(I’m putting this in Cafe Society because it involves entertainment technology–feel free to move it if you choose)
My damn VCR fritzed out on me this morning–with the Rudolph Valentino festival coming up on TCM! I can’t really buy/install a new one till after I move on June 1, and I can have the nice Comcast installation man deal with it. Now: I do already have a DVD player, but I will also still need a VCR, as I have hundreds of movies and documentaries on videocassettes which I’ve taped/bought over the past 20 years.
Questions:
What’s a good VCR brand/model to buy? Can I order it online, or buy it at a store in Manhattan?
Is a combination VCR/DVD player a good idea, or are they generally crap?
If I do get a VCR/DVD player, is it possible yet to record programs from TV onto a DVD disc?
I had to look at the time/date stamp to make sure the boards didn’t randomly re-post a thread from 1982.
Of course you can record to DVD nowadays, it’s fun! My recommendation is to get a DVR… it’s basically a hard drive you can record to, and if you don’t want to keep it after you watch it, just erase it, and if you do then you just dub it onto a disc.
As for all the old tapes, yeah, you can just buy a cheap VCR and dub on the DVR as well. Combination VCR/DVD players are generally not a good idea, IMHO.
Your question leads to some questions:
What type of TV do you have?
If Standard non-Hi def than a cheap VHS/DVD combo unit will work fine and be more convenient than two separate units.
If you have Hi-Def, do you know if it is 720P, 1080I or 1080P?
ensure the DVD playback is at least as good as the Hi-Def TV. 1080P being the best.
At under $100 the combo units do their job quite well and if they crap out after 2-
3 years, it should be too upsetting.
Bestbuy and Sears are great places to find and buy cheap workhorse combo units. On line or in person.
What makes you think that the Comcast installer would have any interest in trying to fix your VCR?
To answer your questions
You can get a good quality VCR at your local Wal-Mart or any similar store, or buy one online if you wish, usually for under $30.
Yes, there are good VCR/DVD combos, but they can be a little more confusing to hook up to your TV/entertainment system, because the DVD side will usually have S-Video and component video outputs for higher quality, or you can use the VCR’s composite video connections (the Yellow/Red/White RCA connectors) for both VCR and DVD
Yes, you can record off the air to DVD, but only if you get a DVD recorder and not just a player. But as others have said, Tivo or a DVR system provided by your cable/satellite provider may be a better option.
No, I meant the Comcast guy will help me hook up my new unit, not fix my old one.
What’s a DVR?
Everyone at work tells me the combo DVD/VCRs are utter crap . . . I guess a plain old VCR player/recorder will suit my purposes.
Can anyone recommend a good brand/model of VCR?
Yeah, I guess I will have to get a DVD recorder/player eventually, but I have so many expenses right now . . . At which point I guess I can tape the VCR things I want to keep onto DVD, but we’re talking a big investment of time and money to do that, so it’s in the “someday, I guess” category.
A high-definition TV would be a waste of money, with my low-definition eyes.
Tivo creeps me out. I don’t want my TV to tell me what I want to watch! I’m afraid some night it will lock the door and not let me out till I watch the new Ken Burns documentary.
So, anyway, suggestions on no’s. 2) and 4) will be appreciated, thanks!
I’d suggest researching online and getting some idea of what model you’d like, and how much it costs. Have that in your back pocket if you go to a brick and mortar store. B&H Photo on 9th Ave might be a good place to buy and Best Buy is up on Lex/86th, the 4-5-6 lets off right there.
I have one, and do find it a bit more complicated than just having a DVD and VCR separate. It works well enough, if you’re picky about the quality of the machine you use, or if you really dig your current DVD player, I would go with separate units. I went with the combo to get the smallest footprint possible.
As mentioned, you’d need a VCR/DVD recorder, which seems like a more unusual type of machine, and is likely to be pretty expensive.
DVR is basically TiVo, but a generic version through the cable company. You’ll pay a monthly fee like $8/mo and they give you the DVR box instead of the normal cable box. It doesn’t tell you what to watch, but faithfully records all the shows you tell it to, for playback and deletion at your leisure. It is not a long term storage solution, though.
Thanks! I will do some Googling, and head up there next week at lunchtime.
Eventually, time and money permitting, I will certainly get some kind of unit that will let me “tape” onto a DVD disc (whatever you call them), so I can record from the TV and re-record what I want to save from my videocassettes. But that’s some time off, for now all I need is a plain, old-fashioned, wind-up Edison VCR-ola.
