Question: We read your last column about attaching a digital conversion box and a VCR to your television. Were you talking about the generic box people must now attach if they have used an antenna for their TV reception, or was it a box like we have been given from our cable company? No matter what we do, we cannot figure out how to record any TV shows anymore. Nowhere in your article did you say anything about being able to record your favorite program tomorrow at 8 p.m. We record a lot of TV programs and now it appears we will be forced to pay more each month to our cable company so that we can record anything. Is it true that the digital switch was designed to kill the VCR?

Answer: I do not think the digital switch was designed to kill the VCR. If it has killed the VCR, it is in the same fashion that digital photography has wiped out film, a technological advance that leaves old tech behind.

That said, it is definitely harder to record things these days, and the powers that be in the entertainment and electronics industry have definitely acted to limit the ability of home watchers to record and archive content. While DVRs are more convenient to operate, saving high-definition recordings off the device is difficult if not impossible and ultimately all control lies in the hands of the cable or satellite company that sold you the DVR box.

In that specific column I was discussing converter boxes. You may have missed the column where I discussed VCR/DVD recorders that have digital cable tuners. Depending on your cable service tier, one of these devices may be all you need, since they have timers and tuners that work together.

It may help to know that the red, yellow and white RCA connections found on electronics components are a "universal language." For example, if you connect the red and white outputs from a cable box to the corresponding inputs on a cassette deck, you could record the audio portion of a program onto a cassette tape. If you connect the yellow/red/white outputs of a camcorder to a VCR, you can dub your home videos to VHS tape.

This principle will show you how you can still use an old-fashioned VCR to record from your cable box. Your cable box should have a yellow video output along with red and white stereo audio outputs. Connect them to the inputs on your VCR and set the VCR to record from the line input at the scheduled time. Set your cable box to the channel, and the VCR will record it when it comes on. Check your cable box to see if it has a "tuner timer." This will automatically tune the VCR to the desired channel when it is time to record.

My last bit of advice is the same I gave the other reader: If you do a lot of recording, I'd give the DVR a try, as you will likely find it to be money well spent. If you want to archive the programs for later viewing, you can copy them to VHS tape before deleting them from the DVR's hard drive. Just connect the yellow, red and white cables, press play on the DVR, and record on the VCR.