Risley Ramblings

As a self described techie, I enjoy getting new gadgets. As my current VCR started to fail I decided it was time to research the standard offerings of digital recording. (I of course opened it up and tried to fix it first). One option was to get a DVR such as Tivo and pay the monthly service fee. The other was to have Cox cable give me a box for also another monthly amount. Both have their merits, but the more I studied my future purchase, the more I wondered if it was all worth it given I only record a couple shows a week. Tivo after rebates gets you the device for about $50 plus you need a 1-year contract at about 12 bucks a month. Cox's DVR was about the same. Or a generic one could be bought for a couple hundred without a service. And I didn't feel like building my own out of a PC.

That's when I decided to go with my best, current option of another cheap VCR. With "VCR Commander" with my digital cable box, I just tell it the show I want to record and it controls the VCR. That's pretty much what a Tivo does. Plus for exporting, I already have a TV capture card on my PC that I can use for that and I still needed something to play older tapes so I can convert them to DVD's (someday). So for about the cost of 3 months of fees of a DVR I went with the old standby of the venerable VCR. I'm a little sad, but just couldn't bring myself to pay that much for recording to a hard disk vs a tape. Long live the VCR.