The last nail in the VCR's coffin?

What make and model is it?

 

I just needed to replace my old VCR and I looked into getting a DVD recorder, too. However, after doing some research at www.dvdrhelp.com, I decided that the technology is still a little unreliable for me. All I want to do is record the occasional TV program, and the VCR fits the bill for me. I got another VCR with VCR Plus, and I'm happy.

I was tempted by Tivo, but I couldn't justify having to fork over a monthly fee for the privilege, on top of the price of the unit.

I hope your recorder works OK for you. You might want to visit www.dvdrhelp.com to see if there are any issues with it (and recommendations for what brand(s) of DVDs to use for maximum compatibility).

 

I couldn't live without my TiVo. I love it almost as much as my Prius .

But seriously... TiVo is great. I have no idea exactly how much they cost now and how much the service fee is because we have one of the original 14 hour TiVos and our roommates got us lifetime service (or got themselves lifetime service). I think now the price of the box has come down a bit but the service is more expensive. The TiVo website often has ones that are refurbished for cheaper (what I remember the cost of a VCR being, but it's been a long time since I've bought a VCR, so I bet they're super cheap now) and there are often rebates. You can also not get the service, and program the TiVo manually (like a digital VCR), though that doesn't really take advantage of all the features of TiVo. Um, so yeah, I might be a little bit addicted .

 

Unreliable? How old is that information? Perhaps 2 years ago, when the discs themselves were of lower quality... but not anymore. And since back then, the disc quality has increasing quite a bit and the software within the recorders has been heavily debugged. DVD +RW & +R is great now (which is what I have). As for the -RW & -R along with -RAM, they may work, but they still suffer from the fundamental forward-compatibility problem. In other words, think "positive" about DVD.

Anywho, I have an illustrated webpage documenting my DVD recorder experiences available on this webpage... http://john1701a.com/digital/digital-video...d-recording.htm

And yes, the final nail has been hammered. The fact that DVD recorders now support both HDD & TiVo makes VHS look rather pathetic.

 

Well, I'll agree that the VCR is fading fast - it's pretty hard to find stand-alone units these days. But you'll see a lot of dual DVD-VCR decks for a while since many folks have a lot of stuff on tape and won't get around to digitizing it for a while.

Personally, I'm a ReplayTV addict (similar to TIVO, but with less annoyances) - four units in service now and got several relatives hooked on it as well. (As mistress of the 3-minute skip, I'm frequently flummoxed when someone asks if I've seen a certain commercial ) I have both original (non-subscription) and more recent (subscription) models. The newer ones have a few more features (more days of program listings, better resolution of recording conflicts, etc.), but I still find the older units work great. You can usually pick up non-subscription models on Ebay. ReplayTV units are also pretty easy to upgrade to bigger disk sizes...Many cable and satellite TV companies are now offering Digital Video Recorders as well, for an additional monthly fee. They usually come as a unit with the cable or satellite decoder box built in, and some models can receive and record HDTV signals as well.

Picking up my 2005 Salsa Red BC in early January!

 

That's a rebadged LiteOn, isn't it?

Whatever, great price and, if it's a LiteOn, chipset.

 

My standalone recorder is -R/RW/RAM machine (JVC) and I have two PCs with DVD writers in them. Although I typically use DASH media, I have also burned quite a few PLUS disks using the PC burners.

I haven't noticed that the DASH disks are any less compatible than the PLUS disks. IOW, the older players, which I owned or had access to, would not play either format OR would play both formats without a problem. I'm sure they're out there, but I haven't found a player that would play one format but not the other. The new players, of course, play damned near everything; even some of the el cheapo ($29) players can play rewriteables (RW).

