This may be the wrong group But...I want to replace my vcr with a DVD recorder but am not sure about the connections. My cable service comes in on a Coax cable (75 ohm?) which is connected directly to a vcr and then to a cable ready TV. I have no cable "box". I assume I need a DVD recorder with a built in tuner but will the coax cable connect directly to the DVD recorder. It is my impression the recorder has RCA inputs. Thanks.
You need a DVD recorder with a QAM tuner. That will have coax input and receive unscrambled cable channels, just like your TV. If you just record programs to watch within a week or two and don't need permanent storage, a personal video recorder would be a better choice. The ability to easily search for and schedule programs, integrated program guide, ability to schedule recording of season's passes, huge storage capability, etc make them a better choice for that application.
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Hi, You mean Blue Ray?
Good point to consider HD, I missed that. Your comment got me wondering where all the Blu Ray recorders for use with a TV are? There are a lot of them out there as Blu Ray burners to connect to a PC at a reasonable price already, but I haven't seen similar targeted at the TV market. Is it because that market is largely going to personal video recorder instead? Those are available that are HD compatible and if you don't need long term storage on removable media, would be my choice.
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We have the Sony PS3 to play Blue Ray disks.
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The discussion was about RECORDERS, not players
No, the DVD writers right now will save regular format, but not HD. I don't know if Blu Ray is on the horizon or not.
My BluRay player has the ability to receive from a WiFi connection, but the streaming video is only 720p, not 1080.
Keep in mind, though, this information is at least 24 hours old and the market probably new 50 new players out there that did not exist on Monday.
Following up from when I posted this, it seems that any future HD recorder will be the Blu Ray format.
Mine does, but I don't know about others. I do have a QAM tuner like trader4 says. It has both co-ax and rca outputs, and hdmi and optical!
What do you mean *personal* video recorder? What is the other choice?
Do you mean one that records on a hard drive? I have one of those, but afaik, there are only two models for sale in the US, and while both get the job done, they both have a lot of small shortcomings.
Is there a better brand than Philips and the other one I forget right now?
Make and model?
A PVR is just another name for a DVR.
TiVo.
Philips, model 3576H. (I think the other company that makes one with an HDD is Toshiba, but it's a little less fancy I'm told.) AFAICT mine is pretty much only sold at Wal-Mart, and maybe online at a couple places. I don't like wal-mart but becaus it's mechanical and complicated, I wanted to buy it in a store, so I could take it back easily if it didn't work.
I've had it for 2 years and I've only made 3 DVDs. The other 20 hours a week is recorded on the harddrive, then play them and delete them.
YOu can record one thing while playing a recording, either HDD or DVD. You can copy from DVD to HDD and back. It has lots of timing slots and versatile timing settings and lots of other good things.
But, when it records a program, it saves the channel and time, but not the description. You have to watch the preview, which is often commerccials, or watch the show and remember what you recorded.
When you record a program, at the end, the whole machine turns off, whether it was on or off when it started recording. You can stop it with the remote, but they didn't make allowances for someone who was 2 flights downstairs and didn't want to run upstairs.
There's no easy way to stop it from recording. If I set it to record a show manually for 2 hours, if there is a pre-set recording slot an hour in, it stops what it was doing and records by the timer. I'm pretty sure my good VCR, let what was running finish recording.
If a time is coming up and something you don't want to record is on this week, there's no way to just turn off the Timer. YOu have to modify the timer slot, or let it start recording and stop it. Alsmst every VCR I've seen required you to take out the tape, but since this doesn't rely on their being a dvd in place, that sort of thing won't work. M\y good VCR just had a simple switch to turn timer recording on and off, without changing what would have been recorded if the timer were on.
You can see the program Info when not recording, but not when recording.
If you want channel 26 to be pre-set for surfing, you have to also include 26.2, 26.3, and 26.4. My set top box, designed later, will let me choose any of these separately.
BTW, I have nothing but old tvs so I have to use an RF modulator. They start at 17 dollars including shipping, so that's not bad, but... well I'll explain the solution and you can imagine the problem.
Someone on an electronics ng told me about RF modulators that don't insist on using only channels 3 and 4. They'll use almost any channel up to 100 or 150.
This means I can have put a settop box next to the dvdr, set it for channel 3, and set the modulator for channel 8, then just use the remote control in various rooms to change inputs to the tv.
When I tried to use channel 3 for one and channel 4 for the other, they interfered with each other. When I tried to use channel 3 for both, I had to go to the other room to turn off one of them. When I tried to use an A=B switch, it was fine for a while until the firsr modulator broke after only two years and the new one was stronger, and interfered with the set top box even when the A-B switch was set to the set-top box! I have to pull off the unwanted co-ax too. (I use a speed connector for it now, not the screw-on I used to use.)
If anyone wants a fancy modulator like that, I have the brand and url nearby. Instead of 14 it's 50 for one device and 30 for each extra device up to 4. 4 models, you have to decide how many inputs before you buy it.
Hahaha. Thanks.
I forgot about those. I don't want to pay a monthly charge.
Also, I've noticed that sometimes, just twice so far and not on a major network, the Info doesn't match what is actually playing. TIVO would get confused by that, wouldn't it, if it were set to record episodes of a particular show?
Tivo eliminates all of the problems you describe above. When they came out a decade ago they were referred to as "personal video recorders", a name that made sense because of the features. That's why I called it that instead of a DVR. Besides Tivo there are others, including DirectTV or rental of cable box units that include them for about $10 a month. I've used both Tivo and the Scientific Atlanta cable box version and the Tivo is far superior and worth it. You can get the Tivo with a lifetime subscription to the program service for about an additional $300. So, it's about $600 for a HD unit with lifetime service.
The Tivo blows away the current Scientic Atlanta box from Cablevision and anything else I have seen. With Tivo the channel guide and human interface is far superior in terms of seeing what's on, seeing a good description of the program instead of half a sentence, finding programs, setting them to record, etc. You can put in wishlists to automatically record programs based on things like an actor's name, a subject or a keyword. So, if you want to record any Robert De Nero movie or any program about wine, etc, that comes along, you can do it easily. You can get a seasons pass to a show and it will record all of them even if some weeks the network makes it a double length episode or moves it by an hour, etc. The new units also connect to the internet and you can download and store video on demand from Netflix and Blockbuster. And they can record 2 different HD shows while watching a third that is stored.
It's very rare for Tivo to have the wrong program info. The thing you do have happen occasionally is for some program schedule to change at the last minute and that can affect what it records. An example would be some show that follows a football game.
$600 may sound like a lot for that, but if you compare it to paying $120+ per year for the cable company version and the far superior functionality, it's well worth it. You really have to use one to really appreciate how cool they are.
I don't have cable either. It's all too much money.
There's enough tv on the air, on RTV and THIS.
Yes, the coax cable just daisy chains into the DVD and out to the TV.
I kept my old VCR, fed the output of it into the DVD, then the output of the DVD into the TV. Now my TV source is cable or DVD, while my DVD source is cable or VCR. That way I can have all the features of the DVD, but still have the capability to watch movies and recorded videos on my VHS tapes. Takes 3 remotes to do it, but it works well. Red
IIRC, since one of these modulators lacks the filter used by a TV station or cable system the output will interfere with the next lower channel (that is, ch 4 will prevent the use of ch 3). This still applies to the higher channels (for those more flexible modulators), but you can put them farther apart (generally, you should have 1 or 2 channels between the ones you modulate on).
My modulator (Netmedia NM73, IIRC) will work on any of the following channels:
14-69 (UHF broadcast) 70-94 (cable) 100-125 (cable)The three channels should be within the same group and a range of no more than 10. To avoid conflicts with the cable system here, I use 90,
92, and 94. [snip]ReplayTV was much better than TiVo (and no monthly charge with a lifetime subscription). Too bad they don't make them any more.
How about this:
It is possible to record HD on a regular DVD, but it would be playable only on a computer.
te:
I have satellite because cable isn't in our neighborhood. I'd
*gladly* pay for cable, if it were a decent company (Charter isn't, even if they were available).That must be the first time I've *ever* heard that there is enough to watch on (OTA) TV.
Out of curiousity, there must be some caveats here no? Are you saying I can take any old consumer DVD player including those that are stand-alone units used with a TV, as opposed to a computer, and I can record HD on it as long as I only play it back on a PC?
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