Freeview ascent puts it above Sky in digital race
Quote of the day so far: "More than 500,000 VCRs were sold last Christmas, even though they will not work properly after the switchover, which begins in the Borders region next year and culminates in the south-east in 2012". Of course VCR's will still operate after the digital switchover, as long as they are connected to some form of digital set-top box (which are now available for less than £30), or a TV with built-in Freeview as long as the SCART connector can send a picture signal to the VCR.
Also any VCR in working order will still be able to play tapes after the analogue TV signal is switched off, and bear in mind that some of those VCR's may have been purchased in order to watch someone's legacy tape collection or to copy them onto recordable DVD discs. However the price of cheap modern VCR's can be as little as £30, though the cynic in me suggests that most of these cheap VCR's will be landfill by the time digital switchover takes place.
And although people are being encouraged to ditch their tape collection in favour of recordable DVD, very little has been said about the alarmingly short shelf life of some types of recordable DVD disc. So you could spend three months copying your precious tape collection to a job lot of blank DVD-R's bought at the local supermarket, only to be later confronted with a whole stack of discs that refuse to playback - this could happen in less than five years if you're unlucky.
The moral of the story is that you should hang on to your tape collection and mothball your VCR as well, since you will be needing them again in the future when your DVD viewing copies finally give up the ghost.
