VCR grumble

[cellio]

Last week, although the VCR made all the right noises and light-blinks, we did not get West Wing. It did its thing for an hour but the search backward for the beginning took seconds and produced only a brief bit of new material before cutting out. I borrowed a tape from a coworker and recorded the episode onto that tape, so the media itself did not seem to be at fault. Since then I recorded another show using that VCR (different tape), so the VCR is not exhibiting a general problem. The programming is just fine.

It happened again this week. WTF?

So I'll see if I can borrow a tape again (sigh), and I'll retire the current tape even though a VCR-to-VCR copy onto it worked fine. (Tape's cheap, but this spoils my sense of orderliness.) And I just had an idea and have programmed another VCR to also record the show, lest it happen a third time.

But I really don't understand the failure mode.

Comments

[estherchaya.livejournal.com]

But just think how much MORE television you could watch if you could TiVo them! And easily skip the commercials! Oooh the time you'd save would allow you to add all the re-runs of Caroline in the City your little heart desires! Oh. Um. Wait.

Right. Back to the VCR, I guess. Seth won't let me get a TiVo because I don't watch TV, and he doesn't seem to be buying the argument that if I had a TiVo I WOULD watch TV because I could watch it at my leisure instead of being bound by someone else's schedule (I hate, hate, hate recording TV shows on the VCR... I can never keep track of changes in schedule, and I hate fastforwarding through tapes to find the show that I recorded in the midst of the shows Seth recorded.... So neither of us record [or watch] any TV anymore)

[cellio]

It's only now that I've managed to disconnect the idea of TiVo from the idea of extended cable. I explicitly do not want the higher-end cable -- not just because of the cost but also because the model is different. As things stand now, a line comes into the house and I split it to my heart's content. (Hey, the cable guy saw that and didn't object.) With the higher-end service, you get a tuner box and use that to set the channel you want to watch. This box is not programmable, and of course it doesn't give you the option to see (well, tape) two different things at the same time. (Yes, is sad. It's not true this season, but last year or the year before there were, again, only about three shows I watched, and two were on at the same time.)

So I'd never really considered TiVo because I thought I'd also have to downgrade to the other form of cable, but there's really no reason those two have to be connected.

That said, I'm not sure I want a box to tell me what else I should be watching. I have friends for that. :-)

[jducoeur]

Following on from my other note: there is more to the DVR world than TiVo. I have no desire to have my devices tell me what to watch, and less than no interest in paying a monthly fee for the privilege. But there are some really nice non-service-based DVRs out there, if you look. In particular, Panasonic has several models of DVR/DVD-writer combo. We have the $700 model, and it's faboo. Expensive as hell, admittedly, but well worth it to us: it's much closer to our ideal for TV recording/watching than anything else we've come across...