Recording digital tv

This may be wrong forum? I use my pc to edit VHS tapes & then I save them to a 500GB external hard-drive. I have a big film library now.

Simple question but I get conflicting or evasive answers. Can a VHS-tape VCR record an incoming digital signal? Or as I suspect can it only record an analogue signal?

I do have a supplementary question. If an incoming digital tv signal cannot be recorded on VHS tape but one needs either to burn it to a DVD disc or save it to a hard drive (e.g. Humax) is it possible to export that saved digital tv film to my pc for editing or, better, to a USB-2 memory stick as my Samsung digital tv will playback such memory-sticks. Such sticks are now quite big, modestly priced and fully portable.

Obviously you cannot record a digital signal directly to analog tape. There are solutions that allow you to convert a digital signal to analog, but the most satisfactory option is just to buy a digital recorder. You can export the files from such devices and edit them on a PC.

You can always connect a digi box to your recorder and record that way.

Assuming that we're talking about recording off-air DTT then the pertinent question is not can it be done but why would one want to.

VHS resolution is much less than DTT - about 240 lines from memory (by 576 scanlines) so you'd end up with a very low quality result (even allowing for the MPEG compression used in digital telly).

As others have suggested a DVR can often export the files to a PC, or get one which can burn DVDs - or buy a tuner card for the PC - this will allow a totally lossless capture of the data in the off-air signal.

In reply to a post by cavillas:

You can always connect a digi box to your recorder and record that way.

i second that good old scart still has its place to connect FV/FS boxes to VHS's lol

Ash

In reply to a post by Littleseen:

Can a VHS-tape VCR record an incoming digital signal? Or as I suspect can it only record an analogue signal

It can only record an analogue signal. But .....
..... Depending on which model it is, your Humax box may have an analogue output on channel 36 (to feed an analogue TV) which you can then record on your VHS tape recorder.