Please forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask this question, and
kindly point me to the right place.

I have an elderly VCR which I am intending to replace, as it's starting
to give problems occasionally. I plan to buy a DVD Recorder, but I'm
being pushed towards one combined with a VCR. Since I only want to keep
the VCR to play the tapes I've already got, this seems like a waste of
money to me.

If I bought a DVD recorder, could I couple the two together, allowing me
to play my stack of tapes (containing programmes I've missed or which
clashed with other things)? Alternatively, could I copy the tape
contents to DVD's?

Any recommendations as to which DVD recorder (or even which type) I
should go for - there seems to be a wide variety (DVD-, DVD+, DVD-RAM
etc).

TIA,

Dave

--
Dave Smith
Wordsmith and yarnspinner, singer and storyteller

"Dave" wrote in message
...
Please forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask this question, and
kindly point me to the right place.

I have an elderly VCR which I am intending to replace, as it's starting
to give problems occasionally. I plan to buy a DVD Recorder, but I'm
being pushed towards one combined with a VCR. Since I only want to keep
the VCR to play the tapes I've already got, this seems like a waste of
money to me.

If I bought a DVD recorder, could I couple the two together, allowing me
to play my stack of tapes (containing programmes I've missed or which
clashed with other things)? Alternatively, could I copy the tape
contents to DVD's?

Any recommendations as to which DVD recorder (or even which type) I
should go for - there seems to be a wide variety (DVD-, DVD+, DVD-RAM
etc).

TIA,

Dave


Most these days will be DVD+/-R. DVD-RAM is only on a few mostly Panasonic.
Good for Making recordings that you will not be Keeping Ie. recording over.
Main point it works in the same way as a HDD, which you had not mentioned,
in that you can start watching a recording from the beginning while the
remainder of the program is still being recorded. If it was a HDD model you
could then record the prog to
-/+ disc should you want to save it.

"Dave" wrote in message
...
Please forgive me if this is the wrong place to ask this question, and
kindly point me to the right place.

I have an elderly VCR which I am intending to replace, as it's starting
to give problems occasionally. I plan to buy a DVD Recorder, but I'm
being pushed towards one combined with a VCR. Since I only want to keep
the VCR to play the tapes I've already got, this seems like a waste of
money to me.

The only people to my knowledge who are buying these combo units are those
who are stupid enough to believe ignorant (or maybe downright dishonest)
salesmen who tell them they can copy commercial material without problems
between the units!

Yes you can link two separate units together and record your own material
without problems. A company I did some promotional work for bought a
Phillips DVD / HD recorder - it proved to be such a PITA to use they have
rarely made use of it since the first week of purchase (after many long
hours of pouring over the manual and trying to fathom out how to spend ages
doing the simplest of tasks). I bought a Sony which accepts all types of
discs and has 250GB HD - but the best thing is I have yet to even open the
manual - it's so intuitive and everything's so easy to do. From recording /
cutting & simple edits / disc transfer / dubbing etc etc.

Choose carefully to avoid the mistakes outlined above!

Rob


If I bought a DVD recorder, could I couple the two together, allowing me
to play my stack of tapes (containing programmes I've missed or which
clashed with other things)? Alternatively, could I copy the tape
contents to DVD's?

Any recommendations as to which DVD recorder (or even which type) I
should go for - there seems to be a wide variety (DVD-, DVD+, DVD-RAM
etc).

TIA,

Dave

--
Dave Smith
Wordsmith and yarnspinner, singer and storyteller

"Dave" wrote in message


If I bought a DVD recorder, could I couple the two
together, allowing me to play my stack of tapes
(containing programmes I've missed or which clashed with
other things)? Alternatively, could I copy the tape
contents to DVD's?

By all means.

Any recommendations as to which DVD recorder (or even
which type) I should go for - there seems to be a wide
variety (DVD-, DVD+, DVD-RAM etc).

There are now universal DVD recorders which record on DVD +/-R and DVD +/-
RW.

I find that DVD RWs are excellent for loading VHS tapes into Adobe Premiere
Elements for menuizing and further editing.

Thanks for the advice, folks. Though I still don't feel any the wiser. I
don't want to edit tapes, DVD's or anything else. But I have a small
number of tapes which have programmes I want to watch on them still.
These I would like to be able to either watch direct or copy to DVD &
then watch.

In article ,
"Trev" trevbowdenAT.dsl.pipex.COM wrote:

Main point it works in the same way as a HDD, which you had not mentioned,
in that you can start watching a recording from the beginning while the
remainder of the program is still being recorded.

