I was at Fry's last night, and saw a pallet of Sony DVD player-VHS VCR units on sale for $89... I immediately thought WOW! I can get this and use it also as a digital converter box, since being that it's illegal to sell anything new for NTSC, it MUST be ATSC. But to my surprise, these ARE NTSC machines, but have had the tuners removed or disabled to allow them to be sold. The "CHANNEL/TRACKING" + & - buttons are screen-printed out to show only "TRACKING". There's a big label on the box that says "THIS UNIT MUST BE CONNECTED TO AN EXTERNAL SOURCE, SUCH AS A DVD PLAYER OR A CATV BOX IN ORDER TO RECORD TV PROGRAMS".

STRANGE! I didn't buy one, but I bet they'll be a collectors item.

Charles

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I've seen quite a few Funai built units like that. The ones I saw didn't even have a built in RF modulator. I think I've seen some combo VCR/DVD units with built in ATSC tuners; but, they cost a lot more than $89.

Where I work we were selling two models of Sony DVD recorders last summer. One had the ATSC tuner built in and the other had no tuner at all. Sony offered both models since the one with the tuner was about $50 more then the one without. This gave customers with cable or satellite boxes an option.

Makes total sense since the OTA analog tuner is totally useless for a majority of people. Over here there is some crazy reason that they still put analog tuners into flat panel tvs for sale - but since sky have about 50% penetration into houses with satillite most people just plug in the RCA cables (or hdmi if they have the HD one) and leave it at that.

infact I find it very annoying that a bump to the number buttons on the TV remote will switch to the useless tuner and a screen of static. The samsung allows all the other inputs to be disabled except the analog tuner from the input button cycling thru it. Same as my home theater wont let me disable the disused AM/FM tuner in it.

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It still makes sense to have NTSC tuners for analog cable. Most cable systems still have 50-75 analog channels.

That's the way it is here. Channels 2-68 and channel 95 (TV Guide channel) are analog. Channels 100 and up are digital and require a subscription to digital cable and a digital cable box to receive them. I hope the analog channels stay on cable for a long time. I think the cable companies would lose too much business if they dropped analog cable and forced everyone to go with the higher priced digital cable. I know I'd be one to leave.

I know I'd be one to leave.

But where would you go?

I'd like to leave now, but my wife won't let me.

That's the way it is here. Channels 2-68 and channel 95 (TV Guide channel) are analog. Channels 100 and up are digital and require a subscription to digital cable and a digital cable box to receive them. I hope the analog channels stay on cable for a long time. I think the cable companies would lose too much business if they dropped analog cable and forced everyone to go with the higher priced digital cable. I know I'd be one to leave.

How can your cable system carry analog channels, when full-power TV stations aren't allowed to broadcast analog NTSC signals any longer? The cable service in my area near Cleveland is fully digital (all Time-Warner cable systems in northeastern Ohio and northwestern Pennsylvania were converted to 100-percent digital some time ago, well before the transition) and I can get every broadcast station it carries (I have the lowest level of cable service Time-Warner offers, which is what I call "bare bones basic"--local channels only). I do not use a digital cable box and don't have digital cable.

I was at Fry's last night, and saw a pallet of Sony DVD player-VHS VCR units on sale for $89... I immediately thought WOW! I can get this and use it also as a digital converter box, since being that it's illegal to sell anything new for NTSC, it MUST be ATSC. But to my surprise, these ARE NTSC machines, but have had the tuners removed or disabled to allow them to be sold. The "CHANNEL/TRACKING" + & - buttons are screen-printed out to show only "TRACKING". There's a big label on the box that says "THIS UNIT MUST BE CONNECTED TO AN EXTERNAL SOURCE, SUCH AS A DVD PLAYER OR A CATV BOX IN ORDER TO RECORD TV PROGRAMS".

STRANGE! I didn't buy one, but I bet they'll be a collectors item.

Charles

I'll be on the lookout at Big Lots for a cheap DVD/VCR player (I know they have them, as I have seen these players selling for $30 or less), as my Panasonic PV-4022 VCR is several years old. It works well at the moment, but I don't know how much longer it will last. I will not have it repaired when it goes. I will be looking for a DVD/VCR player only, without a tuner, as I am not finding much of anything worth taping on TV (other than time-shifting the evening news every now 'n then) these days. I have Time-Warner's lowest level of cable service, local channels only, and the programming on the big 4 networks (not to mention The CW and MyTV, but not including PBS, which is still top-drawer in my book) is, as we used to say in the seventies when I was growing up, from hunger--meaning it is not that good anymore, IMHO. I do have a rack in my bedroom full of VHS videos, however, of shows I taped 25 years ago (believe it or not, the tapes still play and look as good as the day I taped the shows on them) and several professionally made ones that I'd like to watch every once in a while, which is why I've kept my Panny VCR as long as I have--and will keep it as long as it works for playback. The last show I taped with it was a local TV station's last hours of NTSC analog broadcasting, before the digital transition.

