How digital TV will kill off the VCR

Start transferring your VHS tapes to DVD if you want to watch all of those old movies you have when the nation's analog TV signals change to digital transmissions in mid-June.

Unless you can pop for a new VCR with a digital tuner or can find some way to jerry-rig your old VCR, those video tapes will be as useless as Betamax tapes were in the '80s, according to a Contra Costa Times story.

DVDs replaced video tapes years ago at video rental stores, but 72% of U.S. households with a TV also have a VCR, according to the research group Nelson. Just 24% of TV-owning households have the new way to record -- the digital video recorder, or DVR.

DVD recorders are expensive. DVRs usually work with pay TV systems and require a monthly fee.