Pardon my total ignorance of such things, but what sort of disc does an
HDD recorder use?

BTW - at the moment we have both terrestrial programmes and a SKY box,
so we can watch on terrestrial and record from SKY or vice versa. With
the switch to digital coming is there anything clever enough to record
one programme from SKY while we're watching another? Short of a SKY+
box, of which I've heard so much that I'd be wielding the proverbial
barge pole if that was the only solution.

Thanks again,

Dave

--
Dave Smith
Wordsmith and yarnspinner, singer and storyteller

On Tue, 27 Mar 2007 14:38:50 +0100, Dave
wrote:

Pardon my total ignorance of such things, but what sort of disc does an
HDD recorder use?

A bog-standard IDE hard drive, in all the ones I've opened.

Some accept a bigger replacement happily. Others seem locked to the
original type/size.

"Dave" wrote in message

Thanks for the advice, folks. Though I still don't feel
any the wiser. I don't want to edit tapes, DVD's or
anything else. But I have a small number of tapes which
have programmes I want to watch on them still. These I
would like to be able to either watch direct or copy to
DVD & then watch.

Then you need a DVD recorder, hard drive optional, to hook to the output of
your VHS player.

"Arny Krueger" wrote in message
. ..
"Dave" wrote in message

Thanks for the advice, folks. Though I still don't feel
any the wiser. I don't want to edit tapes, DVD's or
anything else. But I have a small number of tapes which
have programmes I want to watch on them still. These I
would like to be able to either watch direct or copy to
DVD & then watch.

Then you need a DVD recorder, hard drive optional, to hook to the output
of your VHS player.

Alternatively, if you have a DVD player on your PC and a DVD writer in your
PC, just get a £20 USB "DVD maker" - these are little analogue converters
that will encode* "on the fly", and you can burn the resulting MPEG file
direct to DVDR.

Thanks again, but I'm just getting more and more confused. Perhaps I
didn't word my last message very well. Let's start from the top again.

What I have - a VCR that I bought used 7 years ago and is now starting
to show signs of its age. I also have a stack of videos containing
programmes I've recorded. Some I want to keep, most I just want to watch
and discard.

What I want - a digital recorder that will:

a. Take the place of the VCR in allowing me to record programmes and
watch them later.

b. Allow some connection between the VCR and the TV so I can watch the
tapes I have.

c. Allow me to watch one programme while recording another, both
possibly coming through my SKY box.

Is this possible? If not would I be better to buy a new VCR and wait
until something like SKY+ actually works reliably.

What would you recommend? Please keep it in simple terms - I'm not
knowledgeable about this stuff, I just want to hook it up and have it do
the job.

TIA

Dave

--
Dave Smith
Wordsmith and yarnspinner, singer and storyteller

"Dave" wrote in message
...
Thanks again, but I'm just getting more and more confused. Perhaps I
didn't word my last message very well. Let's start from the top again.

What I have - a VCR that I bought used 7 years ago and is now starting
to show signs of its age. I also have a stack of videos containing
programmes I've recorded. Some I want to keep, most I just want to watch
and discard.

What I want - a digital recorder that will:

a. Take the place of the VCR in allowing me to record programmes and
watch them later.

b. Allow some connection between the VCR and the TV so I can watch the
tapes I have.

c. Allow me to watch one programme while recording another, both
possibly coming through my SKY box.

Is this possible? If not would I be better to buy a new VCR and wait
until something like SKY+ actually works reliably.

What would you recommend? Please keep it in simple terms - I'm not
knowledgeable about this stuff, I just want to hook it up and have it do
the job.

TIA

Dave

--
Dave Smith
Wordsmith and yarnspinner, singer and storyteller

To watch one program while recording another Needs two tuners or in the case
of sky two sky boxes or one box with two tuners. If you bought a DVD
recorder it would replace the VCR in your setup and apart from recording to
DVD would not change how things work at the moment ie watching different
program to what you are recording. You can get DVD recorders with Freeview
tuners that will recorder the free to air digital channels or you can get a
sky box with two tuners that records to a hard drive from one tuner and
watch the channel that the other tuner is set too. Not being a cable guy I
dont know if they have a DVD recorder built in too, if not you will need a
DVD recorder as well Or a combo DVD recorder that also plays/records VHS
tapes. If you VCR is still working reasonably well you could just plug that
into the second scart/AV2 input on the DVD recorder and record from tape or
if the TV is set to the second scart AV2 input that the DVD is plugged into
You can watch the tape.