Cable systems do carry analog even when they are 100% digital. Cable systems DO NOT have to drop analog due to the DTV conversion. If a system is 100% digital it means if you have digital box or use a cable card you are watching only digital. Most systems still have a limited amount of channels still available in analog including all broadcast stations and possibly popular basic cable channels. As far as I know there are not any Time Warner Systems that do not carry some analog.

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WHAT?! it's illegal to sell new VCRs with a tuner? now that's just... I can't think of a word to describe that.

But instead of just disabling the NTSC tuner, why not just build a digital tuner into them?

And what the hell to do if you have cable?!

We don't have all these problems in Hong Kong yet, as both digital and analog broadcasts are being done side-by-side, with (as yet) no announced plans to end the analog.

But I did get a visit the other day from a technician representing the service provider for my internet and broadband TV service(s). He explained that they were checking the existing decoder boxes, as a step to upgrading them all to full high-def units. He proceeded to do that, and then explained that my monthly fee for the internet service would be reduced, but the new minimum package fee for the broadband TV service would be increased. The net total is an increase in fees, to add on a bunch of channels which I may not think are worth it. After some back-and-forth, I found out I can leave my set-up as it is, and actually don't HAVE TO upgrade. Nice to know, since I don't have high-def gear, anyway.

Not sure yet what I want to do, but I really did NOT like being almost-railroaded into paying higher fees, even if it would add more channels. The way it was done, it seemed like they were automatically upgrading everyone, but actually it amounts to "force-selling" everyone a more expensive plan. The cost-per-channel here, while not all that much in absolute terms, is outrageously expensive compared to the cost in the US, where people get HUGE numbers of channels included in their flat fees. [I remember when my sister had something like 40 times the number of channel choices that I have, and most of them were, IMO, better choices.]

They've done a number of things like that lately. The German Deutsche Welle channel has been free for years, and was one major reason why I subscribed in the first place. Starting next month, that one single channel (after its "relaunch") will be eight bucks a month! I want to watch American Football, but to do so, I have to subscribe to a complete 5-channel sports "package" for a minimum of something like 18 months or two years, which makes it not worth it. I'd have to pay to get tons of soccer-football, badminton, snooker, etc... that I have no interest in, just to be able to watch Monday Night Football.

Just no good "value for money", at least in my perception, available here. The channels are available, but the cost is too much for what you get, and on principle I don't want to encourage them to engage in that pricing, so I don't pay it. It's my way of voting for what the market WON'T bear, and it's one part of the reason why I mostly like to listen to music. Once I've bought an LP or CD, I can play it as many times as I like without ever paying again (except for the electricity consumed). Now THAT is value-for-money! :yes: :D

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It's illegal to sell anything with an NTSC tuner if there's no ATSC tuner as well. Rather than adding an ATSC tuner, they just removed the NTSC tuner to cut costs. They clearly aren't following the intent of the law (for all TVs and VCRs to have ATSC tuners), but there's nothing in the law about selling things with no tuner. There are more expensive models with both ATSC and NTSC tuners.

Tivo got around the law by removing support for over the air from their NTSC only boxes.

I don't know what all the fuss is about. Who records TV programs on VHS anymore, anyway? Probably very few, if any. Today most viewers will record shows directly to DVD, with a DVD recorder, or use a combo DVD/VHS recorder and transfer their old VHS tapes to disc. (I'd have done the latter months ago, but my collection of VHS tapes is so large it would take me weeks or months to transfer them all, as I wouldn't do it all in one day.)

I can understand the value of a VCR with tuner if you have what Time-Warner calls expanded basic cable, which is basic plus all stations up to channel 69 or, in some cases, 74-99, or digital cable. If you have basic cable (local channels only), however, there is so little worth taping from the big four networks (not to mention MyTV and The CW), IMHO, that the record function of most VCRs will go unused (at least it does on my Panny PV-4022). As I stated in another post, until my VCR finally goes belly-up (meaning it doesn't work any longer, period, no record or playback--I intend to keep it as long as it will play recorded cassettes and really don't care about recording anymore, for the reasons I just stated) I will get a playback-only VHS/DVD deck. Big Lots now has these players for $40 or less; I bought a Memorex DVD player there for $40 last fall, which replaced a CyberHome DVD I had had for three years (which, BTW, seemed to me to be much more solidly built than the Memorex); then it quit.

How long the Memorex player may or may not last, however, is anyone's guess, as I read in another TV/video forum (not AK) that there is a capacitor in Memorex DVDs (which, BTW, are made by Changhong Electronics of China [!] and not Orion, as I had originally thought) that may and likely will swell and split open, rendering the player useless, within nine months of initial purchase. I purchased my player last September. Today, eight months later, the player still works as well as it did when it was new. Maybe I got lucky and got a one-in-a-thousand unit with a good cap.

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