I'm Still Scrounging
Since my last visit, I've managed to track down two VHS machines, neither with ATSC tuners.
One's a ToshibaW625CG, about five years old, which someone had bought ans seemingly never used; I gave the poor lady $50. It's much more solid than their newer P.O.S. models; it has jog/shuttle and very good performance, as well as their super-fast wind/rewind. On the down side, it has only six event slots rather than the usual 8, and no every day or 6-day settings, so recording a daily program like the news requires three of the six slots. It also takes about two seconds for the tracking to settle down when starting playback even on its own freshly-recorded tapes, but that's a quibble.
The other is an RCA/Thompson DRC6000, a DVD-VHS combo sold in 2000 to a hippie family with dogs, cats and kids. They used it a lot and it still works perfectly. I will change the DVD door belt soon, as it's slipping a bit. Having two direct video inputs as well as RF, I have used it to replace my old Sony VCR in the role of switcher.
The iView ATSC external tuner box has failed twice, with London Drugs cheerfully replacing it both times despite being after warranty. I would avoid it. The remote is flaky, too, though the second and third were better than the first. The HD Access tuner hasn't missed a beat, though all the ones I tried in the store had a buzz in the RF output sound - which is only a problem because I can't feed both tuners to two VCRs. They sell RCA tuner boxes in town, too - has anyone tried them?
Still none I can find that have a channel display. It's a pain to power up the whole video chain just to see which channel it's set to! Why not a simple little 3-digit 7-segment LED or LCD at least?
Bad news - my Lite-On DVD player, with all its special capabilites (multi-region, switchable MacroVision), has died. It's about eight years old, four years with me. The DVD drive stopped spinning last fall, but I was able to replace it with a computer DVD-ROM drive after taking off the metal covers that fit a computer drive bay. It bears standard computer Molex 4-pin power and 40-pin IDE connectors.
Looks like it's not the drive this time. Plugging it in just leaves the display saying POWER On and nothing responds to touch or the remote. Aww. Good deal that was, being free with a broken drive door belt I was able to replace from the computer heap. My other two DVD players have no ability to play memory cards or cartridges, and can't handle .AVI, .MP4, .M4P or .MKV formats.
A major chain advertised a VHS/DVD combo deck with digital tuner, but on calling the store found that the advertising guys hadn't understood it has NO tuner, and can't record to VHS either. It's just a player.
ED BEAR