If you're thinking about replacing your VCR at the same time you buy a DVD player, you might consider buying a DVD-VCR combo. This is a single box that contains both a DVD player and a VCR. It also might make good sense to buy a DVD-VCR combo for use with any size new TV you buy. The DVD-VCR combos I looked at were priced in the $200 to $300 range, and brand names included Panasonic, Toshiba, Philips, JVC, Samsung, Zenith, Sanyo, and Go Video. By the way, DVD-VCR combos do not, in general, support copying from a DVD to a videotape.

TV-DVD combos, which are available with TV screen sizes varying from 5 to 27 inches, are the least popular of the combos. Panasonic, Toshiba, JVC, Sylvania, and Konka are among the companies that make TV-DVD combos, but I didn't see many in the stores. By way of example, Toshiba offers a 20-inch flat screen TV-DVD combo for about $400 and a 13-inch one for about $250. It appears to me that TV-DVD combos are targeted primarily at people who never want to have anything to do with videotape under any conditions, but I suppose some others might be interested anyway. For example, if you already own a VCR, you could hook that up to the combo for those rare occasions when you need to deal with videotape. Also, new 4-head VCRs made by companies like Panasonic, Toshiba, and JVC can be purchased for $60 to $70.

I've tried to give you a few general ideas about combos, but the information here is only a start at best. If after reading this, you still think you might be interested in buying a combo, you'll want to do some investigating on your own. Some good stores to look in are Best Buy, Circuit City, and Wal-Mart. Of course there's a ton of information on combos on the Web and in magazines, but most of it is written from the point of view of the consumer electronics expert, and I often have trouble grasping what they're trying to tell me. Part of the problem seems to be that the information is supplied by someone who enjoys tinkering with equipment more than I do and wants to use it for different things than I do. I mostly just want to watch movies at home on reliable, easy-to-use equipment that is reasonably priced, and this article is aimed at people who think along similar lines.

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