Don't even consider buying a VCR.

The hard-disk TV recorders (TiVo, RePlay) are so totally, overwhelmingly superior to a VCR in every respect that a VCR shouldn't even be on your list of last-resort options.

I'd agree with you completely, except for 2 things:

1. Recording quality on both ReplayTV and TiVo is pretty terrible unless you use the highest quality mode; and even then, there are obvious visual artifacts which simply don't exist on an SVHS VCR (which can generally be had now for under $200). These artifacts are even worse if you're recording off DSS - source -> MPEG/2 VBR -> S-Video -> MPEG/2 CBR. Of course, the DirectTV/TiVo (or UltimateTV, if you're into that sort of thing ;) solves the latter nicely by just recording the digital stream.

2. You can't easily archive things for long-term future use, unless you either add drive space (like making a ReplayTV that can store 40-60 high quality hours) and simply leave things on the unit, or dump them to videotape (in which case you still need a VCR). Sure, you _can_ grab the digital video directly off one and use a DVD burner or downconvert it to VideoCD or SVCD, but that involves a lot of effort.

Don't get me wrong - I own both a ReplayTV (currently a big useless brick, since its modem is broken, but I'll be sending it away for repairs soon) and a DirecTV/TiVo (bought to substitute for the ReplayTV brick :), and I love both of them. They totally change the way you watch TV. But a VCR is still necessary for anything that needs to be kept long-term, if you watch a lot of TV.

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Daniel M. Zimmerman, Caltech Computer Science
Mk.2 #060000058, 36GB
Mk.1 #00101, 10GB