TV but all I get is blue screen and buzzing audio, If I turn the recorder off and on while viewing HDMI source, Toshiba welcome screen is displayed. DVD unit setup menu can be accessed and changes entered, so the source HDMI is correct. Other sources return "No Signal" when selected. I thought maybe it was the HDMI connection, so I tried red-white-yellow cables between DVD recorder and television, but got the same result only from Component source.
If a pre-recorded DVD is loaded, the DVD movie plays fine. I have no idea if recording will work until I can get television to show from recorder source.
Help!

Since the HDMI connection appears to work, let's look at the cable box to DVD recorder connection.

I think you mean component instead of RGB, right?

Did you check to see whether the buzzing is in one channel or both? You'll get a buzzing in one channel, the right channel, if you mistakenly plug the red video lead into an audio input. Since most component cable sets have red for red video and red for right channel, it's not impossible to switch them. If blue and green were reversed, you'd get a blue screen. Voila, your current setup.

Back up a bit and investigate your connection from the cable box to the DVD recorder. Plug in just green. You should get a black and white image. If the cable box's output scan rate is wrong, you'll get a blue screen or doubled-up image. Once you get black and white, add the red video lead, then the blue. You'll see the difference as you add the color leads. Note that green plus red leads give you green and red, green and blue leads give you green and blue, which doesn't make sense since green only gives you zero color.

Once you've got video, plug in the audio.

You are a genius! The component cable was the problem, it was hooked up red-green-blue from the cable box into red-white-yellow on the dvd recorder. Duh. Don't know for sure why I didn't catch this but am so glad you pinpointed my problem. Your step-by-step test was easy to follow and the description of expected results helped me understand it. I hope your solution posted on this forum will help out others with my same dilemma. Thanks!

You do this crap long enough and you make all the stupid mistakes yourself. After that, if you can get over the chagrin, mostly by not saying you've done this yourself, it's not too hard to describe it step by step. The hardest part is not leaving out any steps!

I am piggybacking on this post because it is so similar.

We've had the DVD player/recorder for a while now and it's worked fine, Then all of a sudden things went south. It's a Toshiba DVD Video Recorder DR570KU. The TV is a Samsung. We are out in the country in Wisconsin and so just have an antenna hook up (thus the difference - no cable tv). Another difference is that I have no sound.
The TV does detect the Toshiba. When the appropriate source is picked the Toshiba Welcome screen comes up and then the screen turns blue (but it does tell what channel I'm on and if I have a DVD in the player it will have the bars that indicate that it's loading).
So all I have right now is the antenna in (coming from the antenna) and out on the player (going to the antenna in on the tv). I have the HDMI cable connecting the tv and the player.
The Toshiba WILL play DVDs. The screen on the Toshiba indicates what channel I'm on.
If I have the blue screen up and a channel selected and hit record, then play back the 'recorded' thing - it's grey static with static noise.
I've used a different HDMI cable that I know works with no luck.
I've tried not going through the HDMI cable and just using the RCA video cables (looked at the manual to hook it up: video and audio out on the Toshiba and in on the tv) - no luck. I've tried both the HDMI cable and the RCA video/ audio cables.

I went to Best Buy to pick up a new one and they don't even make these any more. They said I needed to get a TiVo for $400. I just have one show that I keep missing because I have to take my daughter to volleyball practice - I don't want to spend $400.
So I went to the Pawn Shop and got a sony player/ recorder (doesn't use an HDMI though) and hooked it up using the colored cables - same problem! That's when I realized it might be just hooked up wrong or ???

Ernie - you helped the other guy to simply, do you have anything for me??