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Originally Posted by THOR
True if you have a library of old tapes but a DVD player can be had for like $50 now and DVD's cost the same as VHS so most people will be making the switch. I still have my VCR in the loop  I was just jerking your chain  |
I also have a Panasonic Omnivision VHS VCR in my entertainment system. Bought it new about three years ago, a replacement for a Panasonic Omni which ate one of my cassettes just hours after I had finished recording the tape. Hated to lose that first Pana, since it had VCR Plus+ and worked really well until the cassette jammed. (I had to practically wreck the machine to get the cassette out; even then I had to break the tape as well
). I kept the remote, though; it works with my current Panasonic VCR just fine. I have no intention of giving up my VCR as I have a large library of VHS cassettes, mostly old movies and '70s-'80s TV series, and I do tape shows every now and then (mostly time shifting). But my DVD player gets more use these days than the VCR. Some day I might look into a DVD recorder so I can transfer my VHS tapes to DVD, but for the time being, as long as my current VCR works as well as it does, I'll keep it around.
Panasonic claims on its web site that its VCRs are built to last; as little as I use mine since getting the DVD player a year and a half ago, I don't anticipate any problems for quite a while. I bought a Panasonic-built GE VCR, my first VCR, in 1984 that lasted six years before the heads wore out, an Emerson VCR after that which lasted several years, and a Magnavox VCR which lasted five years before the heads gave up in it too. The first Panasonic followed, which lasted two(!) years, replaced by my present Pana VCR. Assuming the machines are still available several years from now, I will likely replace that VCR with a VHS/DVD dual deck when the time comes. I would think, since VHS will definitely be a dead format when digital TV becomes standard in a little more than three years, these DVD recorders will be very popular and as inexpensive as VCRs are today.
BTW, I don't think DVDs are quite as cheap as VHS cassettes yet; at least they aren't at the stores I frequent. I can get RCA and other brands of blank VHS tapes at Big Lots for 98 cents apiece; I haven't yet seen blank (recordable) DVDs that cheap anywhere. I can get CD-Rs designed for data storage at dirt-cheap prices as well (I bought a spindle of 30 Imation CD-Rs at Big Lots last year for something like $3.99), but I wouldn't try to record video on them. I am not really sure what the difference is, if any, between CD-Rs designed for data storage and disks meant for video recording, although I have successfully transferred still images (jpeg) to CD-R from my computer's hard disk.