Dave said:
VCRs never mangle tapes? Someone records over what you wanted to keep? You
can't find the tape something you want is on?
Of course with good housekeeping those can be minimised - but a PVR does
all that for you.
PVRs have been established in the US market longer than the UK, but the
majority of those (TiVo, ReplayTV) are seen as devices that only premium
enthusiasts get via subscription on top of another subscription service
like cable or satellite. So general public awareness, acceptance and
casual use for non-subscription sources is probably not that great.
Badly coded software in PVRs is famous for lost recordings, especially
when the hard drive is full and the unit starts it's own housekeeping,
auto removing old recordings. I can imagine that soon the US is going to
be flooded with cheap chinese PVR boxes that do this, and also suffer
heat, excessive fan noise and hard drive failure consistently.
And then there is finger trouble - never yet seen a PVR with separate
login accounts for different users, that would stop, say, little johnny
from erasing (or watching) "basic instinct" that daddy recorded for late
night.
Loads of ordinary folk manage quite well with VCRs and tape
housekeeping, the media is tangible i.e. you can hold it in your hand,
share it with friends or other TV/VCRs in the home, and store locked up
for posterity.
But using VCRs with Digiboxes is a mess.
The problem comes with digiboxes having to be installed just for the
VCR, and arranging *at worst* two sets of timer instructions for the VCR
and the digibox.
In UK/Europe, we have the advantage of pins in the SCART connection
which (sometimes - law of sod permitting) allows the remote start/stop
of the VCR to record programs using settings in the digibox EPG. The
alternative, which I've never seen on digiboxes (though it is used on
other items), but could work universally is to have the digibox emit
infrared commands to control the VCR.
Trying to explain VCR recording from digital for (mostly elderly) folk
who had grown used to setting only one timer (a procedure some find a
struggle with long-sighted glasses, reading glasses, a remote control
with a zillion small buttons, and a horrible on-screen entry method
that times out on inactivity) will mean people getting encumbered with
having to learn another item of new world digital nonsense with similar
usability faults (and multiple remote controls - now three). That is
*if* they actually manage timer recording, and instead sit in with the
TV and press record at the right moment.
PVR - oh no. That's a toy for geeks, technical init? It is going to take
a lot for folk to change ideas. It is the right solution for digital
recording - however it's attitudes to change...
