I was being semi-facetious. I have VCRs for all
the formats I mentioned,
I do not own a DVD player (is that any suprise?).
The question is: WHY? :oO
You really have to ask? OK...
The 'why' could apply to either of my statements, so I'll explain both of
them
The first is the easier one. I am interested in many things other than
classic computers. I regard the Philipos V2000 VCR as being a wonderful
design that came along too late (but that's not a reason for _me_ not to
have one). For those who've never seen one (and certainly not seen
_inside_ one, the video heads are mounted on peizo-actuators on the head
drum. These are driven by a servo circuit that causes the heads to go
along the video tracks on the take. The result is noise-free still-frame
(In VHS/betamax/Umatic/... the heads follow a different path on the tape
when it's stationary than when it's moving (and of course the speed of
tape motion matters too), so you get noise on still frames or slow
motion. A digital framestore wil lget round it, but I prefer the Philips
solution). And the deck is mechanically very simple. Ther are no drive
belts, no backtension band, and so on.
Now for the bit I suspect you really were asking, why I don't own a DVD
player. It comes down to 2 main reasons :
1) You know, you must kniow, my dislike of anything I don't have a proper
service manual for (have you tried to get a service manual for a DVD
player), that is not well-made (I've been inside some DVD players, once
was enough!), that is not properly documented (try getting data sheets on
some of the chips!), and so on
Darn it, I've read that part of the HDMI spec is only available under
NDA (this being to prevent you getting round the encrypition and making
perfect digital copies of copyrighted films). Having a device that's
undocumented is bad enough, but having an undocumented interface is
something I am not going to tolerate. Period!
2) But why would I want a DVD player? What would I use it for? Unlike
background music or a radio, a DVD player (or TV) requires you to watch
the output. Whcih means you can't be doing anything else at the same
time. I've got quite enough books to read, computers to document and
restore, projects to build, cmaeras to fix, skills to improve, related
thinsg to learn about, etc that I don't have any interest in waching DVDs .
-tony