On Dec 21, 3:34*pm, myfathersson wrote:
That is very interesting. May i ask where you found this out? Is this
documented in any manual?'
The reason I ask is that here in the US, all set top boxes have
similarly had USB ports for quite a long time as well. However I was
under the impression that they didnt do anything or were inoperative.
The reason I was under the impression that they were inoperative has
been because i have repeatedly been told that in specific terms by
every cable company technician I have ever spoken to about this!
As the OP I have been mystified by certain arguments in this thread:
Namely that everyone should stop using VCRs and go over to some form
of DVR, usually touted as being contained in a cable box which you
have to rent from someone. I should add that VCRs are comparatively
new in the US, and americans uniformly think that they invented them,
possibly around the mid 1980s (I even saw a TV program supporting this
view from no less august a source than Popular Mechanics as recently
as yesterday!!). In England things have always been *more advanced,
with the original Phillips 1500s being introduced and gaining
reasonably widespread acceptance in the mid 1970s. Even in those days,
VCRs had relatively advanced features which let users time shift and
arrange to turn the recorder on and off and tune channels in advance
of the program being recorded. As time went on, throughout the 80s,
90s and naughties, these features became more and more advanced until
they really were quite sophisticated.
Suddenly about five years ago the world went over to a new (?) system,
and one in which you could only turn a DVR such as an Archos ON (and
sometimes even *OFF), - *and then only if you are there to do it in
real time. *And then sometimes only to view some tiny recorded picture
in a small box in the middle of a huge TV screen!
Why are Americans so unsophisticated and is there really some way of
using this USB port in conjunction with a computer to obviate all this
lack of sophistication? Someone please tell me that I am wrong about
Americans being so unsophisticated and why, when Klem commented on how
easy recording programs (yes, even multiple programs and even when you
arent there to turn it on) on VCRs used to be, everyone jumped down
his throat and told him to move into the 21st Century!
I got my first VCR in 1977, a Sony Betamax personal purchase half off
for only $650. When I tell you VCRs are crap, its because they are
crap They were ALWAYS crap but it was all we had so it was "good".
Picture is poor, media wears out, machine wears out, tapes get
damaged, recording time is finite. Why would anyone want such a thing
when you don't have to use it? Yes the recording time is finite on my
computer too but there is about 150 hours currently on the machine and
room for several hundred more. It's all in HD and identical to 'live'.
Then there are 2 more machines with similar stories. USB drives are
fine for archiving but gigabit LAN is even better.
BTW while the VCR was 'invented' in Japan, practical videotape
recording was in fact invented in the USA by the Ampex Corporation.
The first use of a VTR on air commercially was from CBS Television
City on November 30, 1956 to run 15 minutes of Douglas Edwards news
for the west coast network feed.
Also, those Japanese VCR manufacturers all paid licensing fees to
Ampex. They shrunk and repackaged the concept. Does that qualify as an
invention?
http://www.cedmagic.com/history/ampe...-vtr-1956.html
G²
Another unsophisticated American.