Need Recommendations for a Durable, Cheap VCR
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fatherofcaitlyn
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How long are your VCRs lasting? Are you using a separate device to rewind your tapes?
Good luck. This is a legacy product category. The cheap units that only last a few months may be about the same cost as renting a DVR box from the cable/satellite company. But it's only a matter of time before even those cheap VCRs cease to be available. Unless you think your mother has little time left, you need a strategy to move her to newer technology.
Assess her usage. Does she record shows, watch them, then record over them? Then getting her a DVR, especially if you can get it as part of the cable box for a minor cost, and teaching her to use it makes more sense than hunting down VCRs for years to come. Yes, it can be difficult getting old people to understand the technology but just treat it as a VCR with no tape to change. She may not get the full use of the tech but as long as it fulfills the purpose, who cares?
If she goes for long term retention of recordings, then you have a more difficult situation. A DVD Recorder can be pretty effective and the nicer ones have hard drives so that several shows can be saved and arranged to disc as desired. This means some learning curve but you're going to have a lot less trouble keeping her supplied going forward.
Alternately, if she likes to keep favorite shows long term, download them and burn them to disc for her. There are DiVx capable DVD decks that start as low as $40 that will let you put a lot of stuff on a single disc. I've done this for my own mother. Even if I'm able to get her the box set of the show wants, it's still easier to have it on one or two discs than half a dozen or more.
Assess her usage. Does she record shows, watch them, then record over them? Then getting her a DVR, especially if you can get it as part of the cable box for a minor cost, and teaching her to use it makes more sense than hunting down VCRs for years to come. Yes, it can be difficult getting old people to understand the technology but just treat it as a VCR with no tape to change. She may not get the full use of the tech but as long as it fulfills the purpose, who cares?
If she goes for long term retention of recordings, then you have a more difficult situation. A DVD Recorder can be pretty effective and the nicer ones have hard drives so that several shows can be saved and arranged to disc as desired. This means some learning curve but you're going to have a lot less trouble keeping her supplied going forward.
Alternately, if she likes to keep favorite shows long term, download them and burn them to disc for her. There are DiVx capable DVD decks that start as low as $40 that will let you put a lot of stuff on a single disc. I've done this for my own mother. Even if I'm able to get her the box set of the show wants, it's still easier to have it on one or two discs than half a dozen or more.
fatherofcaitlyn
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Ah, old people. Is there anything new they can do?
[quote name='fatherofcaitlyn']Ah, old people. Is there anything new they can do?[/QUOTE]
I often ask myself, "Was Mom always like this? How did all five of us survive to adulthood?"
My mother sort of understand how to use the DVR (RePlayTV 4080) but many aspect simply evade her. I don't think she has ever managed to record anything without setting up an ongoing command to record everything matching the specs of the show recorded. Left to herself, she would have long since exceeded the RAM for handling these commands and the drive would be constantly having older files deleted to make room for new stuff she didn't actually want.
Not to mention, this is a woman who has been using VCRs since the early 80s but the basic symbols for play, record, pause, etc. are still mysterious to her. The play symbol, which references the movement of tape, no longer makes sense in a random access device but is used to accomodate those who know these symbols from VCRs. So much for that.
There are worse things. Her retention with anything having to do with computer usage is painfully bad. Nor do alerts get her attention if it doesn't take over the whole screen and force her to acknowledge it. Her grandchildren have a hard time understanding why Grandma is so hard to reach by IM when theyknow she has used it in the past. Another bit of IM fun is when she makes it full screen instead of minimizing it when she logs in. She'll come to me complaining she cannot get to her mail and it turns out she cannot tell the difference between the web browser and the IM app expanded to full screen.
I know she used to learn new stuff. She wasn't born knowing how to drive a car and balance a checkbook. But it can be so frustrating trying to teach her anything today.
I often ask myself, "Was Mom always like this? How did all five of us survive to adulthood?"
My mother sort of understand how to use the DVR (RePlayTV 4080) but many aspect simply evade her. I don't think she has ever managed to record anything without setting up an ongoing command to record everything matching the specs of the show recorded. Left to herself, she would have long since exceeded the RAM for handling these commands and the drive would be constantly having older files deleted to make room for new stuff she didn't actually want.
Not to mention, this is a woman who has been using VCRs since the early 80s but the basic symbols for play, record, pause, etc. are still mysterious to her. The play symbol, which references the movement of tape, no longer makes sense in a random access device but is used to accomodate those who know these symbols from VCRs. So much for that.
There are worse things. Her retention with anything having to do with computer usage is painfully bad. Nor do alerts get her attention if it doesn't take over the whole screen and force her to acknowledge it. Her grandchildren have a hard time understanding why Grandma is so hard to reach by IM when theyknow she has used it in the past. Another bit of IM fun is when she makes it full screen instead of minimizing it when she logs in. She'll come to me complaining she cannot get to her mail and it turns out she cannot tell the difference between the web browser and the IM app expanded to full screen.
I know she used to learn new stuff. She wasn't born knowing how to drive a car and balance a checkbook. But it can be so frustrating trying to teach her anything today.
fatherofcaitlyn
CAGiversary!
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- 82 (100%)
^Oh, I do tech support.
I once spent forty minutes with a geezer who couldn't find the left button on his mouse.
EDIT: That call started out bad anyways. "Yeah, I yanked out all these wires from the back of the thingie."
I once spent forty minutes with a geezer who couldn't find the left button on his mouse.
EDIT: That call started out bad anyways. "Yeah, I yanked out all these wires from the back of the thingie."
bread's done