I keep hearing about people back home DVRing everything. But it seems that the DVR market in Japan is really limited. What I wonder is in 2011 when everything switches to digital, everyone's VCR will become obsolete, so what is going to replace the good old VCR. I've noticed that a couple of the HDTV's have a built in hard disk, but not all. Also it seems that whatever they come up with it won't be as user friendly as a video tape was. I was thinking perhaps SD cards, but they might not have the capacity to handle a HDTV movie etc.

I am still on analogue and have a VCR that I never use since I lashed out and got cable (over fibre) tv.

However, my brother uses his HDTV disk as kinda like a TiVO - eg he sets it to tape his fave show that comes on once a week - some documentary series that he loves. It just "tapes" the shows automatically and stores them on a disk. Then he can watch it at his leisure when he is up nights feeding the baby.

I think you might have missed the boat here in Japan. I'm sure one of you smart bastards will correct me, if in the quite likely possibility that I'm wrong, but can't you already digitally record programs here? Tsutaya already offers digital d/loads I think. I'm planning to skip the whole Bluray thing and go straight to direct d/load of hi-def content when I get a telly capable of playing it in all its glory.

Mock Cockpit wrote:I think you might have missed the boat here in Japan. I'm sure one of you smart bastards will correct me, if in the quite likely possibility that I'm wrong, but can't you already digitally record programs here? Tsutaya already offers digital d/loads I think. I'm planning to skip the whole Bluray thing and go straight to direct d/load of hi-def content when I get a telly capable of playing it in all its glory.

No, that's not what they're talking about, the subject is DVRs like the TiVo. They record off-air or from cable/sat/etc. and instead of recording to tape, they record to disk.
I can almost assure you there won't be any new VCRs for the new digital tuners. Most video rental stores have dropped their tape sections, only offering rentals on DVDs. The VCR is basically dead. If you want a new video recorder, it will be digital.
Now some DVR systems (like TiVo here in the US) also allow digital downloads. But that is more of a hybrid system. The DVRs are still primarily intended for recording incoming TV shows off the air/cable/sat.

canman wrote:I keep hearing about people back home DVRing everything. But it seems that the DVR market in Japan is really limited..

They've been around for awhile. I bought the Sharp DV-HRW30 about 4 years ago. (I did not pay the price listed)



It's a nice little deck with BS Tuner, VCR, DVD burner, and HDD that can 'manage a trua' amongst themselves. Remote sucks and HDD is small, but it was a perfect bridge to the next level at the time.

I'm not sure what's next. I'd say the Blue Ray recorders are the way to go..

GJ

Yeah, I bought a Sony TiVo SVR-2000 back in 2000. It's an original Series 1 TiVo, incompatible with the new cool network features. Ooh I wish I'd have bought the lifetime subscription, that would have really paid off, but I never figured it would last this long. Actually, it didn't quite make it, the modem blew out (a notorious weak spot of this unit) so I bought a $20 aftermarket ethernet board to put it on the internet, it works like a charm.



I should have upgraded to the Sony SVR-3000 (series 2) model before Sony stopped making TiVos. I spoke to one of the TiVo engineers, he said that TiVo doesn't make any money at all on hardware, they let the companies like Sony make all the profit they want, they just make money on the subscription fee. It's hard to guess why Sony couldn't make a profit making TiVos.
Anyway, the best part of the Sony is the remote. TiVo is legendary for their extremely well designed remote, but I think the Sony TiVo remote is even better than that. Oh I'll hate to give it up, when I eventually upgrade to an HD TiVo.

Depending on how you get your TV and how technical you are, there are always computer based solutions using TV tuner cards and software like mythTV or eyetv for macs, although the issue with these items is usually the quality and or lack of TV listings data so it may be less functional than tivo like products were you just tell it record program X and it will figure out when and what channel it is on.

On the low tech/non PC end of the market, there are things like the Neuros MPG4 Recorder which actually records to memory sticks, CF or SD cards...it even has a timer function for recording, although you would have to have the source already tuned to the right channel. Its not perfect but at the higher quality levels, it does a resonably good job on image quality (max rez is 640x480)...the User interface is pretty clunky and takes some getting used but after the first frustrating 5 minutes, you figure it out

http://www.coolsmartphone.com/article675.html

Does that only work with new TV's? I have a scary old TV but it works great with large screen so no plans to replace it until it dies.

