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  1. Member
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    Originally Posted by TBoneit
    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.
    I forgot about that. It worked when there were only one or two sponsors per show for the entire season, and syndication was non-existant. However, the practice was discontinued for a few decades because it became necessary to change the commercials to those for the new advertisers when episodes were repeated.

    Thanks to improved techonology, it is now possible to change the advertising for both commercial breaks and pop-ups overlaying the programming. Lucky us.

  2. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by usually_quite
    change the advertising for both commercial breaks and pop-ups overlaying the programming. Lucky us.
    That might be part of the decline of dvd recorders too. Who wants to archive a bunch of shows with annoying popups that detract from the show? And as mentioned before the dvd releases are usually quite fast and so easy compared to home recording.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?

  3. I think there's a time factor, too. Who wants to go through the process of recording TV programs, edit out the commercials, then compile the episodes into DVD-R's for archiving... it's pretty time consuming. It's probably more cost effective (considering what your time is worth) to simply buy the TV series DVD's if you must have them.

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    Guys like me would take all that time. My son likes the PBS series "Wishbone." It hasn't been made since 2001. It used to be on daily and is now only on weekly. To the best of my knowledge, it's never been released on DVD, only a few episodes have been released on VHS. So I'm recording them for my son to watch. During summer vacation or on weekends, he likes to grab a homemade Wishbone DVD to watch in his room until he falls asleep.

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    OT but not sure if you get the PBS Kids channel, digital OTA in my area, but they have Wishbone on everyday. My kids love it and I don't think it's too bad myself.
    Yes not every program makes it to DVD. For those a DVDR is indispensable. I agree with others though, if it does make it to DVD it's Soooo much nicer getting a pristine copy without commercial interruptions/popups/weather alerts station bugs, etc. etc.
    They'll also be in order in which they were broadcast which is also a plus. Lastly in the case of The Twilight Zone Definitive Edition collections a person will get extras including promos for next weeks show. All in all a much better way to go vs. trying to record off TV.
    To me the death of HDD DVDRs has to due with their cost as well as complexity. HD HDDs recorders will suffer more from DRM issues than anything else.

  6. Originally Posted by mpack
    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.
    Some of us seem to be debating two separate but related issues re VHS vs DVD recording for the "average" consumer: one is the ease of use of various vcrs vs various dvd recorders, the other is the assortment of issues we have with digital media and interchange that did not exist with analog tape. I think we can agree VHS was simpler in terms of blank media and basic recording, our opinions diverge when it comes to using the hardware itself. Here I totally disagree with the "VCRs were just as hard as DVD recorders" notion, because with a VCR you could deliberately choose to ignore the difficult settings and operate it like a simplistic Fisher Price toy if you wanted to, which is exactly what most people did. What kills modern video appliances for most users is the absolutely mind-numbing series of nested on-screen menus required to DO anything with them. Nobody complained much when VCRs had program timers you set with real buttons like a clock radio: if you couldn't manage that, you were either incredibly lazy or a total dummy. Once they took all the buttons off the VCR and went to on-screen menus for every function, they lost the average consumer and the "blinking 12:00" joke became the larger reality. BUT, and its an important BUT- you could completely forget those menus, let the damn thing blink 12:00 for years, and just use the Play, Record, FF and REW buttons to do 90% of what most users wanted. This is something you cannot do with a DVD recorder, certainly not if you hope to make a DVD you can share with someone else: you have to navigate the "menus from hell" to accomplish anything useful. Some won't even work at all until you figure out how to set the clock menu, and THAT is what makes people return them in droves and turn to cable/satellite PVRs.

    Of course, this doesn't explain how those same millions of people managed to use WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 at work, or as the 90s rolled on navigate the internet and use Microsoft Office ? When I owned a video store located on the ground floor of a newly-yuppie-infested highrise, I was continually amazed that my young Wall Street go-getter customers would endlessly ask me to go upstairs and set their VCRs up. Sometimes I wonder if there's a gene that specifically resists understanding all forms of video technology in the DNA of most people, and we here are merely the mutants that don't have it?

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    One thing about this thread really bothers me. Too many people here give average Joe and average Jane too little credit, insult their intelligence, and assign blame to them that is undeserved. Leave Joe and Jane alone. They found competing products that work reliably and do what they want at a price that they like. It ain't their fault if we are a niche market.

