Hi cavman2,
to the forums.
There is no reason why you can't use a DVD recorder/VCR combi in conjunction with your V+.
The V+ will store up to 80 hours of recordings, and the archiving feature of the V+ works fine, only you know how much content you would want to store, so if that will not meet your needs you would have to decide whether the extra storage provided by a combi with a hard drive would be easier to use than a stock pile of DVDs/tapes.
I'm sorry but I can't recommend any particular combi unit as I only use DVD.
What I did decide though was to get a unit with built in Freeveiw as I still have roof top aerial. On the very odd occasion when Virgin went down, and at other times when I wanted to record three programmes at the same time, it has proved useful.
I hope this has helped a little, hopefully someone else will be along to give their advice.
