How am I going to be able to use my VHS recorders when digital is forced on us?

In article ,
says...

Certainly with mine (E-55) it takes about 30 seconds to switch on,
doing what it calls a "self test", which is annoying if you want to
record something in a hurry. However, once it's switched on, it will
start recording virtually the instant you press the record button.
Panny have a new recorder out now (E-10), which they say will switch
on in 1 second, but I haven't actually seen it in action!

The other problem is reliability, DVD recorders just seem to record when
they want to record.


However, one of my VCRs is also a Panasonic, which has a tape
identification facility - very useful, but that too takes up to 30
seconds before the thing is available to record when you put a
different tape in.

This is the problem with all this new electronics rubbish, the more
clever it gets, the longer things take to work or they get more
difficult to work.
Look at mobile phones, with all the crap that they got on them now, you
get reduced battery life and they are more complex to use.

My good old Pani VHS is ready to go in about a few seconds, as long as
you got the tape in the right place. That is the only down full.

In article ,
says...

Mine's a Panasonic too. It's been perfectly reliable. The only problems
have been a handful of dud disks out of hundreds.

I certainly was not impressed with the one in the shop.
I myself got a cheap Goodmans DVD recorder, because I did not want to
pay a fortune on something I may not use. It is ok, but I would not rely
on it 100%

In article ,
says...

Maybe that is why BBc quality have got worse over the last few years.

Please expand on that point since I can't guess what you mean.

Quality of the picture. even on analogue T.V the picture quality of some
BBc programmes have got worse.

In article ,
says...

They was good in their days and still are to millions of people. very
few people have got DVD recorders or PVRs at the moment. If go out to
your local town/city and ask people if they know what a PVR is, I bet
you most people will have no idea.

I wish people would learn to call them DVRs rather than PVRs. Much more
accurate. (A PVR is like a TiVo.)


I do not care what they are called, TIVO is dead in this country anyway
or will be in the next few years when all the TIVo machines have broken
down.

In article ,
says...

The days of just two settings, "LP" and "SP" are over.


MY recorders have an "EP" setting as well!

So there!(:-)


Yep, same here,

I got to admit that even the lowest recording setting on my DVD recorder
give better quality than aVHS deck, but I still prefer my VHS.

In article ,


MY recorders have an "EP" setting as well!

So there!(:-)

Those pictures must be really crap.


They are not great, but still watchable.

"Chris Howells" wrote in message
...
Max Demian wrote:
Wrong question. The length in minutes of NOT the deciding factor - look
at audio bitrate, video bitrate, CBR vs VBR, real-time vs non-real-time
encoding, domestic vs profession MPEG encoders, etc. There are many many
factors.

On the contrary. The user cares nothing about gigabytes and bitrates,
only how many hours on the disc and whether he has to get up from his
chair to change discs halfway through.

That they don't care may be the case; however your question of "how many
hours can you fit onto a DVD" is unanswerable. As has been pointed out it
depends on many factors. If you really wanted to you could quite possibly
fit tens or hundreds of hours on if you really wanted by encoding at a low
bitrate.

As a commercial example: Schindler's list (3hrs, B&W) was split onto two
disks. Lord of The Rings (~3hrs, colour) are on one disk.

It's up to the person producing the commericial DVD how they do it or what
quality the person with a DVD recorder uses.

I asked:
"How much do they put on commercial DVDs per disc? How long is a film before
they have to split it between two?"

IOW I was asking what they (commercial DVD producers) *do*, not what they
could do or the problems they might encounter deciding.

Of course if the question is unanswerable feel free not to answer it. ;-

--
Max Demian

"Ad C" wrote in message
k...
In article ,
says...

I wish people would learn to call them DVRs rather than PVRs. Much more
accurate. (A PVR is like a TiVo.)

I do not care what they are called, TIVO is dead in this country anyway
or will be in the next few years when all the TIVo machines have broken
down.

A DTT Digital Video Recorder is in no way *personal*.

--
Max Demian

Max Demian wrote:

I asked:
"How much do they put on commercial DVDs per disc? How long is a film before
they have to split it between two?"

As I already said you could probably put tens or hundreds of hours of
onto a DVD if you really wanted to encode at a ridiculously low bit rate.

IOW I was asking what they (commercial DVD producers) *do*, not what they
could do or the problems they might encounter deciding.

And I gave you two examples, one of Schindlers List and one of Lord of
The Rings. Both of similar length but one split and the other not.

In message , Max Demian
writes
"Ad C" wrote in message
. uk...
In article ,
says...

I wish people would learn to call them DVRs rather than PVRs. Much more
accurate. (A PVR is like a TiVo.)

I do not care what they are called, TIVO is dead in this country anyway
or will be in the next few years when all the TIVo machines have broken
down.

A DTT Digital Video Recorder is in no way *personal*.

True. But try convincing a marketing droid...
--
Tony Morgan
http://www.rhylonline.com