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The
Abridged Book
Chapter 6: Video and Audio RecordersIn this chapter I’ll discuss three ways to record video: the VCR, its more advanced alternative, the Digital Video Recorder (sometimes called a Personal Video Recorder, or PVR), and recordable DVD. Then I’ll run through the various ways to record audio only, such as cassette tape, MiniDisk, and recordable CD. Video RecordersFor more than 20 years the VCR has been a standard household appliance, almost as common at the TV itself. It served two main purposes: To record TV shows off the air and to play pre-recorded movies. DVD players are now rapidly taking over much of the playing role of VCRs, but, as DVD players don’t record, the VCR is still the way most people record shows. But in the last few years a new kind of Digital Video Recorder (DVR) has come to the market that now threatens to kill off the VCR for good. It can do a couple of things that the VCR can’t: Allow you to watch a show while it’s still being recorded, and automatically record shows you like (e.g., anything with Sean Connery in it). We’ll start with VCRs and then move to DVRs. About VCRs and VHS TapeVCR stands for “Video Cassette Recorder” and VHS stands for “Video Home System,” but everyone just calls them VCR and VHS. (There used to be another kind of tape called Beta, but it’s been gone for years.) VCRs started showing up in homes in the 1970s to record TV shows for later viewing. Then the videotape rental and sales market developed, prices came down, and things really took off. Today about 400 million homes have VCRs worldwide. As I pointed out in Chap. 2, VHS videotape delivers the worst resolution of any video source, only 240H lines of horizontal resolution, worse even than over-the-air TV. Yet, the players ($100) and tapes ($2) are cheap, most people seem to figure out how to record shows in spite of the confusing menus, and there are tens of thousands of titles to rent. No wonder VCRs are so popular! Very old or very cheap VCRs have very poor sound, so if you’re buying a new one make sure it’s a so-called “Hi-Fi” VCR, which you’ll need to play Dolby Surround/Pro Logic soundtracks. That’s the best you can do, as there’s no such thing as Dolby Digital on videotape, not even on Super-VHS, which I’ll talk about next. Super-VHS and Super-VHS ETSuper-VHS, with a resolution of 400H lines instead of VHS’s 240H, was introduced in the 1980s mainly for use in video cameras. Super-VHS VCRs have existed since then, but they were very expensive and as few people really needed higher resolution, few were sold. Today, though, Super-VHS VCRs have come way down in price (to around $200) and there’s a good reason why people now want them: to record digital satellite shows. Super-VHS tapes are more expensive than regular VHS, but since most people record over them many times, they’re very reasonable at around $6 each. There’s also a technology called Super-VHS ET that records at Super-VHS resolution on standard VHS tapes, although the quality varies greatly with the quality of the tape. If you do try Super-VHS ET, you’ll have to experiment a bit to see what tapes work best with your equipment. Many people never do find the right combination and consider Super-VHS ET worthless. Digital VHS (D-VHS)S-VHS is better than VHS, but better still is D-VHS, because it records digitally. In fact, right now it’s the only consumer device that can record or playback HD material. To record HDTV in its compressed format, a D-VHS recorder has to be connected to a DSS receiver with a D-VHS connector. A D-VHS recorder can also record and playback uncompressed HD video, assuming you have an appropriate source. As of Spring 2002, the movie industry and the deck makers have just agreed on a copy-protection scheme, and four studios have announced that they’re going to release movies on D-VHS using a system called D-Theater. These tapes are likely to be far fewer and much more expensive than DVDs, but the resolution will be much better. Other Tape FormatsThere are several other high-resolution tape formats, but they’re not practical for recording TV shows—they’re for use with video cameras: · Hi8, also capable of 400H lines. · MiniDV, a very high-resolution digital format. · Digital8, a way of recording DV on Hi8 tape (same quality as MiniDV).
VCR Buying AdviceAbout Digital Video Recorders (DVRs)Types of DVRs and Buying AdviceRecording Video onto DiscRecording from Pre-Recorded DVDs and Video TapesVideo Recorder SummaryAudio RecordersCassette Tape RecordersMiniDisc Recorders and PlayersMP3 Recorders and PlayersCD RecordersCopy-Protected CDs  |
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