DVHS VCR recommendations (1 Viewer)

[Dan Rudolph]

I recently got an HDTV that seems to lock into 16:9 mode with progressive material. I found a decent DVD player that will pillarbox stuff for me, but most Xbox games don't seem to support widescreen. My understanding is a lot of TVs do this, so I was wondering if there was a solution out there for this fairly common problem? Perhaps a DVHS player that can also add the pillarbox to inputs?

Failing this, I need a fairly inexpensive DVHS player w/ component outputs. Also, it must have component inputs so as to pass the signal though from my other devices.

I saw a $150 Mitsubushi open item at Best Buy today, but it only did Firewire. Is there any cost effective way to convert?

Also, if any of these players have a built-in tuner, that would save the $200 for a seperate tuner. Any advice is appreciated.

 

[Rachael B]

There are only a few DVHS decks out. The Panasonic you saw is one of the favoured ones for home recording HDTV, as is the newer 2000. Besides Panasonic, there's the JVC's 3000 & 4000 & a Marantz clone that also play D-Theater tapes. The Mitsu and Panasonic do not! No D-VHS deck has a digital tuner yet. JVC's next one is supposed to. A JVC 3000 or 4000 shoud run you $350-$750, more for the 4000, less for the 3000. Depending on your equipment DVHS can have limited 1080i recording options so far. At worst you can make 480i recordings that are automatically in the right aspect ratio, whatever was broadcasted anyway. You really need to go over to the AVS Forum and read the Digital Recorder forum.
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