Grant Laird, Jr. Blog

I?ve been playing with LG DVD Recorder & VCR combo during the day. (Model - LGXBR446) Overall, I am pleased with this unit ? trying out all different kind of features. It also supports memory slots which is a plus however it is one way street which means you cannot transfer pictures from memory card to DVD but you can transfer from DVD to memory slots.

I was able to dub from old wedding VHS tape to DVD in XL mode (Highest quality limited to one hour) and pleased with the results. I forgot to add title & chapter names in it after I ?finalized? it ? I have to do this way to prevent from rewrite since it is DVD+RW disc. I am very exciting ? it is perfect tool where you can transfer all old VHS tape into DVD in easy way. No computer required.

Next, I’ve been testing several shows by record it into DVD+RW in SP mode (2 hours mode) and it works great. Unfortunately, I noticed that closed captioning was garbled. I cannot tell if it is unit or from cable itself at this point. I checked all TV channels and noticed some of them are garbling badly. I told Brenden if he’s experienced same problem as I did and he said yes.

Another things, I was working more on old VHS tapes - I knew that my parent in law usually record many different events during my children’s childhood on same tape which means it could be as many as 30 of them on same tape. I decide to dub on each event and dub again every time this way it will create new chapter automatically. Later on, I added title and chapter names by using on-screen keyboard. It can be painful if you are doing it on many chapters but its worth. I did about 15 chapters then took a break.

I didn’t investigate on this unit with cable TV channels because I had to go work. Brenden does a lot of checking on every channel. He will post more about it on his blog shortly. I also send email to LG Company and request for help regarding closed captioning being garbled on some of the TV shows. Keep in mind; it was fine on TV directly without LG unit. Hopefully I will hear something from them this week.

Of course, Brenden and I aren’t 100% settle with this unit even we enjoy it very much. It is just that closed captioning issues are bothering us especially it is one of those top of the line unit for this kind. We were even thinking about exchange again and try out Sony DVD Recorder & VCR combo. We will decide next couple of days.

As far as I know, we don’t know if this Sony (Model - RDR-VX500) unit will work well with closed captioning yet but we realized that this unit also has one more thing that LG unit do not have - It’s called VCR Plus+ which can be useful when you want to look for TV show to record or change it.

End of the Day.

Grant W Laird, Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com

Black Friday.

Brenden and I arrived to Fry’s Electronic store in Plano, Texas at 6:00 AM. We couldn’t believe its very LONG line already and they won’t let us go in till all people in line came inside store. It is like the people were in line around this huge store. We had to wait at least 20 minutes till we were able to get inside store.

Really Unbelievable!

It was too crowd but we went ahead and look what’s on sale. We realized that line to cashier is very long too. Practically, it was too many people – we finally left within an hour. We are particularly interested in DVD recorder with VCR combo unit. We also went by Ultimate Electronic and CompUSA and see what they have gotten for us.

We ended up bought few things including CineVision DVD Recorder & VCR combo at CompUSA for $249 plus $50.00 rebate. Good deal.

Later on, I installed & tested CineVision RV4000 (Under GoVideo Manufacturing) at my home TV same day. I didn’t expect anything bad out of it. I am already impressed with its features and everything. However I noticed one thing that did not work properly – it doesn’t display closed captioning so I thought maybe I must have set it up incorrectly. So, I moved it to another TV and tested it again. Brenden paged me saying he’s having trouble getting closed captioning working properly.

That’s interesting part – he told me he did call customer service line and they told me that it doesn’t support closed captioning on this unit. That’s really pissed me off – I decided to call customer service myself. It was long discussion over phone with relay service. You can look at our conversation – basically they do not support it whether they really understood how it works with closed captioning or not.

Brenden and I went to CompUSA again that evening and returned it with no problem. We went on and shopping again that night. We went 4 different electronics store and we ended up bought another DVD Recorder & VCR combo under LG brand. (Model - LGXBR446) It cost $499 but it’s supposed to be top of the line. We have no way to tell if it will work well with closed captioning but we have to try it at home.

End of the day.

Grant W Laird, Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com

P.S. I don’t care about GoVideo anymore but I hope they will look at it seriously and make some modificaiton in the future.

It is not all about Thanksgiving Day – my wife Misty’s birthday too! She will be 35 years old. She has been my lovely wife for over 16 years. Believe me or not, it gets harder to find something really nice for her birthday every year. No matter what we get something for her, I want to tell everyone that I love her very much! (Yikes – Need to shop around today – don’t tell her)

Now, go back to Thanksgiving – my family always spends time with both of my families and we are doing it again this year on both Thursday and Friday. Of course, we get opportunity to spend some time with a friend’s family, too.

You know what’s funny about all this – I never cook a turkey! Maybe Misty and I tried couple of times in the past and it wasn’t exactly very good. Lucky we have two fantastic families that are “professional” in cooking turkey lunch/dinner. If we ever decide to buy real turkey again, I would recommend you to buy pre-cooked & smoked favor turkey. It is much less hassle and fastest way to get dinner ready

Anyway, I wanted to say thank you all of you reading my blog — you all to have safe and wonderful times with your families and friends during this holiday.

P.S. Go Dallas Cowboys! It’s always pleasure to watch Cowboys game every year on Thanksgiving Day!

Grant W Laird Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com