On Sun, 15 Jan 2012 16:38:28 -0500, "Tomsic" wrote:

So, lightning struck a friend's house recently and fried most of the
electronics inside including two TV sets, their digital converter boxes, a
telephone answering machine, VCR and a clock radio. One of the TVs is
fixed; the other was replaced with a flat screen type and we tossed the VCR.
It's time to convert to digital.

The question is how should we set up the system so my friend can record TV
shows when he wants. He likes to record shows late at night and when he's
not around and then play them back when he has time. The VCR worked great;
but it doesn't make sense to use tape any more. What black box should he
get to connect to the TV to do the recording that can be programmed to just
record and play back -- no cable, no subscriptions or extra monthly services
although I might convince him to get DSL internet service (he still uses
dial up).

TV recording/playback is the essential thing though.

Tomsic

It's not logically perfect, but the only DVDR with HD on the market is
the Magnavox MDR-513H/F7 320GB DVR and DVD Recorder .

You definitely want a hard drive. Otherwise you have to keep putting
DVD's in the DVD slot, and making sure you have space on it for the
next recording. (IIRC, the one above will record to the harddrive if
the dvd fills up, but I would rather just record to the HD and copy it
to the DVD if I want to keep it. There is high-speed dubbing
(copying) available, and I used it once. I have to read the manual
again. . )

My HDD will hold 160 hours of tv, keeping your current viewing
position in every one of them. and the magnavox that is sold now has
an even bigger hd. maybe 300 hours (at the least fidelity, but it
seems fine to me. For greater fidelity for a really big tv screen, it
will hold less time) . The HD's are replaceable when they eventually
faili (I've recorcdd with mine about 30 hours a week for 3.5 years
with no trouble.) but the instructions are not in the owners manual.
There is a weblist devoted to this model at the most popular av
discussion website. I can find it for you if you want. There are
100's of posts and backgorund info, including a couple secret codes
that you can enter with the remote, to get info about the set.

They are 200 dollars at walmart, a store I dont' like much but at the
time I bought mine, which was then called a Philips 7576H iirc, it was
the only place that sold them. Certainly there box store Sams was the
only place that had them in stock to take home.

My ex-gf is very careful and thrify and she spent a lot of time online
looking for something else. There may be something at 500 or more
(check solidsignal.com which has the best list) but below that with a
HD theire is only this, or if there seems to be something, there's
something big wrong with it, like it doesn't have a digital tuner or
it has no tuner at all. No kidding. You have to read the
description very closely. Anyhow, even she was convinced that it was
the best she could do.

She ended up paying 150, but probably got a reconditioned one without
noticing. Amazon was where she bought it.

These are its flaws: Despite all its flaws, both she and I like the
thing. I hope this won't discourage you from buying this, but still
I want to warn you. (Really they are the flaws of the philips but
the magnavox is made by the same people, even the manual looks about
the same (though the remotes are very different and not
interchangeable.) It's conceivable that they've fixed one or two
flaws, but she has complained to me about most of the ones I didn't
like.

It has no program guide. I use zap2it.com or titantv.com, both of
which have over the air listings for every zipcode, though I had to
choose a zipcode in btween Balt. and DC to get both sets of
programs. .

It will display the description of the show while you are watching it,
but not while you are recording it, and more importantly, when you
record it it doesn't save the descripion. So after a few weeks it can
be really hard to remembe what I recorded. It doesn't display the
all the same things digital converter boxes do. It doesn't have the
time it starts or finishes, only text. .

It doesnt' keep time well. Neither does hers. Even the auto setting
is confused. I start many recordgins a minute before they start and
end a minute after they end to make up for the clock being wrong***
(though the clock alwarys runs slow (or fast) and if I could remember
which it is, I would only have to extend the time at one end. .
***(though this is not possible when one show is right after the
other on a different channel) I used to start 2 minutes before the
show started, but I got myself a little "atomic clock" and I set the
time to the second when I notice a show I record daily isn't starting
at the time it used. One could use wrist watch with a second
indicator, after he set that agianst the computer, after he made sure
the computer time was right. Setting the time manually can, if
you're not careful make a correction of 2 minutes when you are aiming
for one minute. Say the time on the dvdr is 1:02: and you don't know
how many seconds (but it's 58 seconds), And you want to set the clock
back one minute. You set the time to 1:01 and press enter and now
it's 1:01:00 instead of 1:02:58 seconds. You've set the clock back 2
minutes instead of one. So you have to be watching a clock or watch
with accurate seconds and push enter then, so that the time and the
DVDR both have seconds at 00 or 01.
For some reaosn, with authomatic on, it jumpted 15 seconds ahead
one night. I have had automatic on for most of the 4 years and
believe me, it doeesn't work. Maybe you'll be lucky and yours will.
I only have to reset the clock once a month or so.

When it gets to the end of timer or impromptu recording time, it turns
the machine off. I don't like that, although all I have to do is
turn it back on. (I have Powermd pyramids on each floor my house and
in my office and the bathroom so I can use the remote from all these
locations. Two of them gave me a lot of trouble with intermittent
extraneous IR that overloaded them and wouldn't allow the remote to
work, but I put switches in them and turn off the trnasmitters in the
bathroom and one bedroom when I leave the room.


More good things. It records and playsback DVDs and to some extent,
maybe music only, it will play from a flash drive. It has input jacks
on the front. It also has auxiliary inputs on the back and I
connected them to my computer output. If your distance is under 50
feet, you can just use wires, but for 100 feet, I needed baluns at
each end. (I found them cheap, 10 or 15 a pair) but I don't remember
where) . Then you can use network cable (lke Cat 5, what you use to
connect the router, etc.) for the long run and short cables from the
baluns to hte computer and the DVDR. Fidelity was not great, but I
didnt' investigate that. You might be better off with a tv ith
wireliess wifi, which will work like a monitor and you can browse to
your video from the tv itself. I can't do that because those tvs
have no output and I output my dvdr to 6 tv's scattered around the
house.


A good things I don't use. It has extensive editing capablilty,
removing part of it here, splicing there, but I have no interest in
that.


It will keep your position when watching the dvd if you don't turn the
dvdr off, or if you make sure it's in DVD mode when you turn it off.
Otherwise you can index forward to where you left off. If the DVD
doesn't have indexes , or if you didn't make them for an HDD
recording, it defaults to 10 minutes. I can't remember if this is
changeable.

It has skip forward and back. 3 settings for each. I skp 30 seconds
forward and 15 seconds back. I'd like to skip 10 seconds back but it
doesn't have that. It also has 3 forward speeds and 3 backwards
speeds, and 3 more of each when you are in pause. That is 3
slow-motion speeds in each direction.

There are more good things and a couple more less bad bad things. I
can't remmeber now.