    Electronics in general, including home computers, are successful with that demographic. The fact that most people only want to time-shift has nothing to do with how intelligent they are. Ditto with wanting something that is easy to use. If the TV's receiver for the remote control burned out, would you not want to replace your TV even though it worked perfectly otherwise, and you could still use all its features without a remote?

    The people who created these devices and the media for them largely did a poor job designing and manufacturing their products so they'd be reliable and easy enough to use to compete with alternatives on that basis. Plus, HDD DVD recorders don't compete in price with the US cable/satellite companie's PVR's.

    As has been stated there are also forces beyond the control of either the public, or the DVD recorder manufacturers, at work. Such as the way the government, cable/satellite compainies and content providers in the USA all conduct their business.

  8. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by orsetto
    Of course, this doesn't explain how those same millions of people managed to use WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 at work, or as the 90s rolled on navigate the internet and use Microsoft Office ?
    It's their job to do so. It also serves their best interests to do so.
    Originally Posted by usually_quiet
    One thing about this thread really bothers me. Too many people here give average Joe and average Jane too little credit, insult their intelligence, and assign blame to them that is undeserved. Leave Joe and Jane alone.
    Nobody is insulting their intelligence. They have jobs and careers and know more than us about healthcare, assembly plant operations, insurance, steel making, etc. The point here is that it's not their job to learn the complexities of video - capturing, processing with filters, bitrates, encoding modes, burning, authoring, finalizing, etc. and doesn't serve their best interests when there are easier solutions in life that give decent results instead of us freaks who spend mega hours to get something average looking as near "perfect" without ever reaching "perfect".
    I hate VHS. I always did.

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    Originally Posted by Captain315
    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]

    There isn't much to watch, but what I do watch is recorded. I can not put up with live TV which runs 17 to damn near 20 minutes of commercials and self promotion per hour. To add insult to injury we get those animated pop-ups (some which explode across the screen) and channel logos which constantly advertise the latest piece of crap. Anyone tried to watch anything on TV Land lately?.....I swear that channel is nothing more than a showcase or preview for old TV available on DVD. I like many of those shows, but a 25 minute show reduced to 20 or 21 minutes, then cut into 4 parts, with all that advertising between, and the pop-up promos superimposed on what remains, is unbearable, even when recorded.

    I do manage to watch some PBS shows live, but not in the summer....don't have the time for anything that starts before 9 PM.

    A cable DVR would cost me $26/month....$14/month for digital service plus $12/month for the DVR. So it's VCRs and PC based tuner cards for me. In the last 6 days I have watched 5 hours of TV thru a VCR (VHS EP), recorded 1 movie on the PC, and I still have 18 hours of recordings on three T-120 tapes.

    They don't make VCRs anymore (I think I have a lifetime supply), but they make almost no good TV anymore either. Buy what you like when you can.

  10. Originally Posted by samijubal
    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.
    Strange thing is that that is how I watch stuff now. I cannot remember that last time I recorded anything - at least 10 years ago - because the stuff is utter tripe and/or my time is more important to me. Currently, there are three programs I'll plan to watch (if possible): The Daily Show, The Colbert Report and Ca$h Cab. And if they happen to be on and I happen to be in front of my standard CRT TV, BBC's Newsnight, Survivor Man and any interesting Discovery/Science/Animal Planet/History programs.

    In recent years, PBS has lost its way. It is no longer commercial-free. At the beginning and end of many programs, there are "messages of support" from large corporations who basically get a free commercial for underwriting PBS. It's also evident that shows originally made for PBS no longer run the ~30 mins or ~60 mins that they used to. Instead they run ~22 mins or ~52 mins so that they can be accommodated by the commercial networks for syndication.

  11. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by SmokieStover
    Anyone tried to watch anything on TV Land lately?.....I swear that channel is nothing more than a showcase or preview for old TV available on DVD. I like many of those shows, but a 25 minute show reduced to 20 or 21 minutes, then cut into 4 parts, with all that advertising between, and the pop-up promos superimposed on what remains, is unbearable, even when recorded.
    I haven't watched it lately, no, so I can't disagree with you. However, about 4 years ago my DVR captured the entire 120 episode run of the 1960s Batman, completely uncut with 25 min/episode and none of that overlay popup crap. I would have been more than glad, and would have preferred to purchase a DvD box set of this historic series in all its remastered and cheesy embarrassing 60's glory, but it's simply not available. (I seriously believe DC Comics is doing this on purpose because if this corny series ever gets released it would destroy Batman's dark image that is successful today in comics and movies.)

