Venting on a DVD recorder purchase

[Geoff Bourquin]

New VCRs are CRAP!

I have not seen anything from the last 5 years that I would let in my house. I have people bringing them to me for repair when they are only 6 months old. I refuse to work on them. The only guarantee I can give is that they aren't going to work well. Nobody is willing to spend more than about $40.00 to fix them, because the combo machines are well under $100.00 now. It just isn't worth it to me to even try. I advise people to dig out their 20 year old machine and bring it it. If I can get the parts, they're usually worth fixing and they'll last. The problem is that the parts are getting hard to find. It is clear that the industry wants to stop making VCRs, whether the public wants that or not.

Am I ranting yet?

I have compaired the picture quality of my JVC VCR in 6 hour speed against my (I can't remember the brand!) DVD recorder in 6 hour mode. The VCR is better, NO QUESTION ABOUT IT. The compression to make 6 hours fit on a disk drives me crazy. 2 HR. speed is OK, about the same as my VHS.

OK, now I know I'm ranting, because I'm not sure where I'm going with this. But the new VCRs are almost useless.