VHS to DVD?

Technology ages and we may not have a VCR forever so The Boy and I decided it was about time we upgraded the technology and transfered our Videos to DVDs.

In theory it should be a nice simple process:
* Scart from VCR to DVD recorder
* Scart from DVD recorder to TV
* Antenea cable bit from DVD to TV.
* Start VCR
* Press Record on DVD
* Turn off the TV and let it do it's thing.


In practice it doesn't work like that. I'm not entirely sure which cable is in the wrong place but I recorded 1 hour 46 minutes of blankness. To add to the complication of the matter, we can't turn the TV on to standby due to a ferret related incident with the TV remote (scuzz ate the mute and standby buttons) and if you turn the TV off manually, the DVD and VCR go off as well due to the intellegent extension cable.

Blah! Anyone ever done this before?