thecirsch

Here's my the problem,

My video is playing up, I suspect the head has gone as I have continual 'interference' across the screen when I play anything recorded from the TV, although the sound is fine. When I play pre-recorded stuff there is no problem and every thing is fine. Does this sound like a problem with the head??

The player itself is a Sony and is nearly 6 years old. Therefore I don't think that is cost effective to spend money getting it repaired.

In light of the above, is it worth spending money on a new VCR, or should I spend a little extra on a recordable DVD player. Are they any good or should I leave well alone for the time being. I don't record that much stuff, the usual, Top Gear, 5th Gear, rallying, GP's etc...

All your views, good, bad, indifferent will be gladly received, as will any recommendations regarding any kit.

Cheers,

Ed

south-star

Buy the cheapest VCR you can get.New or used.

andys

How about a tivo or Sky +? I have had sky+ for over a year now and can not fault it.

Scooby Dooby Blue

You can pick up a new VCR in the supermarkets for under £40.

Paul

mwp

the interference could be another device. have you tried turning off DVD, or SKY when you record ?

I get shadowing on DVD from SKY - turn it off and we're fine.

thecirsch

Can't be SKY/DVD as I'm one of those dying breed who has only got 5 TV channels and a (broken) VCR. Don't have enough time to watch anything else!!

Thanks for the suggestion though,

Ed

Dracoro

You can get a decent 6head stereo vhs brand new from Richer sounds etc for £100 or even less.

As far as I'm aware the DVD copiers haven't even properly decided on the 'correct' format, so if you're only recording for yourself then OK but if you wanna lend a copied DVD to someone else, they'll need a compatible player. It'll all sort itself out ove the years though but may as well have a VHS until that time as you'll only record terrestrial TV, you'll be recording non digital stuff so what's the point of DVD? you won't benefit as far as I can see.

Dracoro

Actually before anything else.....

...get a video head cleaner, that's maybe all you need to do. they're only a few quid and may save you a loada cash.

what would scooby do

also buy a supervhs video and some tapes (more expensive than normal ones)

Quality of recordings is mucho better

thecirsch

Dracoro,

Thanks for the suggestions, that didn't dawn on me about recording off digital TV. As for a head cleaner, I've tried one but without success.

Cheers,

Ed

IWatkins

Ed,

If you are thinking of going digital as well, get it all in one box with the Pace Twin. Has two tuners (record while watching another channle) and records to hard disk with no loss of quality. Had mine for a few months and I think it is great. It does have some software issues which are to be resolved with an over-the-air download at the end of May but otherwise perfect.

See: http://www.pacefreetoview.co.uk/02twin.asp

Cheers

Ian

MarkO

We're about to ditch our rented VCR, and yesterday I was looking for ideas of how best to replace it.

Because we don't get digital up here (and are unlikely to get it in the near future ) a Pace Twin is no good, and we don't want Sky (therefore Sky+ is no good).

I've now decided we're probably going to buy a Thomson DTH7000. We don't have a DVD player yet, so it's ideal 'cos it's a combined DVD player and 40Gb HDD-based recorder.

It gets program schedule info from Teletext, and can also be used as an MP3 jukebox. You can even load JPEGs onto the HDD and use it to view them (handy for us, as all our photos are on CD). It seems ideal for us. You can get it for £399 from Argos.

Couple of reviews of it here and here.

MarkO

Oh, and BTW - if you can play pre-recorded stuff fine, but can't watch stuff recorded off TV, perhaps your tuner's died - that's what happened to our older video. Can you test it by recording from another source (e.g., digital or the composite input like a camcorder or something)?

Because just the tuner's gone on our older video, we'll keep it and combine it with the Thomson unit, meaning that whilst we won't be able to record direct from TV, we'll be able to record/play stuff on the video from other sources, so can archive stuff off the Thomson onto tape if we want to keep it.