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  1. Originally Posted by mpack
    I can't speak for the everyone in Europe (or Aus), but many people here in the UK are prepared to pay to receive good extra channels - that isn't what we hate. It's the damned seemingly endless ad breaks on cable and sat channels that drives many people nuts (perhaps that's because the BBC channels show us what TV can be like without them!). Speaking personally, I particularly resent paying a subscription for a premium channel AND being subjected to advertising as well - which is why I feel no guilt at all in using available technology to skip the ads. Fight back!
    Thanks, mpack, for this and the other clarifications you've offered. In turn we in USA should clarify for you that we CAN indeed fast-forward thru the commercials and ads and promos using the cable/satellite provided PVR: that and the idiot-proof timeshift function are the two primary selling points. And again, note that adjusted for worldwide monetary exchange, we essentially pay pennies for this "proprietary" PVR each month. I assure you, if the monthly rate went up to what you pay in the UK for a Sky PVR the popularity might easily dwindle and bring back demand for the independent DVD/HDD recorder. Also, you are correct that the ability to skip advertisements is under complete control of the cable-satellite vendor, in our country as well as yours. There has been pressure here by USA content owners to make advertisements "unskippable" when using a proprietary PVR or a TiVO. Should that ever come to pass, that might also increase demand for independent DVD/HDD machines. But I don't think it would matter much: Americans will tolerate almost anything as long as they don't have to rewire or learn anything technical to timeshift. A few will balk loudly if they can't skip commercials, the rest will just shrug: since they aren't making permanent copies its no big deal.

    Another consideration in the USA is we have far higher cable service penetration than anywhere else in the world, and our cable vendors openly defy our government by insisting on individual proprietary decoder boxes despite regulations forbidding them to do that. Since we are forced to use a proprietary decoder box for everything, the ONLY way we can obtain a convenient one-touch PVR is if we rent a decoder box with *built-in* PVR. The moment we try to use an *independent* recorder with our cable service, all convenience is lost. Also note the higher prevalence of really huge flat-panel TV displays in America: these require full HDTV signal or they look terrible, our only source for full HDTV timeshift is the proprietary PVR, so again we are a captive market. Hollywood has more influence in USA than other countries, and they do NOT want consumers to have HDTV archiving ability, so they heavily promote the proprietary PVR as well. Finally, to address your point about DVD playback: in the US, DVD *players* are utterly disposable devices that cost comparably nothing. We buy new ones every year or so as our children break them. For us, there's no particular advantage to having DVD playback built into the PVR.

    Naturally, most Americans here on VideoHelp are at odds with these majority attitudes, but as PuzZLer stated, we are considered "peculiar" by our friends and family anyway. Ironically, in America all serious interest in video recording died with the introduction of the DVD format in 1997. Once VCRs hit their steep decline, that was the end. Though VHS is hopelessly obsolete, its ease of use will probably never be duplicated in the digital age. VHS and the audio cassette were the only universally understood and accepted consumer recording technologies we will ever see: digital is too contaminated by its computer origins and the restrictions enforced by content owners. RIP, analog...

  2. Originally Posted by rijir2001
    There isn't a single primetime show on that is worth watching anymore. Let alone record.
    I agree 100%. Between the worthless content, the constant advertising and those damned pop ups, station ID's and everything else they can manage to put on the screen, there is NOTHING worth watching, let alone recording.[/quote]

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    orsetto wrote:

    in the US, DVD *players* are utterly disposable devices that cost comparably nothing.
    We buy new ones every year or so as our children break them.
    Hmmmm... so the overspoiled kidds of today are just an inevitable consequence
    of the planned-obsolescence conspiracy? Now I understand everything!

  4. I own both PVR and HDD/DVD recorders. In Canada, PVRs are sold to consumers, if you have a packaged cable deal, no additional monthly charge for the PVR unless it's a second cable box in the same household. I'm still on CRT TV, so my dual tuner 80 GB PVR is SD (Standard Definition) only, all-digital map which gives a very clean and crisp image on a CRT TV and at $148 with a 3-year warranty, who wouldn't get one. I've actually upgraded my PVR with a 160GB, the most it can accept, so basically killed my warranty with the cable company, but now have a 5-year warranty with Seagate, kinda got rid of the middle man!

