Two quick thingys

[selenay]

1. We had a thunderstorm today. Make that a Huge Ass Thunderstorm. Our local radio station gave us a two minute warning, just long enough to get our builder's tools into the house rather than leaving the electric saw hooked up to the electricity out in the nasty electrical storm.

2. We have desks in the office. Yay!

2a. (OK, I lied this could be interpreted as a third thing). Does anyone have any recs for a DVD recorder with hard drive? Maybe that could get the EPG from our digi-cable box? I am clueless! Without clue!

2b. (OK, make that 4 things). Tomorrow I am going to a sugar camp where I will eat pancakes and maple syrup until I burst.

And now I must eat salmon and drink cider. Yay.

Comments

[evil_plotbunny]

I've been very happy with my Philips and I think they make one with a hard drive.

The nice thing is that most of their models are easy to make multi-region with the remote and a key code.

[selenay]

A Philips machine is currently edging its way past a Sony on my possibles list, so it's good to have an endorsement for it :-)

[evil_plotbunny]

I've got two now. Sony is hopeless if you need multi-region capability, as I assume you will. ;)

[selenay]

I'm picking up a cheap machine in Zellers tomorrow that is definitely multi-region, but if the Philips can also be made multi-region then that's a definite plus :-) There are one or two things that the Philips has that the Sony doesn't, which is putting it ahead, but I've been reading reviews commenting on the fact that the Philips has the S-Video disabled by default. OTOH, I have an HD TV and plan to hook up via HDMI so that shouldn't be a problem.

[evil_plotbunny]

The menus are good, so it should be easy to enable if you need it.

[selenay]

That's what I figured. I'm getting a kick out of all the people whining about returning dozens of machines due to 'faulty' S-Video connections who then quietly go "oh" when the other reviewers point out the whole disabled by default thing. Sometimes, I am petty and cruel.

[evil_plotbunny]

I am too. ;)

Though I've never seen the point of paying extra for a multi-region machine. All of the ones I've owned were off the shelf models with simple fixes.

[selenay]

The machine I've found is cheap already, on sale at Zellers, and can be made multi-region with a code from the handset :-) Also, it plays PAL or NTSC as well as being multi-region, which sounds like the picture quality should be OK.

It's going to be fun working it out, anyway!

[evil_plotbunny]

:) That's the sort of machine I've been buying. And both my Philips worked that way.

I don't know if there are machines that don't do PAL/NTSC conversion these days.

[selenay]

I'm always concerned if they don't specifically state it on the specifications - I'd hate to buy the one machine in the world that doesn't convert! My lovely DW box-sets will look dreadful if they aren't converted correctly :-)

[evil_plotbunny]

You can google before you buy. (multiregion hacks), but I tend to use this forum.

[selenay]

Thank you for the link :-) A quick check reveals no hacks for the Philips yet (grr) but the cheapo machine from Zellers has easy hacks.

[evil_plotbunny]

:( I think I've just picked the machine from the list, usually with some brand in mind.

[selenay]

I have things that I want in the machine - hard drive, EPG, HD up conversion - and I'm quite content to have a separate multi-region player if I can get Da to help me hook all the wires up.

[evil_plotbunny]

With my latest addition to my theater setup, I'm finding that some of the inputs and outputs don't work properly, and I'll probably end up replacing it in the next month or so.

I resisted the urge of a hard drive since my cable box provides a pvr, but my Neuros will record to and play from the hard drive of my computer. My next goal is to record all of my vhs tapes and get rid of them.

[selenay]

My cable company would demand an extra $15 per month (plus tax) for a PVR and I'm trying to resist the temptation until I know what my income will be. Da wants to have a DVD recorder here, he's quite keen on having a hard drive in it if he can, and I'm not objecting to him purchasing this piece of kit :-)

When I am more confident about my monthly income, though, I'll think about getting a PVR from my cable company.

Although a Tivo is also extremely tempting and I'd get to take it with me when I move into my own apartment.

[evil_plotbunny]

I think it was $10 more a month and it means I don't have to fiddle with another piece of equipment. (I still need the cable box to descramble some of the channels.)

But I can understand not objecting to that and wanting to wait until you've got a fixed income. ;)

[selenay]

The one thing that we need to check in the store is how well the machine we have in mind will work with our cable+cable box. Being clueless Brits who have never had cable before, it's a concern :-)

But if Da can get what he wants and make it work as he wants then I'm going to be quite happy even if it's an extra box to play with. I can always upgrade my cable subscription when my income is more stable :-)

[evil_plotbunny]

Usually you have to connect the cable box first in the sequence because it acts as a descrambler. The catch is that you'll need to control the channel switching through the cable box, which makes recording fun. Most boxes will let you set specific times and channels to switch (for picking up by an outside recorder) but I have to say having the pvr in combination has helped immensely.