• Buy a DVD recorder and record your favorite shows in higher quality.discs image by Alex White from Fotolia.com
  
  VHS recordings offer very little in the way of sound quality, picture quality and convenience, not to mention the fact that VHS tapes are all but obsolete. So if you're looking to get an upgrade, try shopping around for a DVD recorder. These devices offer much higher quality recordings and you can play the discs that you store them on in most modern players.
  
  

NTSC Analog TV Tuner

• An National Television System Committee (NTSC) tuner card is an absolute must-have if you want to record TV shows. This built-in tuner card allows your DVD player to pick up on TV channels, much like the old VHS systems did. Although transferring VHS tapes to DVD on a DVD combo recorder is possible, you can't record anything coming from your TV unless you have this tuner card. Most DVD recorders have this built in, but before you purchase a DVD recorder, make sure to look on the box or ask a sales representative if the NTSC analog TV tuner is in the device that you want to buy.
  
  

ATSC Tuner Card

• Some newer DVD recorders are offering the option of a built-in Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) tuner card. This would allow the DVD player to pick up high-definition signals from your TVs. This sounds like a preferred option to the NTSC tuner card, except that DVDs are not high-definition formats. In other words, if you buy a DVD player with an advanced ATSC card, you won't be able to burn HDTV shows onto your DVDs. The recorder will automatically compress, or lower the quality, of the recorded show or movie when it burns the to DVD. If you want to record high definition movies and shows onto DVD, you'll have to wait until HD-DVD recorders are released.
  
  

EPG or IPG

• Electronic Programming Guide (EPG), or Interface Programming Guide (IPG), is a complicated way of saying that you can set up your DVD recorder to record shows ahead of time. Much like TiVo or DVR, you can browse through the channels or categories of shows and select a show that you want to record up to 8 days before the show actually airs.
  
  

Component Video Output

• If you have a more modern TV, like a plasma or liquid crystal display (LCD) flat-screen, you have to get a DVD recorder with component video output. This is the new form of video output, and is easily recognized by its colors. While the older TVs and VCRs/DVD players had the yellow, white and red audio/visual inputs and outputs, the newer TVs and DVD recorders have red, blue and green outputs. Getting a DVD recorder with component video outputs will ensure that you get the best picture quality possible.
  
  

DVD Format

• Last, but not least, there's the big question DVD disc format choice---whether you should purchase ]DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW or DVD+R disc. Shopping at your local electronics store for these discs is at times confusing, but of these main blank DVD formats, one stands above the rest. The DVD-R blank discs have an incredibly high backwards compatibility rate---up to 90 percent. In other words, these blank discs work on both newer and older DVD players. So when you're shopping for blank discs and you walk into the aisle with 500 types of what look like the same thing, remember, the DVD-R format is compatible with most DVD players.