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Combis and Compatibility

by Keith Kellett

I first came across compatibility fifteen years ago, when I bought some video tapes I the United States. When I got them home to England, I found they wouldn’t work in my video … the European system was different to the American one.

But, I’m glad I didn’t throw those tapes away, because I found they worked in the new system I bought. But first, I bought one for my mother. Simplicity and ease of operation were the watchwords.

‘My dear sir!’ said the salesman ‘A five-year old child could operate this!’

‘No doubt!’ I said ‘But, can an 86 year old lady work it?’

‘This’ was a TV/video combi. Pretty neat idea, I thought. Saves all those wires trailing about the place. And, pretty soon, I bought one for myself.

When DVD became common, I found the CD player on my mini-stereo would play DVDs, and a McGyver-ish arrangement of wires connected the stereo to the TV.

Then, one day I bought a DVD … and, instead of my movie, all I got was a caption saying the DVD was ‘out of area’ and I should ‘consult the supplier’. I ‘consulted’ him all right!

I got my money back on that one, but maybe I should have kept it, to see if it would play on the replacement one.

That came about when I discovered the downside of a combi. The TV ceased to function, and the repairman declared it gribbled beyond economic repair. But, it meant that I had to throw out a perfectly good video recorder with it.

With the new TV we got a combination tape/DVD recorder/player, and I made sure it was code-free. Not that it would ever leave my sitting room, but it meant I could buy DVDs anywhere.

There was a small problem, though. We have cable television, and, while instructions for connecting the TV to the recorder were straightforward, if there’s an intervening cable box, things become more complicated. The instruction books for the recorder and the cable box gave exactly contrary instructions!

But, the problem was solved by a neighbour who works for the cable company. He sent me out to buy another SCSI cable, and everything worked as normal … I think.

Trouble is, the operating instructions are rather complicated. So far, we’ve played DVDs and tapes, recorded on to tape and copied a tape on to DVD. But, so far, we haven’t recorded anything on DVD. Because we haven’t, so far, seen anything on television worth recording on DVD!