    Having said all this there's no way that I'd do without a HDD/DVD recorder. I, like many others, like to archive movies, subscribing to a movie channel package, recorded on the PVR which are then transfered down in real time through good S-Video cables, gives me very good results. A have an array of HDD/DVD recorders (ILO HD04, tweeked to bypass CP issues) a Philips 720 with Component in which I send the component output on an ILO R04 (another unit tweeked to bypass CP) into, and more recently I got myself a Liteon 740GX HDD/DVD DL recorder. I've replaced the burners in all my Liteons and ILO recorders. Also have the Philips 3575 for future use (upconverting ATSC HDD recorder).

    I suspect that next year, after the ATSC transition in the US takes effect, a slew of NTSC HDD recorders will hit the used market only for the fact that the tuners won't work anymore and the consumer will say the heck with this. Me, here in Canada, kinda looking forward in seeing what kind of deals I'll be able to get.

  5. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    gshelley61 and orsetto covered the reasons for this quite well. Some additional misc. comments:

    Originally Posted by usually_quiet
    If the PVR/DVR is from the cable/satellite provider, it decrypts the signal, tunes, records in digital format, and if necessary, converts
    This may be the one detail not mentioned, which certainly impacts utility and convenience: whatever may happen with Broadcast Flags and the like, presumably the Cable / Sat box PVRs will still have the lone exemption to this, even for recording premium content in HD. If they started to say 'No, you can't record this, this, and that', a whole lot of renters are going to start wondering, 'Then WHY should I pay for this ?'

    Originally Posted by mpack
    what's to stop them stopping you from fast forwarding through ads etc?
    Same answer, quite possibly.

    Originally Posted by mpack
    I can't speak for the everyone in Europe (or Aus), but many people here in the UK are prepared to pay to receive good extra channels
    Comparing what I've seen of the BBC with the way it's handled here, I've often thought that I'd rather pay the annual tv tax you folks do, and never have to deal with all the stupid, annoying commercials, or put up with the regular, schedule-skewering "beg-a-thon" interludes on PBS. But that's just me.
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  6. Originally Posted by Seeker47
    Originally Posted by Electrox3d
    Originally Posted by Soopafresh
    Also for example, I saved and will archive the NSN seg on digital forgery, from last week's show. Try doing that with your Tivo or cable / sat Co. supplied PVR !
    I don't get it. I archive stuff from my TiVo all the time. I burn HD programming to Blu-ray disc and normal stuff to DVD or convert it to MP4 for portable playback... ??
    No, he didn't say that -- I did.

    So, just HOW do you do this ? (Please be specific. I'd love to know.) I thought the design of the Tivos and PVRs was expressly to prevent your being able to get the content you'd recorded off of there . . . .
    Google search TiVo2Go... the free one gives you the program unconverted the paid one can convert it to whatever, ipod etc. I use the free one and just do the conversion myself. They give you a TiVo file but there is a free program that makes it an MPEG2. Its been out for YEARS.

  7. Originally Posted by TBoneit
    Originally Posted by Rudyard
    Originally Posted by samijubal
    Originally Posted by Rudyard
    To all those saying a PVR is better, isnt a PVR the same thing??
    No. PVRs, at least for satellites, have the HDD built into the receiver. Recording is pure digital instead of digital to analog back to digital. The quality of the recording is considerably better with the satellite's HDD than with a DVD recorder.
    I dont know what its like OS but in AUS all the HDD recorders ive seen come with twin built in tuners so you are recording directly not via a cable to an external box.

    This allows you to pause and rewind live tv, watch something whilst taping the other etc tec
    However the fact is that there is one big difference between a PVR and a DVD recorder. The fact that you can record a DVD is a big difference.