 

i was wondering when recordable DVD players for the home would be around. lots of different options for video are coming around though. be interesting to see what the public settles on.

a couple of items coming along are handheld mini DV camcorders that use microdrives to record to. these drives are the same size as a memory card except that they have small hard drives in them.

products being introduced for X-mas (maybe... i still havent seen any yet and times a runnin' out) are the Everio GZ-MC100 and GZ-MC200. they can record either one or two hours of DVD quality video.

the best part is that the microdrives can be read with any computer with a reader that is optional (of course)

currently the technology is a bit spendy (extra hard drives are going for a reported $200) but like all new technology, it will drop in price as the volume goes up.

 

At my house, a new door stop. My VCR of eight years stopped producing reliable recordings or playback, so I looked at the new types of recorders with an eye to keeping at least part of the VHS playback.

I'm not surprised to see this discussion on PriusChat. Many of the units I looked at were hybrids of VCR and DVR or other devices. Only one so far has three parts, and that is what I've been plugging in and learning about.

The DR-MX1S from JVC has been selling since about September and so many stores will not carry it before they sell their older models. There are no reviews for it online so here goes. (It is called DR-MX1SUS in the jvc pages and this is probably a country suffix - your country may vary.)

This unit combines VHS Hi-Fi (Progressive Scan) recording and playback with a DVD-R/-RW/-RAM player and recorder (also plays other formats such as CD-R and MP3 discs and VCDs) AND a hard disk drive with an 80 GB capacity. First of all buy it from a place that understands "damaged in shipping" returns, as a VCR is an inherently fragile item. Amazon not only had a great price but cheerfully accepted the return of two of these units. The first had the DVD drive door cracked off, and the second simply refused to power up.

The third worked well (and the price had gone down 10% by the time of the third order) and I am still learning about its features and setups. I'd strongly recommend against trying to set this up on Christmas morning, even though the manual is at jvc.com and connections were somewhat easier because the combined operations use shared cables.

I was able to watch a DVD-R I had made on my Mac and last night I successfully recorded a videotape from one channel and a hard drive program from another. Copying is easy but of course you can't start with a copy-protected tape or DVD. My family videotapes can easily become DVDs and so can new DV input through the FireWire (4-pin) port on the front.

Here's how I watched the news the other night. It's a one-hour program so I set up recording on the hard drive. When the hour was about half done, I was able to start watching the recording. I could fast forward, pause, or rewind the recording, and buttons on the remote allowed me to jump through commercial breaks or boring stories. A special 1.5x play button allowed me to see and hear the recorded program 50% faster which is nothardtounderstandifyoucanreadthis.

In summary, I found this to meet my needs at a lower cost than that of the three parts separately, but some patience in setup and use is needed. For example, the hard drive is not a Palm Pilot and requires a few seconds of waiting for powering on or off, starting and stopping playback and recording. I found it to be quite a hybrid.

 

After a Replay, I got a cable box with DVR built in. Not as nice as a Replay, but at least its a single box. Don't really have a need to make hard recordings, so this completely meets my needs for watching tv. I never used the VCR to record anyway, this is so much better.

 

Great machine! If I didn't already have a halfway decent VCR and a couple of TiVo units, I would have waited for the MX1S to be released. I wound up buying the M10S (JVC DVD recorder sans VCR & HDD).

 

Thanks.

I'd like to clarify one item that was hard to verify, even by JVC, until I set the unit up. That is, what the front of it looks like. It is two-faced.

There is actually a front panel with the usual DVD door on the right and VCR door on the left, with a display between them. But there is also a matching "visor" that covers all but the display so you can see time and counters, and the remote will work.

It is hinged at the front bottom, is easily removed, and attaches to the front upper left and front upper right corners of the unit using small magnets. I was skeptical but it works.

Just thought I'd mention it in case others were searching and seeing two different pictures of the machine. And boy, was I surprised when I unpacked it and the "easily removed" feature announced itself!

 

the VCR is that box that used to be on the TV. its last use was as a storage area for toast, cookies and other misc items by my son

 

What! I've got 5000 tapes with 1 to 5 movies on each.

What to do? What to do?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Lucas\";p=\"56573)</div>

Yep.........that's a problem! :lol: