On Oct 16, 5:33 am, wrote:
Mon, 15 Oct 2007 14:16:29 -0500, Mark Lloyd

wrote:
On Mon, 15 Oct 2007 11:07:26 -0400, "Eric"
wrote:

Do you have any reason to believe he's not?

Didn't someone say he has a cable box?

Guys....
I have an ANTENNA. Out here on the farm, there are no cables !!!!
I wont even consider satellite tv for what it costs.
I just want to get some of the digital signals they are now sending.

To sort of answer my own question, I was at Walmart today and while
the wife was looking at clothes, I went back to the electronics dept.
They have several DVR/VCR combo units that say they are capable of
receiving digital tv. So, I guess that answers that. However, they
are quite pricey. The standard ones cost $50 to $100, while the
digital ones are just under $200 and up. Of course that's just
Walmart. I'll have to shop around.

One other thing I noticed, they now sell DVD/VCR combo units that are
PLAY ONLY. They do not have a tuner at all. I have never seen such a
thing (not with the vcr).

Ya, everyone keeps saying vcrs are obsolete, but everyone still has
lots of tapes. I think the vcr will be used for many more years yet.
I no longer buy movies on tapes, but for a quick recording of
something off the air, a tape still seems the easiest. Then again, I
never have owned a DVR.

Thanks


For your application, I would strongly suggest looking at Tivo. They
have the ATSC tuner now. Once you've used one of these or a similar
unit, you'll never want to watch TV any other way. Among the great
features:

If you want to go to the bathroom, get a beer, or answer the phone,
you can just hit pause, and pause a show that your are watching
realtime for up to 30 mins (on my original Tivo, its, 30, may be
longer on new units). You can also back up and replay something you
missed or back up and play it in slow motion.

While watching something real-time, if a commercial starts, you can
hit pause, then go watch some other program that you have recorded for
awhile, then come back to real-time show, use fast forward to blow
through commercials and then resume watching.

You select a program you want to record and you can then get a seasons
pass. It will record all episodes of that program, even if the
program happens to move in time slot or is having an episode that runs
an extra hour. It can do that because it downloads a daily TV
channel schedule. It won;t fix the problem where something runs out
of whack because of a football game running over, because there is no
forecast of that. The recorded programs are displayed on a list to
select from on the screen.

You can record one program, while watching another previously
recorded, or even another real time one. (new ones have multiple
tuners)

You can set up a list of favorite actors, movies, or key words.
Whenever a show that matches is on, it will automatically record it.


For folks with cable, similar functionality is available from most
cable companies now in their PVR products and may be a better choice
based on pricing. But since you don't have cable, Tivo would be for
you. And from the functionality I've seen, Tivo I think has the best
user interface/feature set.

The only thing it can't do is record the material to a tape or DVD.
You can however use it in conjuction with another recording device.
You then play the program on Tivo and the other device records it to
tape or DVD. So, you could use an existing VCR in conjunction with
it. Basicly, the VCR is inserted between the Tivo and the TV.
Meaning you can still play tapes in the VCR and if you want to
transfer a Tivo program to tape, just pop a blank tape it, start the
program playing on Tivo and record.

Of course the other factor in all this is how much you want to invest
in more std def ATSC eqpt before moving to HD.