    I have both and I use both. A DVD created from a HD channel is decent quality. Is it HD? No. OTOH I could in theory build a library of thousands of DVDs categorized and cataloged. With the DVR it will fill up the hard drive and then I need to delete things off of it to make room for new items. With few exceptions PVRs/DVRs do not allow moving video off and back onto the internal hard drive. The only ones I'm aware of here in the USA are from Dishnetwork with their VIP series of HD DVRs. And that is slow via USB2. It is encrypted. It is tied to a household key so unlike a DVD you can't take a movie from them over to your buddies to watch.

    I'm thinking of getting the Philips HDD DVD recorder as a spare for when my Pioneer finally dies.
    Wal Mart where I am has an entire end isle display of them for $200. 3575s and 3576s both.

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    Product advertising is virtually inescapable here, but we learn to put up with the annoyance if we want to be entertained. If I go to a movie theater, there is product advertising before the movie starts too, and I don't mean coming attractions. I remember seeing some product advertising in video rentals too, though not recently.

    Fighting back is a somewhat futile exercise. The networks are counter-attacking. Some advertising for programming, network websites, related theatrical releases, and DVD's are overlayed on programming itself now, where it can't be avoided, unless one waits for the DVD version to come out.

    The US also has a public broadcasting system, but it comes nowhere near to exerting as much influence over the industry as a whole as the BBC does in the UK. A significant percentage of our citizens want to eliminate all government support for it. The reasoning is that cable and satellite service includes plenty of commercially produced cultural and educational programming now, so why should the government subsidize it anymore. PBS is gradually privatizing as funding is cut.

    As was mentioned earlier, instead of commercials, they run pledge drives every few months, where they show "festival" programming and interrupt it for 7-10 minutes at a time to ask for contributions. This takes up about 30 minutes in a 2-hour period. In the course of giving premiums away as rewards for contibuting, pledge breaks promote DVD's, audio recordings, books, and live performances featuring the personalities appearing in the programming being shown.

    Even when they don't have a pledge drive running, they recognize corporations that underwrite programming at the beginning and end of shows they sponsor. They thank underwriting charitable foundations and the membership as a whole too, but the clips shown to recognize corporate sponsorship can be commercials.

  9. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by orsetto
    Though VHS is hopelessly obsolete, its ease of use will probably never be duplicated in the digital age. VHS and the audio cassette were the only universally understood and accepted consumer recording technologies we will ever see: digital is too contaminated by its computer origins and the restrictions enforced by content owners. RIP, analog...
    Yep I agree. When people can actually see something working, ie the tape turning, they understand it better conceptually. With dvds its like they don't get it the same way since its all "under the hood".

    Tivo2go was great when I had tivo for a year. However I was wifiing it to my computer so transfer times were SLOW and you had to strip the protection if you didn't want to pay for their special products. Also for the analog model the best you could hope for was half d1 dvd spec at medium quality since full quality mode was actually 480x480 svcd mode. That meant reencoding for dvds. It was better to take the half d1 at lesser overall quality so you could simply plop in the stripped file and author without more reencoding nightmares.

    I am intrigued by all the recording off dvr via firewire for hd programming. I just wish it was a little farther along. I'd love for the cable companies to make a usb harddrive for expansion recording like the tivo did for the analog model with western digital. Though I'm sure it would be encrypted so much you'd think it was Fort Nox! (spelling??).
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    People understood the technology better, but unfortunatly many still had trouble using VCR's, especially the earlier ones with no remote controls and no menus. Some of the later ones were also inconvenient to use due to bad design decisions.

    I only have the VCR I use now because two remote control buttons had to be pressed at the same time to complete timer set-up or begin recording from the channel currently tuned. The previous owner found that difficult to remember to do as well as physically difficult to do.

    Let's not forget that magnetic media was popular for a lot longer than recordable DVD media has been available for an affordable price, so people had plenty of time to become comfortable with it.

  11. What we take for granted these days was a huge thing back then. Before VHS you watched what was on TV at the time and sat through the commercials. Being able to record something and watch it later, even FF through commercials, was unbelievable at the time. DVD didn't have the being the first to the market wow factor that VHS did. With everything available nowadays DVD is just another option in a pool of different choices one can make.

