A few weeks ago we took advantage of an offer from our cable provider to upgrade to digital cable at no additional cost for the first two years. The “easy to follow” installation instructions that arrived with the cable box converters we not so “easy” and after several telephone calls between my husband and technical support a technician came to our home. He needed to replace two of the three new converters, two of the new remotes and our obsolete modem. He left before we had a chance to try our VCR with the new connections. As you might guess, we needed him back out to get that partially working. Not even the technician could get the VCR to work as it formerly had with the ability to program for different shows on different channels or to record one channel while watching another. His suggestion was for us to go shopping for a programmable DVD recorder.

We purchased a Panasonic DMR-EZ47V, which has both a VCR and DVD player. (We liked the idea of the potential of converting our old videotapes to DVD’s.) Purchased separately was a Monster Ultra 1000 HDMI cable to connect to the TV. With taxes and a 2-year warranty service our cost was $487. The picture quality through the tuner is not good. We have tried every possible change in settings under the set-up menu and not been able to improve the picture. We can still play old tapes or DVD’s on our old equipment through our new digital cable and get an excellent quality picture.

We’re not sure if we simply have a defective Panasonic digital tuner or cable or if we need something entirely different. We still have time left on our first 30 days to return these to Best Buy for a complete refund. We’re hesitant to come completely into the 21st century with TIVO. I’m looking for suggestions from my technically savvy friends on LCT.