VCRs that will last forever

[ChrisW6ATV]

Originally Posted by jhalphen

Hello again,

I have a question for you, the AK recording community:

In my philosophy of remaining faithful to tape, deeming DVD burning not reliable for long-term storage, i've kept a close watch on the US HD recorder scene.

The machine pictured in the photographs, a JVC HM-DH30000U appears quite frequently in Germany, don't know why (Mil PX sourced?)

Anyway, it can record off-air USA HDTV. Has anyone worked on the idea of making a switchable input switch modification say "Tuner & Aux" where "Aux" could record any HD source.

HDMI would have to be foiled, much like MacroVision in its day, anyone working to solve this?

I know you can time-shift off-air HD to a hard disk recorder or maybe to the just-appearing Blu-Ray recorders (Panasonic) but this is no solution for long term storage.

Additional problem could be that USA HD is 1080i/60 or 720p/60 whereas in Europe we use 1080i/50 or 720p/50. The recorder may not be able to cope with the 50/60 frames issue, which brings us right back to the problem of USA/Europe TV exchanges from the very beginning!

Thanks! for any comment, suggestions, etc.

Best Regards

jhalphen

jhalphen-

The JVC HM-DH30000U (and the next model 40000U, commonly called the "30K" and "40K" here) cannot directly record HDTV signals. Rather, they both have analog TV tuners built-in, and component-video HD outputs built-in. For HDTV recording, they have IEEE1394 (also called "FireWire" and maybe "I-link", I think) connections. These recorders can be used with a few set-top USA (ATSC) HDTV tuners that have the matching IEEE1394 data connection. There are also some HDTV sets that have the '1394 connectors. The tuner or TV set can often also control the JVC VCR from its own remote control.

I do not have a long-term storage solution for my HDTV recordings, but the ones I have on hard disk drives from 2000-2001 are still good.