  12. iN THE uK, generally you either had FTA or Sky those were the only two choices. Sky is a paid for satellite service. There is a bit more competition now in that there is a viable cable operator(Virgin) and an upcoming IPTV operator (TIscali). Sky got away with charging high prices as it had disposed of earlier competition and bought up a lot of sports rights(you want football, Rugby, cricket, boxing you gotta have Sky). In the changeover to the digital the authority's are desperate to break the stranglehold of Sky. However in the Uk sky have been the leaders in producing a user friendly PVR box BUT they generally charge for the box up front (£99) AND charge extra every month (£5). the new competitors are undermining this by charging only a low one-off fee for their PVR (tiscali £50, no ongoing charge). Sky also lead the pack in bringing HD programming, however even this will be coming to both free satellite services(now) and digital FTA(b4 crimble).

    Everyone in the Uk has to have a Tv licence (£130, then to have sky installed £150 then to get min two mix £17 per month, then to get multi room +£10 per extra room per month, then to get premium sports channels (£20 pm, premium movies £16 pm) to get this in HD add 50% to all prices, except the Tv licence.
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    Originally Posted by vhelp
    My fear is that television is dying, finally.
    Quite true. "Standard" TV viewing is down because of newer alternatives: VOD, internet viewing, downloading, etc

  14. Or because everyone is sick of reality shows, strikes, etc.

  15. Commerical time seems to be up too. It's like 25 min per hour during the day & 20 at night?

  16. Bazinga! MJPollard's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by yoda313
    Originally Posted by orsetto
    Though VHS is hopelessly obsolete, its ease of use will probably never be duplicated in the digital age. VHS and the audio cassette were the only universally understood and accepted consumer recording technologies we will ever see: digital is too contaminated by its computer origins and the restrictions enforced by content owners. RIP, analog...
    Yep I agree. When people can actually see something working, ie the tape turning, they understand it better conceptually. With dvds its like they don't get it the same way since its all "under the hood".
    I've always said that the DVD recorder's woeful lack of "ease of use" compared to the VCR is why it hasn't, and likely will never, catch on with the Joe Sixpacks of the world. With a VCR, Jane Housewife could drive down to her local Walgreens and pick up a cheap four-pack of T-120 VHS tapes (brand didn't matter, and every T-120 was the same), stick the tape into the VCR, and hit the big red "REC" button to record her soaps, and they could be played back on any VCR just by sticking it into another VCR and hitting "PLAY". Show me someone that says it's just as cheap, easy, and convenient with a DVD recorder, and I'll show you a bigger liar than any politician.
    Don't sweat the petty things, just pet the sweaty things.

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    Originally Posted by Electrox3d
    Google search TiVo2Go.
    I will, just to see what hardware provisions allowed for this.

    Originally Posted by yoda313
    Tivo2go was great when I had tivo for a year. However I was wifiing it to my computer so transfer times were SLOW and you had to strip the protection if you didn't want to pay for their special products. Also for the analog model the best you could hope for was half d1 dvd spec at medium quality since full quality mode was actually 480x480 svcd mode. That meant reencoding for dvds. It was better to take the half d1 at lesser overall quality so you could simply plop in the stripped file and author without more reencoding nightmares.
    And this is supposed to be easier than the DVDR method ? Sounds like your quality options were much more limited, also.

    Originally Posted by yoda313
    I am intrigued by all the recording off dvr via firewire for hd programming. I just wish it was a little farther along. Though I'm sure it would be encrypted so much you'd think it was Fort Nox! (spelling??).
    If you have to jump through a lot of flaming hoops, it won't be terribly useful.
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  18. Commercials integrated into the show are nothing new. I watched a couple of Burns and Allen shows recently. 1st show and one called Gracies Tax ....

    They both integrated the commercial into the show same with the Jack Benny 40 Episode DVD pack for $5 I bought from Walmart recently. The Show leads right into and back out of the Lucky Strike commercials.

    I fell like getting some Carnation condensed milk for my cerial and LSMFT, Oh My Gosh it rubbed off on me.

