VCRs that will last forever

[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