Are you switching to Digital soon, and want to Kill 2 birds with 1 stone Technology Wise?
Video Tapes are Old Technology. They soon build up or Gather dust and Its getting more difficult to Find a Video recorder The makers have switched production to Making Video players for about £25 DVD players are about the Same Price too But, You have to fork out anything from £75 to a few hundred pounds for a DVD recorder Which OK it's a Burner (uses a Hard drive for storage) But on the CON Side It can be Fiddly to use, Generates disks of little/limited Use (Scrap?) and Will become little used over time ... a white Elephant
And It'll only record YouTube type clips [with a lot of Difficulty!!)
What I Found Is Ok a Bit expensive on the Initial outlay, but does its Job efficiently and is Easily recyclable Or upgradable with a few minutes work. Surely there's an award for a Green Electronic Device Design (Note just 15 watts power Consumption:) )
What I'm talking about is a PVR (Personal Video Receiver) Has other names
Like the DVD recorder It has the Same Hard drives anything from 80 to 320 Gb...The same drive as in your Computer (suspect IDE type) and They are good quality drives Hitachi, Western Digital and So on. So the longevity is not an issue. The Size to go for is the 160 GB Price is around the £100 mark and you'll get 80 Hours viewing time Be aware that there are some Units been Marked down. Maplins Have a 250 GB Reciever @ just £99.99 Down from £150 (code A63HK) Is On a 28 day back order! The demand is very high Price goes up in February)
I also saw Bare bone Units (No HOD) being sold at about £60 worth investigating Can Use an Old drive (Preferably 80 Gb or better) OH Clean forgot they also are Freeview Receivers I Understand they are easy to record basically a case on pointing at the Programme on The EPG and Press "Record" and it has 2 tuners 1 to record and the other to watch a Program on the TV and the Record timer feature is a straight forward on-screen menu (remote control is very basic...Good feature)
If that's all there is to it. I'm Getting one ASAP and the VCR is relegated to an occasional Video player
PS Should It go Pop on the Electronics side, the HDD is easily removable and Can be used almost universally elsewhere