I'm starting to see more ads like THIS (http://www.buy.com/prod/jvc-dr-mv78b-tuner-free-dvd-video-recorder-vhs/q/loc/111/204318557.html) for tunerless DVDR's which are now "Tuner-free", you know, like Fat-free or Dolphin-free. Marketing genius. Who would want a pesky old tuner anyway? Can't wait to hear the sales guys at BB and CC run with this one.

LOL! Leave it to marketing geniuses (?) to come up with this angle...

DGK

Well, despite the ironic advertizing twist, some of us have no need for any kind of tuner, so why should we pay extra for one?

Where I live OTA signals are spotty at best, as a result I had D* for more than a decade and now I have FiOS with the Moto HD DVR. I never used my VCR's tuner or my TV's tuner (analogue or digital) or the tuner on my DVR-R. And now I'm in the market for a newer DVD-R and to be perfectly honest I'm seriously considering a tuner free one. Why pay extra for a feature I won't use?

PS: my brother's name is "DK", so naturally we called him "Mildew"...

I've got nothing against tunerless DVDR's. They certainly have their place, and there's no point paying for features you don't need. I have one myself, for the very same reasons as you do. I don't need a tuner, and DVDR's are much cheaper without them. I'm poking fun at using the term "free". They've taken a good feature and made it sound bad: "Now with 100% fewer channels!"

Lots of tuner-free DVD recorders are returned by customers who have no clue what "line-in recording" means. They start setting up the tuner-free model only to find no connection for their antenna or the cable coax and no way to connect their old TV (without composite inputs) the same way as their old VCRs were connected.

I always wonder how people buying tunerless DVDRs KNOW for a fact they'll always be in the same TV situation as they're in now so they'll NEVER need a tuner again.

How bout moving... service provider p****s you off... service provider raises rates now or esp. after Feb 2009... giving DVDR to child for college or parents or ?... wanting to use the DVDR in another room w/o an extra-cost cable box (use antenna/rabbit ears if Sat.?)... probably lots more life situation you can't anticipate.

I always wonder how people buying tunerless DVDRs KNOW for a fact they'll always be in the same TV situation as they're in now so they'll NEVER need a tuner again.Well, if you live in an area with terrain like central-northern DE, you can pretty much be certain you will have no use for a tuner. Even though the Philly transmitters are 20 mi off the northern border (which is the highest part of the state), we have a large segment of the population that lives in the hill-valley terrain that effectively eliminates any chance of OTA reception. And since DTV is mostly UHF, those higher frequencies ar even less likely to bend around and over mountains.

Well, if you live in an area with terrain like central-northern DE, you can pretty much be certain you will have no use for a tuner. Even though the Philly transmitters are 20 mi off the northern border (which is the highest part of the state), we have a large segment of the population that lives in the hill-valley terrain that effectively eliminates any chance of OTA reception. And since DTV is mostly UHF, those higher frequencies ar even less likely to bend around and over mountains.
And your point is... ?

What about the other four reasons in my quick list above where you might wish you had a tuner?

Those are just a few possible FUTURE events... just trying to suggest people ought to think ahead a little, not just the here-and-now!?

Actually I count myself as one of those who has a tunerless DVD-R...just before Christmas I got a Toshiba D-R400 because we've got digital cable with a STB downstairs, and the price was decent. It worked fine for me. But I've also got a Panasonic DMR-EZ28 which is the DVD-R I'm using now, also hooked up to the cable STB...with the tuner and the way it's hooked up, it has greatly improved the PQ on the HD channels that before did not come in well (had a lot of breaking up). In fact it's the best these channels have looked in a long time. Plus if for some reason I ever want a DVD-R with a tuner...well, now I have one. ;)

Guess it's just a matter of preference and what you need/want, tuner or no. :)

DGK
(not "mildew" though...just a little old and dusty...LOL)

"Tunerless", is NOT a feature. It takes a real ad man to make the lack of a feature, a selling point. The world is becoming more and more weird.

Tuner-free DVDRs makes me think of things like: Candy Bars w/LESS CALORIES [They reduced the SIZE, but not the PRICE!]
.
Half-gallons of ice cream that QUIETLY became 56oz, AT THE SAME PRICE!Just another way to SCREW the unwary consumer.

Hey, look - I just bought a Hard Drive-Free DVDR! :D

"Tunerless", is NOT a feature. It takes a real ad man to make the lack of a feature, a selling point. The world is becoming more and more weird.

Yeah, it was just a way to quickly keep selling (essentially) the same old recorders, without having to put in an ATSC tuner.

Even though I record a couple of things daily on my XS32, I probably use it more, recording-hours-wise, for recordings from my Tivos.. so I probably could live with a tunerless recorder.

