On Oct 26, 12:39 am, (Geoffrey S. Mendelson) wrote:
James wrote:
If anyone's familiar with this kind of functionality, how are you
supposed to record future events if you have to work this slider to
make the recording happen and essentially renter the VCR useless for
anything else in the meanwhile? The whole thing seems cotingent on
your remembering when you set the programs for.

Yes.

That's how it is designed, but there probably should be a button which lets
you see what you have programed.

Depeneding upon the model, it erased the program after it recorded it. Some
had a special program which would repeat everyday. This was to prevent you
from recording a program at the same time tomorrow if you only wanted the one
on tonight and vice versa.

It never really worked in the general public. VCR's were notorious for
flashing 12:00 meaning the clock had never been set.

Geoff.

--
Geoffrey S. Mendelson, Jerusalem, Israel N3OWJ/4X1GM

Most VCRs will have some sort of indication that the clock has
either not been set or there has been a power outage. My Panasonic
"Omnivision" 4-head VCR, bought new perhaps four years ago, shows four
dashes on the clock display after a power outage (or directly out of
the box). It can be reset manually or by means of an XDS (extended
data signal) from the local PBS television station.

Most if not all VCRs made in the last five years or so have this
automatic clock set function, so users need not worry about resetting
the clock after the power goes out. If the user's area has a local PBS
station, the auto-clock-set function will use the XDS signal to reset
the clock to the correct local time.

The old "flashing 12:00" story only applies to older machines
manufactured before the auto-clock-set function became more or less
standard (or was even thought of). The XDS signal will reset the clock
automatically when the power is restored, regardless of what channel
the VCR was set to before the outage.

The use of the XDS data signal to automatically set the VCR clock
has made most modern VCRs very easy to set up; just take it out of the
box, connect the cable or antenna, plug it in, turn it on....and the
machine will take care of the rest, not only automatically setting the
clock to the correct time but also programming the tuner for all
locally receivable TV stations. I had a Magnavox VCR that had this
type of automatic set-up, and I liked it...a lot. Had to get rid of
it, though, about nine years ago when the heads wore out. I've had two
VCRs since then, however, one with VCR Plus+ and my present Omnivision
machine, that have the same automatic set up systems.

I don't know, however, if today's combination VHS/DVD players even
have timers anymore. The ones that have digital tuners probably do,
but the bare-bones machines without RF modulators which will record
only from line input (cable box, antenna) probably don't. The machines
that are set up to dub from VHS to DVD, or vice-versa, carry a very
clearly worded warning to the effect that the units are not designed
to and in fact will not duplicate copyrighted material under any
circumstances. This design, which is required these days by law, is
almost certainly to prevent piracy and copyright infringement, both of
which are punishable by up to five years in federal prison and/or a
$250,000 fine. All commercially-made DVD movies and/or TV series
carry this warning as well, which shows at the beginning of these
DVDs.