bolmsted said:
1. everything except archive for later retrieval or to let a friend borrow... tape a TV show and lend the tape/disc to watch.
2. Gonna be waiting quite a while then... hard discs with enough capacity to record many hours of HD are still too expensive to incorporate into set top boxes at a reasonable price.
3. (Blu DVD) - Doubt it... more in the range of 3+ years minimum and consumer acceptance at 5-7. And with Toshiba and others coming up with alternative technologies... another can of worms.
1. True but, I have a whole bunch of tapes I made in the basement that I never watch. Most people don't tape. Those few who do tape, don't archive. Those that archive are very few indeed - you may be one of them. I've never lent to a friend (haven't been able to recently - no one I know has S-VHS, which I use.) How many of your friends are going to spend C$1850, after tax for a D-VCR???
2. One rumoured for later this year or early next. Hard disks are getting pretty cheap, certainly easily cheaper than almost $2k. Several hours recording takes "only" about 100 Gig, based on a movie being about 50. A 100 GB HD is currently priced at about $200-$300 retail. You could pack a couple into a STB for a lot less than the D-VHS.
3. Probably not cheap, but due 2003 - some form of HD DVD recorder. Possibly a can of worms, but D-VHS is pretty well on it's own. This machine is a toy for the rich, like a Betamax was in the early 1970's. I predict it will also go the way of the Betamax.
4. Virtual HDPVR is also a possibility.
5. I suppose if you must be on the bleeding edge of HD recording, this is one of only two possibilities (the Mits with Firewire being the other).