Set-Top DVD Recording: Not Your Father’s Fair Use Doctrine
Yay! It’s pouring rain here in Florida for the first time in six months! Now perhaps we can finally stop smoldering, inhaling noxious smoke and — dare I say it — go back to washing our cars in our driveways without getting two-hundred dollar tickets. But that’s not the subject of today’s post. No; today’s post is about the struggle that ensued between man and machine (more like man and despotic racketeering lobby) in my living room yesterday evening.
Having given away or trashed all but one videocassette recorder (my coveted JVC HR-S5300U S-VHS deck), Apple and I recently decided that it was time for us to step into the world of set-top DVD recorders. Our TiVo’s ginormous hard drive is always chock full of movies, shows and suggested content that we occasionally find good enough to archive for future viewing, plus I wanted to give Apple a way to watch her downloaded Japanese and Korean AVI files without transcoding them to DVD video. So, I decided to pick out a DVD recorder that could do both: Permanently archive our TiVo recordings, and natively play DivX/XviD encoded AVI files burned onto a standard data disc.
This turned out to be a bigger challenge than I had anticipated — at least, on the budget I wanted to work with. While many DVD recorders can be found for $100 or even less these days, short of spending several hundred dollars more, there’s not much available with the aforementioned features. After a few hours of research, I narrowed it down to an Insignia unit (an LG rebrand sold exclusively at Best Buy) that would do everything I needed, all for $115. Seeing the local store had the unit in stock, I went to pick one up.
After spending a few minutes wandering around and looking for the thing, I found only a newer Insignia model, one that managed to cost $15 less but no longer supported DivX/XviD. Way to improve the product there, muchachos. After some more digging, I found the model I wanted — but it was an open-box item. Eeew. My last (and only) experience with open-box or refurb’ed electronic products was my Playstation 1 back in ’97. I traded in my entire life’s collection of classic videogame consoles for that thing, only to have it fry itself when I hooked up a second gamepad so a friend could play a round of Need For Speed III: Hot Pursuit with me.
Not wanting to give up that easily, I recalled a recent post by Pooch in which he managed to find the product he wanted at Best Buy only after asking a clerk to check the store’s inventory. So I asked a nearby sales guy if the store had any unopened units of the model I wanted. They didn’t. Neither did any other store in the area. Worse, the unit was discontinued and no more would be coming. It looked like it was either open-box or no box for me.
But then the salesman offered me a killer deal — $49, instead of the $115 retail price for the unit (which had already been discounted $20 or so). He also opened up the box and let me inspect the contents for unusual wear or damage, of which there was neither. So, since I could still return it within 30 days in case of trouble, I bought it. At least that’s better than the $129ish I spent on that ill-fated Playstation. I picked up an S-video cable to go with it and headed home.
