Visual The sound comes through my TV just fine, but no picture shows up on my screen. It just remains black.

First, have you doublechecked the video hookup? It sounds like you are using the video/audio inputs to the TV, so make sure you have VCR video out cabled to TV video input, and the TV source/input selection set to that input (video 1 etc.). If this checks out, check for a dirty video head on the VCR, though a dirty head usually results in a blank or blue video display (older VCRs, snow). You could do a process of elimination by hooking VCR to a different TV and see what is displayed then. Lastly, I assume you've tried multiple tapes, just in case a home recorded tape was incorrectly recorded?