The 8 or 10 tapes I had recorded of DS in the mid 1990's are now practically unwatchable. I just visited my mother for the first time since 1998 last Christmas, and each and every one of those tapes were useless at this point. So a word of advice...do not record at SLP. Spend the extra couple of books and do SP mode. Keep them in decent case, in proper a temperature, and if you make a move, be sure to handle them carefully...they are fragile, after all. Storage and handling are the key thigns that will determine the life of them, aside from the original medium (e.g., sp or slp, new tape or old tape [how old?], etc.).
If you really wanna have something that will last, I would go for TiVo. It will automatically digitally record it on a harddrive on the TiVo. And the quality is soo much better than vhs. You can put them on vcd or DVD, but that is a lot of work and they really try to make it so you can't, so you'd have to do a ton of research to do so. But I guess if someone wanted them that badly, they'd go in for the mpi series or wait for the dvd's to be released.
Anyway. Yeah. Take care of the tapes you record your shows on or they are useless