VCR / DVD Recorder Combinations

[osprey]

May I please ask your opinions on which would be the best to buy? I have spent a while trawling through many different sites but would value Answerbankers' opinions before parting with around �200. I am looking for ease of use and reliability.

[Ethel]

I wouldn't bother buying one at all UNLESS I didn't have a video cassette player.

I bought a dvd recorder a few years ago, transferred all my video tapes to DVDand haven't played a video tape since

[osprey]

Ethel - my VCR packed up on Christmas eve and I have a massive amount of stuff on video that I want to transfer to DVD and do not want to buy another VCR.

[Ethel]

I would buy this one - good make, and digital recording too

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumb er/5337015/c_1/1|category_root|Home+entertainm ent+and+sat+nav|10199181/c_2/2|cat_10199181|DV D%2C+Blu-ray+and+video|10199337/c_3/3|cat_1019 9337|DVD+and+VCR+combi+recorders|10199355.htm

[stompe]

will it copy pre recorded tapes i thought they were protected by DRM encoding Ethel?

[Ethel]

osprey hasn't mentioned pre-recorded tapes, Stompe.

[4getmenot]

for �200.00 you could probably buy those videos on dvd, unless they are home videos

[stompe]

So your right Ethel! sorry

[Naomicorlett]

We have a phillips DVD630VR been very pleased with it

[osprey]

Ethel and stompe - thanks for the info. The stuff I have on video is what I have recorded myself as well as pre-recorded. Does that make a difference if I want to transfer it to DVD? I also have a Freeview box with a hard-drive with lots of stuff on it which I used to transfer to VCR. Will I still be able to transfer what is still on it to any new machine? Sorry if this is dragging on longer than I intended it to but any help / advice you can offer will be extremely welcome.

[Ethel]

Osprey - some pre-recorded video tapes have copy protection which means they won't record - you'll just get a black screen. However, not all videos have this but the big name films released to video from the mid 1990s usually do.

You can buy a gadget that by passes the macro protection but whether this works with all video tapes I don't know - the different companies use different protection.

There will be no problem downloading from your hard drive to the new machine.

Please remember if you want to stay within the law whilst copying commercial videos, you must not sell or give away the copies you make, nor keep the copies and sell or give away the original videos.

[Blackthorn]

I rigged up a way of recording videos to DVD and it worked well enough, although the results were sometimes rather 'grainy.' The method I used would sometimes get around macro protection, but not every time.
However, over the course of a couple of years I have managed to find nearly all the stuff I had copied on DVD anyway, all nicely restored and remastered, and at no great expense, so in the end the whole exercise was pointless and no-one lost out from my 'pirating.' You can buy a lot of DVD's for �200.

[Giggsie]

http://www.empiredirect.co.uk/content/products /details/?modelcode=TOS-RDXV48DT