Farmall Cub

We have a Panasonic DVD recorder that is only 3 1/2 years old and is shot. We were in a dept. store looking to buy a new one. All the units said "no tuner". I asked one of the young sales guys about the "no tuner" deal and he informed me that it will be next to impossible to find one with a tuner. He said all the new ones need to run through a cable or satellite dish box to record. Since we can't afford either one of those and get our TV over an antenna, I asked how can we record a show while watching another. He said you are out of luck.

What the heck is with that? I know the majority of people have cable or satellite but what about the rest of us? I see units online that have a digital tuner but they run $400.00 to $500.00 which is way too rich for our blood. Heck the last one we paid $250.00 which I thought was a lot. Anybody have any ideas that would be a little more cost effective? Thanks.

I too use an antenna. I use "old" technology and record on a VCR with digital converter then record on DVD from the VHS tape anything I want to save. I have about a dozen VHS recorders, most bought at thrift stores in the last couple of years. Panasonic are the easiest to repair and some parts are still available-- but probably not for much longer. New VHS recorders are junk and not repairable because no parts are available. JVC is great VHS unit but almost impossible to repair. With a different converter unit and VCR for each channel desired, it is possible to record as many stations at the same time as the antenna can receive at one directional setting. The results are not HD. And the VCR chops off the ends of widescreen.

Check around for the digital converters that were sold a couple years back for the conversion. They have an audio/video outputs. The problem is that you have to have the converter on the channel you want to record. I would also try some different stores.

I should have noted that using a converter and VCR also means a complication in programming. Be sure to set the channel to be received on the convertor as the first step, then set the VCR to the channel which the converter is outputting, probably channel 3 or 4. I use a different TV set for each such setup so that output signals cannot get combined from two different converters.The TV is needed for programming the VCR.

I failed to note, after going through a couple of VHS/DVD discount combination units, my daughter bought one form the local RCA dealer. It has the digital tuner and will record on tape or DVD. As noted, it is not cheap though, a little over $300, but this is another case of you get what you pay for.

I was hoping for lots of suggestions as I want to update my system. When my last VCR dies, I will need something else. Rumor is that soon the DVD will be obsolete. It is said that some new computers do not include optical drives. And probably program content originators would prefer that recording not be possible at all.

I have the same hard disk recorder you have. Love it. Most of the time the thing that occurs on these is the hard drive gets corrupted. Sometimes you can reformat the drive using the menus (if it will boot up).

If it won't boot up, open the cover and find the hard drive. It is just a plain jane computer hard drive. Disconnect the hard drive and try to start the machine again. If it starts up and you can get to a menu then you just need to replace the hard drive and reformat the new hard drive once the new one is connected.

If you disconnected the drive and it still won't start up, then the unit is most likely trash.