    So maybe that's why it's not on TV Land anymore since it's not a preview to a DvD set, and is not a promo for a product. Sorry to hear the station's changed gears and destroying quality television content with that ad/cutting crap. I'm a music video junkie myself and the music video stations are doing it a ton lately which is annoying. Nevertheless, I'm so glad I captured that series and then canceled the station's subscription before it was too late.

    Television has very little worth archiving today any more. And anything worth the trouble of capturing with a DVR is polluted anyway.
    I hate VHS. I always did.

  12. Member yoda313's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by puzzler
    I'm a music video junkie myself and the music video stations are doing it a ton lately which is annoying
    Yeah for awhile I watched vh1's top20 videos and they had overlays in both the left and right top corners of the screen. Really hard to watch. Distracts from the video thats for sure.
    Donatello - The Shredder? Michelangelo - Maybe all that hardware is for making coleslaw?

  13. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by yoda313
    Yeah for awhile I watched vh1's top20 videos and they had overlays in both the left and right top corners of the screen. Really hard to watch. Distracts from the video thats for sure.
    I have over 5000 music videos in my collection which a good percentage are from television rips (those not available on DvD).

    I spend 10x more time editing the TV stuff with transitions, fades, crops, overlays, joins, etc. just to remove much of that crap from the stations that if it's available on DvD, it's worth it for me to buy it on eBaY or something to avoid this pain.

    A simple watermark with the station's logo in the corner is fine. A titling of the song is good too. But there's just too many nuisances today.
    I hate VHS. I always did.

  14. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by orsetto
    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
    That's probably not the best-example comment I was looking for in these threads, but I have a really hard time imagining myself as being among any sort of "tech elite." In those case where I happen to find suitable motivation, I plod through the manual, PDF, or guide, then follow it up with online searches -- or ask questions of people who actually know what they're doing, and why something works or doesn't -- to clarify those points I had failed to grasp. From there, it is mostly taking note of steps: A followed by B followed by C -- whether you understand it or not. In those cases where I don't find the motivation, I basically ignore all those other device or program features, until it bites me in the ***.

    As PuzZLeR was getting at in post
    https://forum.videohelp.com/topic353487-60.html#1866977
    we are mostly dealing with available time and degree of interest here. No rocket science involved.
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    I never thought I'd have a problem tolerating a station logo. However, WGN America's new one was the limit.

    I can't stand the new staring eyes logo and the big blob of bright purple smoke blowing across the bottom of the screen that highlights messages when programming resumes after a commercial break. "Television You Can't Ignore" is the opposite of how I feel about their programming now. They have to be showing something that I want to watch very badly for me to put up with that distraction.

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    Originally Posted by usually_quiet
    I never thought I'd have a problem tolerating a station logo. However, WGN America's new one was the limit.

    I can't stand the new staring eyes logo and the big blob of bright purple smoke blowing across the bottom of the screen that highlights messages when programming resumes after a commercial break. "Television You Can't Ignore" is the opposite of how I feel about their programming now. They have to be showing something that I want to watch very badly for me to put up with that distraction.
    Awful, that's how I'd describe those eyes. Sometimes I think advertisers don't care how much we dislike something they do as long as we remember who did it. In this case the minute you said WGN I knew where you were going
    I suppose in that way those eyes did their job
    Personally I don't like any kind of watermark or station bug. It's the main reason I bought all 5 collections of The Twilight Zone Definitive Edition. No cra* on the screen or commercial interruptions. Unfortunately not everything is on DVD nor can I afford everything I'd like

  17. Originally Posted by gshelley61
    I think there's a time factor, too. Who wants to go through the process of recording TV programs, edit out the commercials, then compile the episodes into DVD-R's for archiving... it's pretty time consuming. It's probably more cost effective (considering what your time is worth) to simply buy the TV series DVD's if you must have them.
    Once you're used to doing them, it actually doesn't take much time at all. I'm completing another sitcom right now that isn't available on DVD. It consists of 7 seasons and 160 thirty-minute shows. Since that channel's PQ where it is shown is quite good, I record the daily episodes on one of my Pioneer DVDRs at the MN19 resolution.
    Every time I have six shows recorded, I delete the commercials (there is only one in the middle, and one at the end, so that takes only minutes for six episodes), and then burn them to disk using the nice 6-window Pioneer menu with thumbnails and titles. When finished, I have a good-quality, complete 7-season set that cost less than $7 to make.
    DVD recorders may have failed in North America, but I have bought 4 so far, and I will buy another one as soon as I can find that particular model in my area.