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    Originally Posted by handyguy
    Commerical time seems to be up too. It's like 25 min per hour during the day & 20 at night?
    It seems so - they complain about this on "The Simpsons" commentaries, ie. that their show has had to get shorter over the years, so these days they have to stick to basic stories with no time for the wild little detours that used to make the show more fun. Also the broadcaster will overlay promos for irrelevant shows, talk over the credits, also the broadcaster will make arbitrary cuts to shorten the length of syndicated runs... etc

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    Originally Posted by MJPollard
    I've always said that the DVD recorder's woeful lack of "ease of use" compared to the VCR is why it hasn't, and likely will never, catch on with the Joe Sixpacks of the world.
    Can't agree with that. My Sony HDD/DVD recorder is far easier to use than my old VCR ever was, despite doing a hell of a lot more. Yes, there are a lot of features to discover, so RTFM is good advice.

    Maybe other models have poor interfaces, I don't know, but it isn't a requirement of the technology!

    And the bit about just being able to stick a tape into a VCR and hit "record"! Maybe on another planet where everyone had blank tapes handy that would be true, but IME VCRs were all about effing brother taping over your favourite show, trying to find the spot on the tape where that half hour show was recorded, searching for a blank or unwanted section of tape on the tapes you already have, so missing the start of the show you wanted to record - and so on. DVD recorders fix all of those issues, HDD recorders are even better.

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    The half-hour programs that I record run 22-23 minutes, minus commercials while hour shows run something like 44-45 minutes. I don't record many movies so I can't say what is true in that case.

    Somebody's memories of the videotape era are a little rosier than mine. Initially one had to buy either Betamax or VHS formats, depending on the VCR one had purchased. Not all brands of VHS tape were the same. Some were pretty bad and didn't record many times before becoming useless. Eventually the market matured. Betamax went away, and the poorest performers were eliminated from the field, but it took a while. Prices haven't changed much over the years, but then the dollar used to be worth more

    Recording on DVD's is either cheaper or no more expensive than VHS for me, but I know what brands of -RW discs to buy and where to buy them for a reasonable price. I pay $1 or less per disc for a good -RW disc. No these are not available at any store, but I do buy exclusively from brick-and-mortar stores and wait for sales. I do the same with video tapes.

  22. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by mpack
    Originally Posted by MJPollard
    I've always said that the DVD recorder's woeful lack of "ease of use" compared to the VCR is why it hasn't, and likely will never, catch on with the Joe Sixpacks of the world.
    Can't agree with that. My Sony HDD/DVD recorder is far easier to use than my old VCR ever was, despite doing a hell of a lot more. Yes, there are a lot of features to discover, so RTFM is good advice.

    Maybe other models have poor interfaces, I don't know, but it isn't a requirement of the technology!

    And the bit about just being able to stick a tape into a VCR and hit "record"! Maybe on another planet where everyone had blank tapes handy that would be true, but IME VCRs were all about effing brother taping over your favourite show, trying to find the spot on the tape where that half hour show was recorded, searching for a blank or unwanted section of tape on the tapes you already have, so missing the start of the show you wanted to record - and so on. DVD recorders fix all of those issues, HDD recorders are even better.
    Completely agree with you. Some people would doubtless find a toaster overly challenging.

    If we're talking about one of the "Prosumer" VCRs, your comments are even more valid.

    The ease-of-learning / ease-of-use with the Pioneer DVDRs (for the more basic things, at the very least) were pretty hard to beat, I'd say.
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  23. Originally Posted by Seeker47
    (...) Some people would doubtless find a toaster overly challenging. The ease-of-learning / ease-of-use with the Pioneer DVDRs (for the more basic things, at the very least) were pretty hard to beat, I'd say.
    Oh for the love of... what PLANET are you people from? We're not talking about anal-retentive wack-jobs like *us* here on the forum who will learn to operate any imaginable crappy hardware interface just so we can preserve our precious Three Stooges shorts, rare Anime, TCM movies, Masterpiece Theater, etc. We're talking about average Joe and Jane and (god help them) their elderly parents.

