Lol, I knew someone would respond with this answer! But I am completely done with VHS, do they even sell tapes anymore? As for a DVR, yeah, I know...but would rather not deal with it, I've seen too many friends curse at it.
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Your Top 5 70's sitcoms
- Thread starter seatownmedia
- Start date
Lol, I knew someone would respond with this answer! But I am completely done with VHS, do they even sell tapes anymore? As for a DVR, yeah, I know...but would rather not deal with it, I've seen too many friends curse at it.
No new VHS movies that I know of, but blank tape is still available. There are still a lot of people who use VHS for home recording purposes, which also included me until I recently caught a deal on a DVD recorder. (Not quite as outdated, but still probably getting hard to find.
)
They make basic "DVR's" for $35-$40 and you supply the hard drive
Homeworx makes a digital converter box that you add a hard drive and can record. I have one (but dont use it anymore...have cable) but when I was OTA it worked pretty good for the occasional recording
http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HW...=UTF8&qid=1464108172&sr=8-3&keywords=homeworx
or the iview
http://www.amazon.com/IVIEW-3200STB...?ie=UTF8&qid=1464108228&sr=8-2&keywords=iview
http://www.amazon.com/3500STBII-Mul...?ie=UTF8&qid=1464108228&sr=8-1&keywords=iview
Homeworx makes a digital converter box that you add a hard drive and can record. I have one (but dont use it anymore...have cable) but when I was OTA it worked pretty good for the occasional recording
http://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-HW...=UTF8&qid=1464108172&sr=8-3&keywords=homeworx
or the iview
http://www.amazon.com/IVIEW-3200STB...?ie=UTF8&qid=1464108228&sr=8-2&keywords=iview
http://www.amazon.com/3500STBII-Mul...?ie=UTF8&qid=1464108228&sr=8-1&keywords=iview
I bought the second IView model on Ebay and had to return it because I found it works for OTA TV and possibly QAM on cable, but not for digital cable, which is what I have on Charter. I wish someone could come out with something like this that actually works on digital cable, or from line inputs.
I just checked on Amazon. You can get a 3 pack of VHS tapes for $11.66.
To me, DVRs are a wonderous thing, and very intuitive to operate. I can't imagine cursing at it. I may marry mine. : ) I time-shift practically everything I watch now - primarily to avoid commercials. Even if you're watching a show in its timeslot, you just start it a few minutes late - I'd say 7 minutes for a 20 minute show, 15 minutes for a 60 minute show. At least with DirecTV, you can now tune in late to a show you haven't even set up to record, and actually "rewind" back to the start of the show using your DVR.
But just like with anything - DVRs are not perfect. Every so often, I will watch a show I set to record, and it will stop before the end of the show...some software glitch, I guess. It's quite frustrating, but it happens maybe 1 out of 200 times.
To me, DVRs are a wonderous thing, and very intuitive to operate. I can't imagine cursing at it. I may marry mine. : ) I time-shift practically everything I watch now - primarily to avoid commercials. Even if you're watching a show in its timeslot, you just start it a few minutes late - I'd say 7 minutes for a 20 minute show, 15 minutes for a 60 minute show. At least with DirecTV, you can now tune in late to a show you haven't even set up to record, and actually "rewind" back to the start of the show using your DVR.
But just like with anything - DVRs are not perfect. Every so often, I will watch a show I set to record, and it will stop before the end of the show...some software glitch, I guess. It's quite frustrating, but it happens maybe 1 out of 200 times.
In no particular order:
Laverne & Shirley
Taxi
Happy Days
The Odd Couple
Welcome Back Kotter
I excluded sitcoms like M*A*S*H and All in the Family because I'm taking a purist route here and when they first aired I didn't "get" the humor or situations because I was too young at the time when they first aired. I can appreciate both shows now after rewatches years later. Welcome Back Kotter appears because I related more to the subject matter at the age I was at when it was first run. Welcome Back Kotter suffers greatly over time but it was a good show in the time frame it encapsulated but is by no means timeless.
Laverne & Shirley
Taxi
Happy Days
The Odd Couple
Welcome Back Kotter
I excluded sitcoms like M*A*S*H and All in the Family because I'm taking a purist route here and when they first aired I didn't "get" the humor or situations because I was too young at the time when they first aired. I can appreciate both shows now after rewatches years later. Welcome Back Kotter appears because I related more to the subject matter at the age I was at when it was first run. Welcome Back Kotter suffers greatly over time but it was a good show in the time frame it encapsulated but is by no means timeless.
