The [del]girlfriend[/del] fiance and I have been piecing together a home theater system for the last few months, in anticipation of our future home together. While not proper videophiles, we’re movie collectors, and combined have a ridiculous collection of material across multiple formats. We’ve got a great TV, and a nearly complete selection of media players from the ages to handle our diverse collection (CED, Betamax, 8mm, several laserdisc players to handle LDs of differing quality, multi-region/PAL-converting DVD, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD through a PC). The tape, CED, and LD players are all bulletproof workhorses, and I’m not yet too concerned about the longevity of the modern disc formats. (If the video media array seems anachronistic, keep in mind that we’ve got a few buyers looking for good cylinder players and a Victrola to go alongside our current sound system… we love media in general.)
The one major video player format we don’t have? VHS. We both have decent VHS collections, but our players suck and barely work; I’m using a machine that is 27 years old and on its last legs, and none of the players she’s had have lasted for a few years. I’m not fond of combi-players (the only things on the market right now), and we would like to invest in a sturdier machine for legacy use over the years.
We’re looking for recommendations for VHS VCRs to look for in the used/pawn/eBay/auction markets. Cost is of less concern than quality. Reliability, sturdiness, quality of video and audio output, safety of tape transport, etc., is most important. I can replace belts and clean capstans, and can reasonably expect to replace capacitors and such, so machine age is not too much of an issue as long as I’m not looking at replacing heads or aligning things with an oscilloscope. VCPs are okay, as we don’t plan to record. Import is okay as well, though we’d prefer NTSC or multi-format. I’d prefer a deck that can play S-VHS (and/or D-VHS), but a good VHS-only deck with useful features (time remaining indicator? remote locator? auto-eject or auto-playback?) would still be good; Hi-Fi/stereo audio is a must
After going thru numerous VCRs (whatever brands Wal-Mart carried at the time, Sanyo comes to mind) & having them all crap out after a few years, I bought a Mitsubishi HS-U446. I’ve probably had this thing for close to 10 years & it has yet to destroy a VHS tape.
I would look for a pro or semi-pro (or ‘prosumer’) model, like the AG series from Panasonic. They were designed for heavy use (i.e. editing) and are much sturdier & long lasting then consumer decks. Most are VHS/SVHS and have lots of nifty features too.
I have a JVC at work that I’ve used almost every day for 5 years and it hasn’t given me any trouble. I believe it is a VHS/S-VHS model, but I don’t remember the model number offhand. You can pick up VCRs from a thrift shop for so cheap ($10-15 apiece) that you may just want to get a few of them and switch them out once they finally die.
Thanks for the suggestions thus far. The pro/prosumer model suggestion is a really good one; I hadn’t thought about looking in that direction.
One of our fears of using the cheaper models isn’t just that the machine won’t last, but that it’ll eat/damage tapes. The fiance has a lot of home movies that can’t really be replaced. (A long-term project is converting these to digital, so having a machine that outputs good, clean NTSC for capture will also be beneficial.)
Dad’s JVC is going strong after over two decades of use too. I figured since they invented the format (didn’t they?) they company would be keen to have decent quality machines to keep the format alive.
For an easy way to convert tapes to DVD, Sony sells 2 DVD Direct models. If you do find a VCR, you can plug it in and burn DVDs pretty easily. Here’s the higher end model (there’s also a slightly cheaper one):