    The "blinking 12:00" argument is so old its got hair on it. The people who never learned to set their clocks or timers weren't stupid, they just didn't give a crap. The VCR was primarily a playback device for rental tapes and very occasionally they recorded something live by popping a tape in and pressing the record button. The Beta/VHS war was no more retarded than the BluRay/HDDVD war, and might I add was also stupidly incited by Sony when they refused to accommodate RCAs licensing requests: if they had, we'd all have been using Betamaxes. The early adopters shook out the lousy blank tape suppliers within a couple years, and whether Beta or VHS it still worked exactly like an audio cassette so everyone intuitively knew how to operate the hardware for basic record/playback. To carp about how complicated the fancy "prosumer" units were to operate is beside the point: we're the only fools who bought that stuff, and we knew what we were letting ourselves in for. By 1982 all the total crap blank tape suppliers like Ampex had been driven from the market, leaving "average" and "very good" as the only options. If you stuck to a name brand like TDK, Maxell, Fuji, BASF, Sony or Scotch you were fine. ALL blanks were compatible with ALL recorders and ALL recorded tapes would play on ALL vcrs from 1978 to 2008, with an occasional tracking issue or physically mangled tape getting in the way. All blanks were of EXACTLY the same material as all pre-recorded media, and the system used exactly the same process for recording and playback. If you recorded a tape and saw that it played back properly, you could then store it on a shelf in your basement, come back 20 years later and it would still play on a VCR you bought the day before.

    The audio/video quality may have been dubious at best, but this was a PARADISE compared to todays digital hell, with untrustworthy brand name media, five different recordable disc types and two recording formats, "finalizing", and even the most flawless burned disc being technically "not up to DVD spec" and thus incompatible with many devices. Add the fact the blank media formulas get changed every six months at whim, needlessly stranding thousands of perfectly good recorders with no compatible discs to record on. Then, cross your fingers and carry a rabbits foot, praying every day your DVD burn was "solid" enough to withstand possible degradation from the poorly manufactured blank its trapped in.

    I'm not saying I want to go back: DVD captures far more detail off air than VHS ever could, I *love* being able to "pre-edit" on my Pioneer's hard drive with no generational loss, blanks are a fraction of the cost, and the storage space for a large collection is a twentieth of that required for VHS. But I, and the rest of you, are a minority. Most people buy a DVD recorder only to swear "WTF???" and end up using it as an expensive player, or worse yet returning it to the store (anyone check Pioneer's stock price lately? there's a special staff at CostCo just to handle Pioneer returns, never mind other recorder brands). Progress sometimes skips a generation- I hope I live long enough to see terabyte thumb drives take over everything. They would be totally standardized, no moving parts, and have many of the best usability features of old analog tape. Though I'm afraid everyone under thirty is more interested in a worldwide server downloading all content for temporary use: no physical media need apply.

  24. Bazinga! MJPollard's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by mpack
    Originally Posted by MJPollard
    I've always said that the DVD recorder's woeful lack of "ease of use" compared to the VCR is why it hasn't, and likely will never, catch on with the Joe Sixpacks of the world.
    Can't agree with that.
    That's because you're approaching it from the perspective of someone who's intimately familiar with the technology. Dumb it down to the intelligence and comfort level of the average person, and you'll see where I'm coming from.

    orsetto: Thank you! You understand where I'm coming from. Like you, I would certainly never go back to VHS, but as you said (very eloquently), you and I and the rest of us here are the minority. The "blinking 12:00" majority has embraced DVD as a playback technology, but when it comes to recording, they're going to stick with VHS until something just as easy, standardized, and dead simple to use comes along.
    Don't sweat the petty things, just pet the sweaty things.

  25. Have to Disagree about the quality of Blank Vhs tapes.. they have got steadily worse and worse over the years.. the ones you buy now have very loose tolerances, weigh about a quarter of an older tape and last about as long as a half pint of bitter in front of a thirsty Oliver Reed! :P
    Pvrs are very simple to use.. its just archiving to Dvd's thats complicated.
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    Originally Posted by RabidDog
    Have to Disagree about the quality of Blank Vhs tapes.. they have got steadily worse and worse over the years.. the ones you buy now have very loose tolerances, weigh about a quarter of an older tape and last about as long as a half pint of bitter in front of a thirsty Oliver Reed! :P
    Can't argue with that, but for someone like my girlfriend (who constantly records her daily soaps over a couple of tapes for later viewing), they're "good enough." For you and I? No frakkin' way.
    Don't sweat the petty things, just pet the sweaty things.

