Who has a Digital HDTV vcr? Pros? Cons?

I'm looking at one now for $450. I like that it can record 720 or
1080 broadcasts. Or upto 50 hours of standard tv on just one tape.

What would be the negatives of buying this?

kludge...

There's nothing much worth recording, and there aren't any prerecorded

fred_h_haddad...

Aren't the networks cbs, fox, cw and so on broadcasting 720 or 1080
high-def? That seems worth recording?

Gene E. Bloch...

Whether it is worth recording is, of course, a matter of personal
preference. I guess you and Scott don't agree with each other :-)

And the world being what it is, I'm sure I provide a third mutually
exclusive opinion...

My cable box will record HiDef, but I haven't yet felt the urge to
record anything (beyond trying it to prove to myself & my SO that it
works). However, right now I'm kind of not recording *anything*, so
don't judge by me...

tapes.

Any extra add-ons needed to make it work?

cloud dreamer...

HDTV Digital VCR?? I think you mean a DVR (Digital Video Recorder, not
Video Cassette Recorder).

UCLAN...

There are many HDTV Digital VCRs on the market. Mitsubishi makes two.
Nice thing is that they will play all your old VHS/S-VHS tapes, and
record in that format if you so desire.

fred_h_haddad...

Yeah meant what I said. D-VHS VCR. And found two models
1 - JVC DVHS
2 - JVC DVHS w/ HDTV tuner

Model number one is cheap but no tuner == you need an expensive
external receiver. And you can't record from it unless you're sitting
in front of the machine. So I couldn't tape stuff while I'm at work.
So no good.

Model 2 includes the receiver but at $900 is waaaaay expensive.

fred_h_haddad...

I don't see any prices?
And nothing about integrated digital tuners.(I'd have to buy them
separately?)

:-(

What about DVRs?
- Can they record NTSC analog signals?

Barry Margolin...

Yes.

- Do they require expensive external HDTV receivers?

Barry Margolin...

No. Most standalone DVRs don't even support HDTV at all.

Zombie Elvis...

The ones that do, like Trios Series 3 model are very expensive
themselves.

fred_h_haddad...

Then that's no good. I want something that can record 720 or 1080 HD

kludge...

But what is there to record?

fred_h_haddad...

Don't understand why people keep asking this question? If I had a
HD-vcr I'd record

heroes
jericho
24
smallville
lost
family guy

just to name a few.

Mike Rivers...

Would you ever watch them? I can see recording an occasional episode if
you're a regular watcher and you just happen to be out one night. Or in
the special case where you're a night worker and don't care much for
daytime TV. Otherwise, you'd probably find yourself with a whole lot of
recordings that you never watched.

fred_h_haddad...

Every weekend I watch my tapes of shows I missed during the workweek.

- Can I use a plain-jane antenna?

Barry Margolin...

Yes.

- When the 'hard drive' is full, can I eject it & put in a new one?

Barry Margolin...

You could, although it voids the warranty. Many people replace their
hard drives just to get more capacity than the ones that come with the
unit.

Zombie Elvis...

I believe that the Series 3 Trios come with USB ports which allow you
to just plug in an external hard drive.

Most DVRs now have network connections, so rather than "ejecting", you
can simply copy the shows to your PC.

Zombie Elvis...

Or to your VCR or DVD recorder if you have one. Trio has had this
ability almost since the beginning.

Also, you might want to check Trio.com and Circuit City's website for
prices on Trio. If you sign up for their monthly service they will
literally give you the DVR. (Of course they'll more than make that
money up over time with the monthly fees.)

Barry Margolin...

You keep saying "Trio". Don't you mean TiVo?

Excalibur...

Is there a minimum amount of time you have to sign up for? If not, then
buying a TiVo and canceling within a month or whatever sounds like a good
way to get a cheap hard drive.

fred_h_haddad...

Probabyl they have an early cancelation fee of $3-400.

~consul...

I think the reason fred says $3-400 is that it depends on how much time has
passed. They rate your fee depending on how long you've been an actual
subscriber, so they get back the money that you would have given them for full
service.

Barry Margolin...

I'm not sure about TiVo, but ReplayTV is a doorstop if you don't
activate the service. You can't even do manual recording like a VCR.