Common sense for a good brand VCR is pretty easy. If your familiar with the name (Sony, RCA, Panasonic. GE, Sanyo, Samsung) you’ll be fine.
If you’ve never heard of the brand before (BizTech, VidDesign, Zippytron) stay away from it.
DVD burners (machines that will record onto a DVD) are more expensive ($199+) than your typical DVD player ($60+).
DVRs (like TIVO but supplied by your cable or satellite company) are very easy to use. You bring up the tv schedule on your screen, scroll through, you see something you want to record, you push a record button and WA-LA! it’s set to record. The machines typically hold 40+ hours of programming.
Years ago, I used to hang out in an anime chatroom. The people there recommended JVC VCRs to me, saying that they used them to dub movies all the time (some of those folks had banks of VCRs churning out tapes almost 24 hours a day). They said that JVC was the most bulletproof brand they knew of. So, I bought JVC and loved it.
I should note that I have burned through two JVC VCRs since then, but I should explain: the first I broke myself, when I disassembled it to clean it and found I couldn’t put it together again properly. The second was the cheapest JVC I could find, and it conked out on me after about a year when a power surge hit. Lesson learned: don’t buy the cheapest model. After that, I bought a Super VHS model for a bit more cash, which has worked like a champ ever since (about 5-6 years now).
Industry insider here. Here is a little info - there is no profit in VCRs anymore, so all of them are made in China or Mexico, regardless of the brand name, as cheaply as possible. 10 years ago it made a difference. Now, they all originate at Apex or Orion or some other cheap as possible company. So LG, JVC, Maranz, etc are all the same model with different names stuck on the front. I suggest getting the cheapest one you can find.
As for VCR/DVD combos, they use the cheapest modules to build these, since the target audience is not the high-end videophiles, but the Wal-mart shopping crowd. Again, if going this route, buy the cheapest one.
For recordable DVDs - these are still new and engineering effort is still being put into them. I recommend comparing features, HD sizes, outputs, etc to decide what you want. Here, buying the cheapest is not best way to go - looking for the feature set that closely matches what you want is better. I know several of these (RCA and Toshiba come to mind) come with a built in TVGuide, which makes finding shows and scheduling their recording much easier.
Yes, avoid Toshiba like the plague. They used to make good DVD players, but now they only make very large and expensive paperweights.
I have a Panasonic DMR-ES30VS DVD Recorder/VCR Combo which has served me well for over a year. It cost $270 brand new, but prices have dropped since then. (Check AVForums or videohelp.com for recommendations on current models.) While most people do not recommend VHS/DVD combos – and for good reasons – this one hasn’t had a single problem, except the DVD Recorder is VERY picky about blank media. (Ritek and Verbatim are the only brands that work reliably, but the problem is machine-specific so YMMV.)
Once you graduate to DVD Recording, by the way, you will never look back.
Although, there are DVD burners on the market now for about $70.00 or less (if you look around a bit) and you can record on permanent discs or rewritable discs for those shows you don’t want to keep forever.
Just an idea, as long as you are plunking down cash soon anyway.
Sounds like you should buy the cheapest VCR you can find and save your pennies for a DVD recorder. VHS is the eight-track tape of our generation. Like it or not, it’s dead technology.
However, a friend told me recently that recordable DVDs (whether DVD-R or DVD-RW) don’t last more than a couple of years. With a little time, perhaps the technology will improve. Or perhaps he’s full of shit, I don’t know. In any case, it’s well-known that VHS tapes wear out after about 10-15 years, whether you watch them or not. So either plan on doing a mass conversion to another format soon, or don’t get too attached to your old tapes.
About DVR, keep in mind that it only works if you have digital cable. I know most of the civilized world does, but I can’t afford $100/month, so I’m forced to stay in the 20th century, for now. But if you are already planning to get digital cable in your new place, it would be a good time to start yourself in the DVR revolution…it’s less than $10/month added to your bill. You should be able to hook up your system to record DVR’d programs onto VHS, then when time & budget allow, you can record them onto DVD.
Since a lot of DVD players crap out after a couple of years of frequent use, you should keep in mind that you will probably have to replace yours soon anyway. It would make sense to pay a little more and replace it with a DVD recorder.