I must admit that I really haven't kept up with all these new fangled TV's and accessories since we got the cable installed.

GomiGirl wrote:Does that only work with new TV's? I have a scary old TV but it works great with large screen so no plans to replace it until it dies.

I must admit that I really haven't kept up with all these new fangled TV's and accessories since we got the cable installed.

Since the tuner and virtually all the features are resident in the HDD Recorder, your TV itself can be prehistoric! Just how old is yours? Here are some examples of what happens when you connect to different types of TVs:

OLD: As long as you have a wide screen (16:9) and the TV is hi-vision capable (1080 lines of resolution), you will have as good an image and all the same features as somebody with a brand new TV. I'm in this boat. My TV itself has no features worth mentioning, no BS tuner, and no local digital tuner. But upon hookup to my cable box / HDD recorder, I can watch everything in full hi-vision.

ANCIENT: If your TV is wide screen (16:9) but not hi-vision capable (only 480 lines of resolution), then you're still not in bad shape. The box will down-convert to 480 lines. It's not quite as beautiful as hivision, but not terrible since at least the signal's coming from a digital broadcast.

PREHISTORIC: If your TV is not even wide (it's 4:3), then you're still OK. The box will take widescreen broadcasts and letterbox them (you'll see black bands above and below the image since your screen is not the same shape as the TV show!)

So yes, you can use these with whatever kind of TV you have. Note that to get it to work properly, you'll need to use the configuration menus on the HDD recorder to indicate the type of TV you've connected. Otherwise it may output the wrong kind of signal (for example, widescreen images going to 4:3 TVs without letterboxing are not fun to watch.. people are stretched vertically).

My current DVD player can also use USB memmory sticks and Sd cards along with DVD. The cool thing about the usb stick is that it allows one to play DIVX movies which are much smaller to download than a full DVD or ISO image.

The DVD player was 2,500 Yen NEW on Yahoo auctions.

I own a vile Sony DVR called the CoCoon.
I brought it because the specs were great....It has a huge HDD. It plays anything, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-ROM, CDVD, etc. and it records in most formats.

BUT, the piece of crap takes 40 seconds to boot up so it is impossible to quickly record something weird that I happen to spot on TV.
What is worse is that the menus are 8 to 13 layers deep to get at the functions I want and its overall usability is nearly zero.
[color="Red"]
WARNING:[/color] Before you buy any DVR, be sure you personally use the remote control with own hands (not the salesman's demo) and that you find its user interface usable.

Taro Toporific wrote:..

Totally agree. We have these at work, except they're first generation.. DO NOT BUY!

GJ

As I have an older telly I found this link handy; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-Terminal My TV supports D3 so I'll probably be able to get a fairly decent picture out of it.

Taro Toporific wrote:I own a vile Sony DVR called the CoCoon.
I brought it because the specs were great....It has a huge HDD. It plays anything, DVD-R, DVD-RAM, DVD-ROM, CDVD, etc. and it records in most formats.

BUT, the piece of crap takes 40 seconds to boot up so it is impossible to quickly record something weird that I happen to spot on TV.
What is worse is that the menus are 8 to 13 layers deep to get at the functions I want and its overall usability is nearly zero.
[color="Red"]
WARNING:[/color] Before you buy any DVR, be sure you personally use the remote control with own hands (not the salesman's demo) and that you find its user interface usable.

What I have:

It records TV programs (in analog), plays DVDs, and also can play PS2 games. I need to upgrade to a BluRay (or whatever else format they will have) player with Digital HDD tuner when they stop transmitting analog broadcast in 2011.

IkemenTommy wrote:It records TV programs (in analog), plays DVDs, and also can play PS2 games. I need to upgrade to a BluRay (or whatever else format they will have) player with Digital HDD tuner when they stop transmitting analog broadcast in 2011.

The hard drive will likely fail before that...if its earlier PSX model, then the drive would be around 8 years old and if its a newer one (with the super fancy 5 times slower than real time PSP file format encoding feature) it would be around 6 years old by 2001 and hard drives in PVRs generally get worked pretty hard....Are hard drives in the PSX replaceable?...I've only seen them on display and I've never got a close look all around one of them.