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    I record my Japanese movies/shows on my Pioneer 220-s & as back up on my DVR box as well. Luckily they don't have commercials during the episodes so it doesn't take much to edit just the commercials which are sponsors of the station. They're in beginning and ending of episode. I just whip out TMPGE DVD AUTHOR to do the editing/cutting. Then I burn to dvd disc.

  19. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by usually_quiet
    Sometimes I think advertisers don't care how much we dislike something they do as long as we remember who did it.
    This is a long and well-established principle of advertising: if you loathe and detest it, that's o.k., so long as you notice it and remember it. Being forgettable is their only cardinal sin.
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  20. Originally Posted by usually_quiet
    One thing about this thread really bothers me. Too many people here give average Joe and average Jane too little credit, insult their intelligence, and assign blame to them that is undeserved. Leave Joe and Jane alone. They found competing products that work reliably and do what they want at a price that they like. It ain't their fault if we are a niche market.
    Absolutely agree, and just to be clear my posts were NOT intended to "smear" average Jane and Joe, just to point out that we "archivists" here are much more motivated to actually RTFM and deal with DVD recorders, which truly are a pain to use compared to a VCR, whereas they are not. And I do think it is a really interesting aspect of human nature that millions of people will learn to operate the most convoluted, tedious hardware and software for their jobs but utterly refuse when they get home: it does seem very specific to home video systems- we have 30 years of experience to back that up. Those of us who buck that trend are really consumed by the desire to compile libraries: that doesn't make us smarter or better, just different.

    The mass market certainly has a right to expect and enjoy the easiest possible timeshifting technology, and I myself am in awe of the cable PVR: once you try the integrated cable box/recorder point-and-click scheduling interface, anything else pales by comparison. The problem is not the consumer, although their lack of interest does diminish the market: the problem is Hollywood using that lack of interest to pressure hardware mfrs not to pursue a limited but strong market niche, and of course our current nasty global economic picture including the dismal dollar exchange rate. Four years ago Pioneer, Panasonic and Toshiba could sit around and accept slow sales of $500-600 DVD/HDD recorders, it was niche market but they broke even and it gave them a "prestige" product to bolster their brand names. Now, forget it: the cable PVR has shrunk that niche market to a fraction of what it was. The mfrs could tolerate one person a day buying a recorder from Circuit City, but they can't break even on one sale per *month* per store, especially selling the machines at half the price they were and at a net 40% profit loss. I had slim hopes that Phillips lone stake in the market would be a placeholder for the Japanese brands to come back once we go purely-ATSC next year, but following their recent announcement they're dumping the product at the end of this year I think the DVD/HDD category is now deader than dead in the USA, with Canada not far behind after Panasonics exit last month.

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    Originally Posted by Seeker47
    Originally Posted by usually_quiet
    Sometimes I think advertisers don't care how much we dislike something they do as long as we remember who did it.
    This is a long and well-established principle of advertising: if you loathe and detest it, that's o.k., so long as you notice it and remember it. Being forgettable is their only cardinal sin.
    I didn't write that, jjeff did. However, it is only true if people buy the product being advertised anyway.

    I tried to get used to it for a couple of weeks, but couldn't. Back when they had a normal logo, I would watch or record something on WGN at least a few times a week, but not anymore. What is odd is that they only use the ugly thing during movies and syndicated shows. I didn't see it during sporting events or the news. Too bad that's not the programming that interests me.

    [edit] If a commercial really offends the public, and the manufacturer gets complaints about their advertising, the commercial is generally removed.

  22. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    Four years ago Pioneer, Panasonic and Toshiba could sit around and accept slow sales of $500-600 DVD/HDD recorders, it was niche market but they broke even and it gave them a "prestige" product to bolster their brand names.
    ...which was when a freak like me bought my unit... actually I paid almost $1200 for mine then here in Canada. They were just off the gate - "digital VCR-like" machines with no tapes necessary - and wow - not only can it record to disc, it has a mega 80 GB hard drive! And you can even digitize your VHS tapes with it easily! I was stunned. With capture-to-PC systems still having mostly horrible products in those days (Dazzle anyone? Uggghhh...), I just *had* to get one of these things.