And your point is... ?

What about the other four reasons in my quick list above where you might wish you had a tuner?

Those are just a few possible FUTURE events... just trying to suggest people ought to think ahead a little, not just the here-and-now!?

I thought his point was pretty obvious -

With respect to your service provider scenarios - If you can't get decent OTA digital reception and want more channels than analog cable and basic QAM can offer, then you are pretty much locked into some sort of external box rendering a tuner basically useless.

Furthermore, there are some premium external OTA/QAM tuning boxes out there (I'm not talking about the coupon eligible boxes) that have features and performance that outstrips most onboard DVD R tuners so that might also be another reason to NOT want/need a tuner in a DVD R yet also "futureproof" yourself.

Finally, if your situation changes, then pick up a DVD R with a tuner or a cheap coupon eligible tuner box to feed your tunerless DVD R. The tunerless DVD R still has uses or can be given away to someone or sold to someone who doesn't need a tuner if your situation changes.

Bottom line, IMO, I don't think most people (even if they have prescience to plan for the future) feel they need to pay for a feature now that they don't use and most people don't buy stuff thinking they are eventually going to give it away to someone else.

Just playing devil's advocate so don't flame me. I think there are a whole spectrum of for and against positions on the pros and cons of tunerless DVD R's. I agree with you that there are some life situations that one should anticipate, but most people don't. For example, people should have anticipated the the potential risk to their livelihood that could be incurred by taking on a volatile and risky subprime variable rate mortage, but they either didn't plan or didn't care and risked it all on property they really couldn't afford. So when people are so cavalier on something that really matters, I don't expect people to properly plan for something a benign as whether or not they are going to regret buying a tunerless DVD R because of future changes to their TV viewing habits, planned charity giveaways to their family, or future unanticipated service provider woes.

Wajo, my friend, I get your point, but I must laugh...I did have the foresight to buy a DVD Recorder with a tuner...but it's an NTSC tuner and will soon be useless. LOL.

I have several with NTSC tuners (soon useless), several tunerless units, and also the Phillips you champion so well with the ATSC/QAM tuner. Vferrari made most of the points above. But, I find the tunerless units very, very useful and don't see why they won't remain so. Especially the ones that feature DivX playback and good PQ at about the same price as a top player. For example, I pair the tunerless units with devices that do have a tuner as an auxillary DVD recorder and playback unit. Works great. Think ReplayTV or Tivo, for example, or satellite. Some will play WMA/MP3 DVD's (one DVD = 100's or 1000's of songs, all organized by artist and alnum-one even displays the album art (jpegs)), DivX, Photos bmp/Jpegs, and so on. And they can always be used as a line-in manual recorder for any type of video to DVD, e.g. Camcorder to DVD.

So they can be very useful, trust me! Keep in mind that they are often much cheaper. I got my Toshiba KR10 very cheap, and it's so small and light, I consider it a portable unit and use it as such all the time (does need AC, but I actually have an inverter (battery to AC), though I never use it) together with a small LCD monitor (also cheap). I know, I'm atypical, but, still, very useful to me. ;)

Great discussion!

A least people who read this might think ahead a little more now. :)

Yeah, it was just a way to quickly keep selling (essentially) the same old recorders, without having to put in an ATSC tuner.

Even though I record a couple of things daily on my XS32, I probably use it more, recording-hours-wise, for recordings from my Tivos.. so I probably could live with a tunerless recorder.
I don't think we'll see this on late-nigh television: "But wait, there's LESS!" :D

Half-gallons of ice cream that QUIETLY became 56oz, AT THE SAME PRICE![/list]Just another way to SCREW the unwary consumer.

And then those 56oz packages have just QUIETLY become 48oz---have seen the goofy little Breyers and Edy's containers?

And then those 56oz packages have just QUIETLY become 48oz---have seen the goofy little Breyers and Edy's containers?

Not to mention stuff like Oreos...not only is the package smaller, but even the COOKIES are smaller than they used to be! ::humph:: :(

DGK

Still, nothing will ever be as bad as potato chip bags that are half full of air.

At least with the ice cream cartons what you see is pretty much what you get.

Great discussion!

A least people who read this might think ahead a little more now. :)

Granted, however, the people who read this forum ARE probably the ones who DO think ahead. It's the ones who don't read this forum who probably need help. You know the ones that appear as characters in the commercials for the "You DO know your TV will turn into a pumpkin in February 2009 unless you go to the website to figure out what you have to do. Huh?!" You know, the commercials that most regular AVS forum members think insult their intelligence (Come to think of it, just about as much as "Now Tuner-free!" advertising does. Actually, Tuna-Free would make more sense.)