Time shifting for personal use is expressly legal (making a personal copy). It was also an early form of ad-blocking, because a VHS recorder could stop recording at a set time, thus skip a block of commercials, and then continue. There were suits about that, too.

The Betamax case that GP mentions is the same case that established that time-shifting is not copyright infringment. The law and courts were previously both mute on the subject.