"Ant" <a...@zimage.comANT> wrote in message
news:cpmdnUeNQ7CuzT3N...@earthlink.com...
Yeah, yeah, I've read that discussion and how Sony is supposedly all evil,
they don't support openness. But it's not actually their fault.
Users bought a device they knew had a dependency on another company's
functionality, plain and simple. Or if they didn't, they know now. From what
I have read from that discussion, Sony discontinued the box seven years ago
and the functionality was still supported. Another poster mentioned their
Panasonic DVR used the same functionality--but with Slashdot's broken
default filtering causing hidden posts and numerous brief posts, I'll guess
that many missed that post about the Panasonic DVR.
Bottom line: users of these DVRs requiring the functionality should go
discuss it with Rovi, don't place the blame on Sony or Panasonic. If Rovi
will not bring the functionality back, then that is Rovi's decision and it
is final.
[And by the way, I have several Sony products that are offline products and
they work well, let's see: MDR-E828 earbuds (never blew even when I cranked
them up to max connected to an AV receiver to break them in), MDR-J10
earphones (nice and loud with good bass), MDR-J11 earphones (nice and loud
and with even better bass and clearer treble than the MDR-J10's), SS-B1000
bookshelf speakers (Sony rates them down to 80 Hz but test tones show they
go down to 60 Hz--pretty good for bookshelf speakers), a DVD/VCR combo unit
(so far all DVDs played do so without errors, and the VCR is more than good
enough for legacy tapes as well), a PSOne (slim version of the PS1), and a
PS2 (slim version, not the newer silver one--that I don't connect online
because even the game publishers have discontined online gaming within a
year or so after a game's release). I'm not worrying about openness or
whether or not they use an open-source component, I care that the products
work for the money I paid for them. So far, I've had no failures other than
one Dualshock 2 controller wore out its U/D/L/R cross part of the controller
and got stuck moving in one direction, so I had to replace it with another
Dualshock 2.]
This is also why I don't bother with DVRs. Many of them have to be connected
to another server component in some way, either by Internet connectivity or
via OTA data. I'm aware there is some color pallette loss when recording
from TV to VCR, but it is not enough to make the recorded show unwatchable.
That said, I have tapes that still play. I don't have to worry about hard
drive crashes or data corruption. The slight risk of a tape being eaten by a
VCR is very small--I did once have a tape misfeed in a cheaper Sylvania VCR
that was immedately obvious by the excessive noise lines in the picture, and
upon quickly ejecting the tape it did not fully retract (so I pushed the
button on the tape and manually wound the small part of the tape back in).
Still, to this day I have no had any VCR actually "eat" and totally destroy
a VHS tape. I also do regular head cleanings even if the VCR has not been
used for some time, so that probably helps.
Check the dependencies carefully when investing in a DVR is the lesson
learned, I suppose.