All I see is:
- DVR w/o receiver = $250
- Receiver = $300
- TOTAL of $550 == ouch. 550 is a lot of dough.

cloud dreamer...

Interesting. I've never seen one. And for that price, I'd think they'd
much more enjoy a DVR. My PVR gets up to 180 hours of recording....no
tapes to fool around with.

UCLAN...

Will it play all of your archived VHS tapes? Will it record on a tape
that you can view in your bedroom VCR or on your neighbor's VCR? Will
it play a tape borrowed from a neighbor?

Considering you're hard pressed today to find a new movie on VHS, it'd
be a step back to spend that kind of money on a VCR. I'd suggest the OP

UCLAN...

Humorous comment inasmuch as your suggestion of a DVR instead DOESN'T
PLAY *any* prerecorded media. Why use that fact against the HD D-VHS VCR
but not the DVR?

really look seriously at a digital video recorder.

Bill Steele...

The format is called DVHS. The argument for it is that, so far, we have
no way of recording HD DVDs, so anything you want to save has to stay on
the DVR hard drive, and eventually it gets full. DVHS give you a
recording you can put on a shelf.

The minus is that you have to persuade your cable company to give you a
box with firewire jack. Big discussion about that here a few months
back.

fred_h_haddad...

The JVC D-VHS i was looking at included a built-in tuner. You don't
need a firewire. I think? Just regular coaxial.

Bill Steele...

If you want to record over-the-air broadcast HD signals. But to record
any of the digital HD channels on cable you need the firewire
connection. Perhaps HD DVD recorders will come with component or HDMI
input. Along with lots of DRM restrictions.

cloud dreamer...

I delete 100% of everything that I record. I have a VCR still, but there
simply isn't anything I want to keep after I watch it.

Mike Rivers...

Likewise. Every couple of years, I replace the tape.

I have 180 hours available on my Express Vu PVR and if it ever gets to
the point that it gets filled, then I have to rethink how much tv I watch.

Mike Rivers...

You mean how TV you DON'T watch. If I haven't watched something I've
recorded within a couple of weeks, I figure I'll never watch it. But
that might change. It seems that they manage to stretch 3 months of new
programs over a year with reruns these days.

Bill Steele...

I have stuff I haven't watched since September, but it pays off when we
get to Christmas and there's nothing on for four weeks but animated
reindeer.

Now let's take a hypothetical: You have 180 hours of HD programs on your
DVR. You happen to be a fan of, say, Dane Cook, so you'd like to just
save the Dane Cook routines and throw away everything else. How?

~consul...

Wouldn't it be the same procedure no matter what you had? Unless you have his
own separate show titled, like "LOST" or "24", then you would have to just go
through it all by hand.

Chel van Gennip...

I use Dreambox 500 satelite receivers. They can record to my linux server,
so I can make and see recordings from my living room without any moving
parts in my living room. The nice thing about such networkerd receivers is
that they have a web interface, so you can program it by that web

Jukka Aho...

I've just recently ordered the cable version of Dreambox DM500 - the
same thing as yours, but with a DVB-C tuner. It's currently in transit -
the UPS guy hasn't shown up to deliver it yet.

I'm also getting a Dreambox DM7025 (terrestrial version, with two DVB-T
tuners) which I'm going to set up for my parents - once I'll get there
for Christmas. It is going to be interesting to see how that will turn
out. (I'll be practicing some VHS VCR exorcism there.)

interface. Just display the program guide and klick with your mouse on the
timer button. All recordings are labeled with station name, time, and
program name or free text (you can enter whatever you like through the web
interface). So you can delete recordings quite easy. The nice thing about

~consul...

That free text field is the one. Good thing for it so one can search on that
catagory as well, besides the standards. I would have also figured that Dane
Cook would be in the generic "comedy" catagory, so it would help to cut down on
the searches.

this way of recording is that you record the input mpeg stream, so you do
not loose quality. The same box can play music from my MP3 archive and
show my mpeg home videos over the same network.

As for HDTV, I don't have any experience, but from several discussions I
understand the industry is working quite hard to prevent recordings in
several incompatible ways. Discussion about used techniques and ways to

Jukka Aho...

I take it from your name and email address that you're from the
Netherlands, right? (I'm from Finland.)

