Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: JVC, Blu-ray, HDD, VHS, DR-BH250 | Themes: Digital Entertainment, Audio/Video Players
JVC is launching an all-in-one that can record VHS to Blu-ray.
Do old-school video cassette owners still need a little love after all these years? Of course they do, especially those of us with those "special" movies stacked up in the back of the closet. Originally spotted by Akihabara News, JVC is bringing those old movie buffs up-to-date with its latest all-in-one device, the DR-BH250. For a whopping $1,400, consumers get a combo platter containing a VHS, Blu-ray recorder, and a 250 GB hard drive.
If that's not enough incentive to dust off the VHS tapes and pull out the wallet, the DR-BH250 also sports a fancy memory card reader (SD/SDHC), a USB port, support for AVCHD, and even provides HDMI Consumer Electronics Control and 1080/60p/24p support. There's also BONUSVIEW and BD LIVE support as well for those Blu-ray movies with Internet goodies attached.
Naturally, this type of device would be ideal for transferring those old VHS tapes over to a Blu-ray disk. JVC's DR-BH250 is slated to hit Japan in the beginning of November, however there were no release dates given for external territories. Local NA retailers usually carry similar products, so it's probably a matter of "when" rather than "if" for JVC's pricey all-in-one offering.
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Wow. People still use VHS?!?!?! Seriously, it's DEAD tech.
Flight of the navigator.
y would you waste a bd disk on crappy 400 line vhs material?
Don't diss the VHS...I have some movies on VHS that were never released on DVD.
If the Blu-ray home burner allows for playing/recording HD files from a pc, i will think this would be added to my wish list. On my cable there is alot of HD shows and movies that this double as a tivo for.
Why on earth would you put a VHS on Blu-Ray? A DVD I could understand as the difference in resolution isn't that huge, but going from VHS to Blu-Ray is a total waste
This is actually good stuff. There are tons of people with shelves of vhs tapes in their basements. If I can convert all of them to just 3 or 4 blurays that'd be amazing.
Very useful for the old stock footages *wink* you really want to keep. Your grandson would be grateful.
There are vhs tapes of older films that were never released on dvd.
Why on earth would you put a VHS on Blu-Ray? A DVD I could understand as the difference in resolution isn't that huge, but going from VHS to Blu-Ray is a total waste
Umm i think you need to rethink what you just said. VHS and regular dvd produce nearly the same 480 resolution. so in truth you hardly notice a difference of quality on a tv. jumping from these formats to blu-ray is bigger jump than vhs to dvd!
The major difference between the two is that vhs is analog and the others are digital.
Umm i think you need to rethink what you just said. VHS and regular dvd produce nearly the same 480 resolution. so in truth you hardly notice a difference of quality on a tv. jumping from these formats to blu-ray is bigger jump than vhs to dvd!The major difference between the two is that vhs is analog and the others are digital.
The one and only advantage that Blu-Ray offers in this case is increased storage capacity so you can store more VHS titles on a single disc. Otherwise VHS video will not look any different on Blu-Ray than it would on DVD.
VHS is easy and cheap to record to. I don't use TiVo or have any kind of DVD/Bluray recorder....who really does? The truth is if you want to record something fast VHS is the best option.
VHS is easy and cheap to record to. I don't use TiVo or have any kind of DVD/Bluray recorder....who really does? The truth is if you want to record something fast VHS is the best option.
I used to have a Magnovox set top DVD recorder that supported both single layer DVD+RW and -RW discs. It was just as easy to record to DVD as it was to VHS. DVD chapters and titles work a lot better than the indexing feature on VCR's. I can hit a button an instantly go from one movie to another. On VHS I have to wait for the VCR to fast forward or rewind to go from one movie to another.
How on earth is vhs the quickest and easiest to record to?
For a start you have to find a tape and find the correct position on the tape to record - that alone can take 5 or ten minutes.
I press tv-guide select the program, press ok then go and make a cup of tea. I remember the days of taping series on tv (red dwarf) the frustration of sitting, finger poised on the the record button and the frustration when you realise you missed the first 3 seconds of the intro because the tape was pretensioning on the heads.
No thanks, HDD freeview recorder from now until the day we can save video direct to brain.
For the US, I would do almost anything just to have a stand-alone Blu-ray recorder. I do still have VHS that I would like to archive to BR, however, I am willing to bet that the VHS deck I have is significantly better than the deck in this unit. If it were for sale outside of Japan, this unit would not interest me.
I just want a stand-alone BR recorder with an HDMI input in the US.
I wonder how many VHS movies can fit on one blue-ray disc.
For the US, I would do almost anything just to have a stand-alone Blu-ray recorder. I do still have VHS that I would like to archive to BR, however, I am willing to bet that the VHS deck I have is significantly better than the deck in this unit. If it were for sale outside of Japan, this unit would not interest me.I just want a stand-alone BR recorder with an HDMI input in the US.
Unless you have S-VHS tapes then all 4 head Hi-Fi Stereo VCR's are the same in terms of picture and sound quality. Any higher end VCR (such as a 6 head) would be a complete waste of money for regular VHS tapes.
Unless you have S-VHS tapes then all 4 head Hi-Fi Stereo VCR's are the same in terms of picture and sound quality. Any higher end VCR (such as a 6 head) would be a complete waste of money for regular VHS tapes.
Thanks for thinking of me.
One big problem with people who have VHS tapes stored in their basement or any other old VHS tapes. THEY HAVE A FINITE Life span! After so many years, the magnetic properties and the signal on the tape breaks down. The break down is not just with the signal, but also the coating or material used to retain the signal. Once you place some of these old tapes into your Blu-ray/VHS copier, it will DESTROY the VHS recorder making it a paper weight. So it is a waste and forget the whole debate about which is better. Its just a silly idea to combine anything with VHS anymore.