    But even then, I also did realize that it had attracted me because I had a special interest in video and archiving and wanted to digitize my massive VHS collection. Don't you folk here who have one find that you are one of the only ones that has one (or three)? The only people I know that have one here are from my recommendations. I still recommend it today.

    What's sad for me reading through this thread was that, in tribute, I honestly regard this as one of my best ever consumer products I purchased because it totally defied "too good to be true" - it was better, like a dream come true. I still today am awed at how productive it's been, and still is - I must have transfered over 2000 disc-loads of content (R and RW) since then to my collection, my PCs for processing and as well for friends and family.

    It's truly a shame the mass market didn't grasp the concept. I would have loved to see what this technology would have evolved to.

    My dear friends, this is a sad thread indeed for me.
    I hate VHS. I always did.

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    Originally Posted by PuzZLeR
    It's truly a shame the mass market didn't grasp the concept.
    It occurred to me last night that apart from no winding/rewinding, there's another blatantly obvious advantage to DVD recorders that hasn't been highlighted in this thread so far (I think) - which is... it's digital!

    The point? Well, my interest in VHS to DVD conversion projects was revived recently when boss at work handed me a VHS tape of a company promo (expensively made about ten years ago) and asks if I can rescue it, meaning of course to digitize it and thus prevent it from disappearing into the dustbin of history for lack of equipment to play it on.

    At first I groaned - memories of fights with frustratingly crappy PC capture tools, of which a more or less endless series seemed to be needed... then I remember! I own a HDD/DVD recorder, and even better my old VCR is still in the chain and could do this conversion in its sleep! It was only a 50 minute video, so 60 mins after I got home I had my finalized DVD.

    ... But that wasn't the last step. The really big advantage with DVD is that you can walk up to any modern PC and it can read the disk. So, next thing I did was rip the title off the disk onto my PC. I gave the boss both the DVD and the "soft form" video on a USB stick. The latter will now propagate from PC to PC and hence live for ever (and it only took a couple of gigs of disk space - a minor overhead today, and no doubt a trivial one tomorrow).

    It's so hard for me to believe that a device as useful as this can fail to be a success in any market.

  24. Member PuzZLeR's Avatar
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    I agree with your post totally - the no-tape-no-rewind/forward stuff, the ease of use, the ease of transfer, the digital flexibility, the total practicality of the unit and its advantages over VHS tapes that have been used for decades previously (ever try editing VHS tapes with two units? Arggghhhh...). Yet it's still too complicated for people to understand that a DVR will simplify their busy lives if they like to archive. And I too went through those endless battles for years with stupid products that just wouldn't work as you mention here.
    Originally Posted by mpack
    At first I groaned - memories of fights with frustratingly crappy PC capture tools, of which a more or less endless series seemed to be needed...
    My DVR completely changed my fortunes to 100% pure success - no disappointment whatsoever and a worthy purchase.

    It's just too bad such a gem didn't make it to primetime...
    I hate VHS. I always did.

  25. Originally Posted by Soopafresh
    There aren't enough good shows worth recording.
    Plus a lot of viewers defect to Youtube, video game, .....

  26. Member Seeker47's Avatar
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    Originally Posted by PuzZLeR
    I'm a music video junkie myself and the music video stations are doing it a ton lately which is annoying.
    If your provider happens to carry that channel, you might want to check out MHD (which turns up here around 6 down from HDNET). I don't know if this belongs to MTV, but it does not seem to mirror their program schedule. I mainly notice it when crossing that portion of the schedule grid, or when flipping through channels. But their programming looks to be much heavier on concert sets from different artists, rather than music videos. Had artists / groups of interest to me happened to be on at the right time, I might have paid more attention to this channel, but in just the quick glimpses I've had of it, I did not notice much in the way of commercials, or intrusive logo - promo type junk. (And it's in HD.) If so, maybe there is some more like this, buried somewhere amongst the 300 channels ?

    Originally Posted by PuzZLeR
    Television has very little worth archiving today any more. And anything worth the trouble of capturing with a DVR is polluted anyway.
    Well, I've got a few disc storage boxes now that argue otherwise -- mostly movies and documentaries, some concert material and shows. I would usually not have bothered, for anything that did not have real merit, and such material is always very much in the minority.