Digital tv broadcasts are currently all the rage in Europe, but HD is
still very much in its infancy. At least up here in the North, it's
almost exclusively only SD stuff that is being brodcast on digital right
now, and things will probably remain that way for a good while.

This far, HD has only appeared on some satellite channels, and in some
experimental cable broadcasts (which no-one could have watched anyway,
since there are no HD STBs in the stores.)

Ordinary people are not really aware of HD yet, or expecting it, even
though they're well aware of "normal" (SD resolution) digital tv
brodacasts. (The situation as a whole is quite different from the US,
where HD has been one of the selling points of digital tv.)

According to the current Finnish plan, analog broadcasts will be
switched off by the next September. This switchoff will be conducted
simultaneously in all networks, terrestrial and cable alike, on August
31st. People have been buying DVB set-top boxes (and new tv sets with
integrated DVB tuners) in preparation of that event - otherwise the
switch-off ceremony would become the last pictures they will see on
their old tv sets.

However, despite the fact that people are well-prepared, (nearly) all
DVB STBs (and tv sets with an integrated DVB tuner) currently on the
market can only decode and display SD broadcasts, not HD broadcasts.
This is mainly because European digital tv started out as an SDTV
project. The exact nature and technical details of the European HD
broadcast standards just hadn't been settled yet. The pieces are only
now coming together.

Thus, HD will get a slow start here. Now that people have just been
forced to buy their SD-only digital set-top boxes, they surely will not
rush in the shops to buy new HD-capable boxes in the next couple of
years when they will become available. This established base of SD-only
equipment will place severe restrictions on the broadcasters - they will
practically be forced to broadcast in SD on their main channels for
years to come.

Hence, my prediction is that European HD will only start appearing
slowly and in trickles - as some sort of experimental luxury - first
only on the pay channels and the like, then on the secondary channels of
FTA broadcasters. The broadcasters will have to wait 10 years or more
before they'll be able to switch off the SD broadcasts for their main
channels - at least in the pioneering countries. (Digital latecomers
might get to that point sooner.)

When things really start rolling on the HD front, the general consensus
has been that the European HD broadcasts will be MPEG-4-based, unlike in
the US where they're MPEG-2-based.

overcome inconveniences is restricted by DMCA. That is why I don't expect
to buy any HD equipment soon.

Jukka Aho...

Probably not DMCA here in the Euroland. But there's the EUCD... :P

Then again, as you say, recording the current digital SD broadcasts
straight in their original format is not a problem with the current
devices. (There's no "broadcast flag" to worry about, or anything
like that.)

Dream Multimedia has already announced DM8000 - a new model with
(supposedly) enough "oomph" in it to decode the forthcoming MPEG-4 HD
broadcasts:

(It's still only vaporware, though - not a released product.)

~consul...

There is that concern. Luckily, it may be just a software update or hack for me
to get by it. I really don't want to do that, and I wouldn't want to really save
it beyond one watching session. I like getting the dvd's of the shows I tape
later on anyways to support the industry.

If the recorder (of any type) didn't have the category of 'starring' and you are
able to search by them, it's all rote routine searches.

Though really, if you have any Dane Cook performances on the harddrive ... you
may have to just toss the whole system because of the infections. :) How else do
you get the stink off of you? :)

Anything worth keeping on the shelf is worth paying the bucks to get on
DVD (or transfered cheaply to DVD from torrents).

There are no tapes in a DVR. It records digitally on a hard drive.

Bill Steele...

You've sort of missed the point. You record a one-hour Letterman show.
Dane Cook comes out and does five minutes. You record three hours of
Comic Relief. Dane Cook comes out and does three minutes. You don't want
to save four hours to keep eight minutes. So you play back those bits
and record them on your DVHS machine, or to a computer hard drive (which
will also fill up eventually). Or maybe in the future to an HD DVD
recorder. But there's no way to sort it out on just a DVR.

~consul...

I got that. My point was that it didn't matter what singular unit was used. You
would always need to have to be to a secondary unit to copy to. One would have
to find the bits to save, and copy it to the harddrive, or to the dvhs, or
another dvr.

Perhaps there is a way on the dvr as well to do it internally by burning it to a
disk.

Bill Steele...

I chose Dane Cook to be sarcastic...

If that's the case then yes, it's worth every penny.