That's cool, we are not that different in age apparently, and I didn't get M.A.S.H. either. However, being the child of two socially conscious adults I tended to "get" AITF right away. Perhaps they explained some of the jokes to me, but my memory is not that many. The Odd Couple was brilliant, as was the movie it was formed from. L&S didn't care for, thought the humor was juvenile. Happy Days was indeed a staple, but certainly declined over the years until it eventually jumped the shark, literally.
Penny Marshall always made my flesh crawl. At the time, I figured she only got the job because her brother was producing. I feel a bit bad about that now - from what I've heard, she's a good and talented person - though her career post-Laverne never really took off.
I was in my 20s when All in the Family began. It was truly ground-breaking for its time - really for any time. I'm not sure it could premiere today given the quite justified (IMO) current taboos about derogatory racial, ethnic and gender remarks in the media. Just as then, there are still humorless people who don't understand that Archie was an archetype (pardon the almost-pun), meant to highlight and expose bigotry, not to glorify it. There were other critics who thought Archie should be portrayed less sympathetically than he was, because he was not portrayed as a bad person, just an ignorant and prejudiced one.
I think with MASH a lot depends on when during the series you discovered it. There was enough comedy there in the early years when I discovered it that I liked it, although I may not have gotten some of the commentary on war that was in it. But as it went on and got more dramatic in its later years I can understand why kids and teens might not have gotten it. My wife is 8 years younger than me and never really watched MASH much until we were married and she still doesn't get a lot of it.
MASH...I guess we should say M*A*S*H - premiered in 1972, when the US was still embroiled in the Vietnam War, and Nixon was President. The comparisons between the Korean War (when the show took place) and Vietnam were obvious, and the show used it to good effect. Though I haven't seen the show in years, it might resonate again now after our decade+ long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But really, the loss of treasure and American lives recently in the Middle East, while tragic - are miniscule compared to Korea and Vietnam.
Penny Marshall's post-Laverne career
Penny Marshall had a very distinguished career as a director following her L&S days. She directed such blockbusters as Big, A League of Their Own, Awakenings, and The Preacher's Wife. She may have retired though as she has not had a directing credit in a number of years.
Penny Marshall had a very distinguished career as a director following her L&S days. She directed such blockbusters as Big, A League of Their Own, Awakenings, and The Preacher's Wife. She may have retired though as she has not had a directing credit in a number of years.
I had forgotten that. Thanks for the reminder.
A few days ago I was in Walmart and found out that they have the digital tuners with DVR capability like the ones that we discussed earlier. One was similar to the I-View model and the other was an RCA model that ran around $50.00. But they were still the type that was only good for OTA reception and not for digital cable or line inputs.
1. Taxi
2. Happy Days
3. Barney Miller
4. Sanford & Son
5. WKRP in Cincinnati
2. Happy Days
3. Barney Miller
4. Sanford & Son
5. WKRP in Cincinnati
That's great - didn't know such a thing existed, and the price is certainly right. But I'm a bit confused - why wouldn't you be able to connect it to cable or satellite? The cable and satellite companies provide DVR/tuners, but they charge a monthly fee, of course. It would be nice to save a few bucks by hooking up my own tuner/dvr.
At least on the models I've seen it's basically an OTA digital converter with the DVR feature added, and it only picks up an OTA signal. It might work on analog cable, but in my area Charter has gone all digital so I couldn't get it to work, and there isn't a line input on it. I'm only able to get OTA TV from 2 stations in the Jackson, TN area regularly, so it didn't work for what I needed. It might be good for someone who can get enough OTA TV to be worth it, but it couldn't record from cable so I couldn't do much with it. I hope someone can come out with something similar that will work for cable or have line inputs in the future.
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Those basic tuners are ASTC only. Now some may be able to do clear QAM (most wont) but
-it wont map to the "normal" station (like if your ABC is on cable at 83-11 it wouldn't map to say 6-1)
-you'll have no guide
Also they wont do analog (OTA or cable). Some have a "analog bypass" which is basically like on a VCR the "TV/VCR" switch. It just passes through and you use the TV tuner if you still have analog.
-it wont map to the "normal" station (like if your ABC is on cable at 83-11 it wouldn't map to say 6-1)
-you'll have no guide
Also they wont do analog (OTA or cable). Some have a "analog bypass" which is basically like on a VCR the "TV/VCR" switch. It just passes through and you use the TV tuner if you still have analog.
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