On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 23:39:10 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

On Jun 17, 1:08 am, mm wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 20:22:15 -0700 (PDT), Ron
wrote:



On Jun 16, 10:51 pm, mm wrote:
On Wed, 16 Jun 2010 13:51:30 -0700 (PDT), wrote:
On Jun 16, 4:28 pm, "J. Simmons" wrote:
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.

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!

Make and model?

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.



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

What do you mean *personal* video recorder? What is the other choice?

A PVR is just another name for a DVR.

Hahaha. Thanks.

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?

TiVo.

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

I don't have cable either. It's all too much money.

There's enough tv on the air, on RTV and THIS.


and the far superior
functionality, it's well worth it. You really have to use one to
really appreciate how cool they are.