    So far, I'm getting by with 200-disc or 300-disc boxes, trying to avoid anything larger.
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    Originally Posted by MJPollard
    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
    Dating it? Heck, I'm married to it, and it's not like she's "too old" to get it: she's only 35!

    It's not even just an age barrier. her 20-year-old cousin bought one of those "tuner-less" recorders at her local Wal-Mart at Christmas with the intention of backing up all her parents' old home movies to DVD as a present. She burned over half of the tapes to discs, and the machine failed.

    Problem is, when they went to play one of these discs in a regular DVD player, it wouldn't work and they couldn't understand why. They asked me what could be wrong (I'm the unofficial "technical advisor" for our families). When I asked her if she finalised the discs, she didn't even know what that word meant, let alone that it had to be done!

    Of course, she hadn't read the manual thoroughly, but as you and others have said, the average consumer wants something they can just pull out of the box and start using. DVD recorders, to the average non-computer geek, are not such a product.

    One thing was mentioned about the reliability of tapes vs. discs. This has always been a big concern of mine, and is one of the main reasons that I came to DVD recording a bit late to the game. Horror stories of people losing valued burnt discs within mere months worried me (and still do), and as for backing stuff up to DVD, I'm still of the opinion that if it's important, you'd better hang onto the original tapes, and you just don't know when that burnt disc is going to turn into a coaster.

    When I back up all my 8mm home movies some day, I'll probably stick the tapes in the lock box at the bank. I certainly won't throw them in the bin!

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    Originally Posted by jjeff
    Yes not every program makes it to DVD. For those a DVDR is indispensable. I agree with others though, if it does make it to DVD it's Soooo much nicer getting a pristine copy without commercial interruptions/popups/weather alerts station bugs, etc. etc.
    They'll also be in order in which they were broadcast which is also a plus. Lastly in the case of The Twilight Zone Definitive Edition collections a person will get extras including promos for next weeks show. All in all a much better way to go vs. trying to record off TV.
    Except, of course, when the DVD companies trim scenes and replace the original music due to copyright/expensive royalties, etc. One recent example for me is ITV's Secret Diary of a Call Girl. If it isn't bad enough that the official DVDs are outrageously expensive (came out at 26 quid, now still high-priced at 16 or so, all for eight half-hours of content), but they went and replaced all the original music on them! I just had a friend in the UK record them from ITV for me for free over the holidays and made my own boxart. At least what I've got are the original, unaltered versions!

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    That's a good point. They do the same here. Many newer popular shows with current sound tracks get altered for DVDs. Seems they don't want to pay for the licensing of the popular songs.
    Most of my interests are older shows where this is not a concern but it would bother me if I remembered the original broadcast version had one song and the TV on DVD version had a different.
    I haven't heard of editing on TV on DVD, in fact most of the time they advertise "extra" scenes on the discs I've seen. Don't ask me how they can do this since it was originally shot for TV anyway but maybe they have different versions for European TV and a more edited version for US TV, and the DVDs are more like the European version.

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    Originally Posted by jjeff
    That's a good point. They do the same here. Many newer popular shows with current sound tracks get altered for DVDs. Seems they don't want to pay for the licensing of the popular songs.
    Most of my interests are older shows where this is not a concern but it would bother me if I remembered the original broadcast version had one song and the TV on DVD version had a different.
    I haven't heard of editing on TV on DVD, in fact most of the time they advertise "extra" scenes on the discs I've seen. Don't ask me how they can do this since it was originally shot for TV anyway but maybe they have different versions for European TV and a more edited version for US TV, and the DVDs are more like the European version.
    Actually, some older shows have fallen victim to music replacement, too. The Region One releases of WKRP IN Cincinnatti and Happy Days are a couple of examples, and one currently-notorious example is The Fugitive: Season 2, Volume 2, where not only "songs" have been replaced, but the entire musical score! The only original music they left intact was the theme. They even altered the ending credits to "hide" the changes.

    As for editing, it happens more often than you think, though usually, it's probably by accident (like on some episodes of Soap, shorter "for-syndication" masters were used for a few episodes) while in other cases, (like on Mama's Family) shorter syndication prints were used on purpose because that's what the DVD company had the rights to, the original masters residing in the hands of producer Dick Clair. I think Cosby Show and Alf are two more examples were syndication versions were used for the entire season's-worth of episodes.




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