Wetlook World Forum

1) Picture quality is only as good as the tv station that is broadcasting it.....and so a DVR or Tivo works well only with the major networks who broadcast at full digital quality bit rates (which I am told is a transmission of around 16 megabits....compared to most DVDs that are rendered at 5 megabits). However...only the major networks broadcast at the highest quality. Many satellite tv and numerous foreign channels on digital cable are only broadcasting at piss poor low bit rates....e.g. watching the Greek tv channels on my dish is no better than watching a windows media player stream on a website...the quality is lousy and all pixelated whenever there is a lot of movement on the screen. Numerous low bandwidth channels now broadcast on digital cable and on satellite...when when their transmissions are poor and they broadcast using low bit rates...it makes no difference whether you record them on a DVR or an old VHS vcr....a bad transmission is a bad transmission.

2) I disagree that "ease of upload to the net" is aided by having a DVR.....I have several of them and no DVR makes it any easier for you to create clips for uploading to the net......i.e. no DVR I know...automatically creates wmv files or mpegs or avis...and has an internal FTP program where you can upload to the net from a DVR. The process for making video clips is no different with a DVR than if you use a VCR....i.e. you still have to attach your DVR or VCR to a computer/capture card...and then capture to your pc with editing software, edit the clip, and then use an FTP program to upload the clip to the net. So DVRs do not make it any easier to make clips for the net....they just make nicer looking clips....cos with an analog VCR you can always get tracking lines or jumpy tape or a jittery picture...and with a DVR the imagery is flawless and is not prone to defects that VHS tape is prone to.

As somebody who edits media every day on the pc....and also has several DVRs too....I can tell you that trying to "edit" clips on a DVR is incredibly cumbersome and tedious....it is a lot easier to just dump your footage from the dvr to the pc and edit on the pc using pc software. Forget about the internal DVR features that claim you can edit on the DVR....those features are as clunky as trying to edit your footage on the editing features of a camcorder.

Yikes....you have a 19 year old VCR.....holey moley. I have never had a VCR in my life that lasted me longer than 19 MONTHS...ha ha...I wear them out at about the same rate most kids wear out a pair of sneakers.

I will say this though...as somebody who is incredibily rough on VCRS and has them running 24/7 every day.....the new DVD recorders are really a worthwhile investment.....cos any VCR I get...it never lasts me more than 6 months before I have worn it out and toss it in the trash can....but I have bought more than a dozen DVD recorders in the last 3 years...and even my oldest 3 year old DVD recorder still functions perfectly....so DVD recorders are great....they don't wear out and get tracking problems and eat your tape...as VHS VCRs do.

MK