Best way to record onto tape?
 

I just bought the Toshiba 26HF84 and we're really pleased with it.
Almost everything looks better -- DVD, cable, even commercial tapes.
I was surprised how good they look.

Compared to all the big home theater systems this 26" model
looks rather small and insignificant in the video store,
but it seems gigantic in this tiny apartment.

Only tapes we've recorded from cable (on our ancient and probably
not all that good to begin with) video cassette recorder look fuzzy.

Any clues on some of the price/benefit tradeoffs on recording
cable content onto tape?

Thanks, Sean