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    Originally Posted by MJPollard
    Can't argue with that, but for someone like my girlfriend (who constantly records her daily soaps over a couple of tapes for later viewing), they're "good enough." For you and I? No frakkin' way. :)
    It all depends on what one is watching as well as what one finds easiest to use. If she's watching soap operas, it's for the storyline, not the picture. If she was recording "Blue Planet" or something similarly pictorial, she'd probably be more highly motivated to use a DVD recorder.

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    Originally Posted by usually_quiet
    Originally Posted by MJPollard
    Can't argue with that, but for someone like my girlfriend (who constantly records her daily soaps over a couple of tapes for later viewing), they're "good enough." For you and I? No frakkin' way.
    It all depends on what one is watching as well as what one finds easiest to use. If she's watching soap operas, it's for the storyline, not the picture. If she was recording "Blue Planet" or something similarly pictorial, she'd probably be more highly motivated to use a DVD recorder.
    Trust me: no, she wouldn't. She'd never get past the technical hurdles that you and I can handle without so much as batting an eyelash. And that's why I feel secure in my point of view, because I'm dating the majority... I see it every day... and I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, why they haven't (and won't) understand and accept even the minor technical challenges of DVD recorders.

    You have to think like the average consumer. Perhaps the next consumer recording technology (whatever it is) will learn from the lessons of DVD recorders, and they'll be as easy as a VCR for John and Mary Average to use. Meanwhile, Skippy Average, the techno-geek like us, will be finding ways to crack the DRM in them.
    Don't sweat the petty things, just pet the sweaty things.

  29. Recent "flimsy" blank videotape quality is WAY better than some of the total garbage that came out between 1978 and 1982. There were 3 or 4 brands so bad they would actually damage your VCR five minutes after loading them. The most glaring example was Ampex, who as professional suppliers and the *inventor* of videotape should have known better. Disgusting stuff- new out of the box it would deposit tons of crud on your tape heads, and as it warmed up in the recorder it would actually stink the house up so bad you had to open a window. Yecch. The top tape brands moved to lighter shells to meet a price point, and tape itself got thinner as old clunky VCRs were replaced worldwide by new ones that handled T160 as well as T120. As sales of T160 skyrocketed, it became inefficient and pointless to mfr two tape thicknesses, so they began loading T160 tape stock into all the T120s (if you wanted to pay for it, "pro" T120s were still available thicker.) These were just as reliable as the older tapes and sometimes had improved coatings. Contrast that to todays digital, where one megalomaniacal mfr is OEMing 70% of the blank DVD media out there, and doing a damn lousy job of it. With VHS, unless you were a total cheapskate idiot buying 99 cent tapes at the dollar store, there was always at least one good quality brand at every retailer. With digital, all bets are off on the brands: even Verbatim is slipping now and forget every other famous name, they're all junk. Imagine if the only reliable VHS blank in 1988 was made by TY and you could only order it by credit card thru an 800 phone hotline? Please.

  30. Member
    Join Date
    Oct 2001
    Location
    United Kingdom
    Search Comp PM
    Originally Posted by orsetto
    Oh for the love of... what PLANET are you people from?
    I appreciate what you are saying about the format issues with DVDR, there is some truth to it... but where I take issue is the claim that VCRs were better! In fact VCRs were so notoriously difficult to operate that it became a running cultural joke (quote from Farscape - "Pilot told us to do this, this and this. It's just like a VCR... only easier."). IMO, in absolute terms a DVDR is much easier to use than a VCR, but if a user is not prepared to RTFM then it doesn't matter how easy you make it, they're always going to complain about it being difficult.

    In fact IMO it's a generational issue. Parents found setting up the VCR a problem, their kids found it easy. The same would be true with DVDRs - and as with tape, problems with the media would sort themselves out in a few years, if the technology stuck around for long enough.




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