Quote - What you're talking about there ain't so much a compatibility problem as a manufacturing tolerance problem.  

It actually is compatibility because the issue occurs between brands. I picked up a second Magnavox DVR (different model, but inexpensive at $70) when the clock stopped working on the first. I can swap disks for recording between the two Magnavox DVRs, but the incompatibilities with the other two DVRs still exists.

DVRs last longer than VCRs because they are directly mechanically driven instead of using rubber belts that stretch and wear out.  VCRs had problems with chewing up tapes as the machines got old or slightly shifting the position of the tape during recording and playback and causing synchronization problems  when played on other machines.  That's the noise that is noticeable on tapes recorded at the 6 hour speed where white dashes start appearing on the top and bottom of the TV and VCR tracking has to be adjusted. My experience with VCRs is that they had a significantly shorter life than what I've seen with DVRs.

The compatibility issues I have with DVRs haven't been age related. They exist with brand new machines. I've changed my workflow to work with the issues, but it would be nice if manufacturerers did more to ensure that everything works together.

My visual indexes of Poser content are at http://www.sharecg.com/pf/rgagnon