What VCR now?

[Damian Arstall]

Hi all,

Last weekend I purchased the JVC HR6700 from Comet (first mistake) for £200. All seemed fine until I tried to plug my RF lead to the tv into it. It took several slivers of metal of the socket, though it still seemed to work okay. The machine was quite noisey in operation but I could live with that.

I was going to put up with the two above complaints until I tried a true S-video recording from DVD to SVHS. The picture whilst having more detail had very noisy edges and occasional sparklies. Using the same TDK XP tape in VHS mode produced a much more natural picture with less detail but no noise or sparklies.

JVC claimed this is'nt right but it took some time to convince the muppets at Comet that all was'nt well. I have now thankfully got a refund. I would have tried another HR6700 but thought it best to investigate further.

Now is this normal? The picture was'nt that bad but a dissapointment when the VHS pictures were really good.

And for a replacement......what do people think to the LG S909NI SVHS VCR for £130? Whats its VHS performance like? Has it got a 4 pin SVideo out? Would it play SVHS ET recordings and can it receive S-Video signals through one of the scarts?

And finally has anyone tried the new Panasonic SVHS ET recorders...mainly the NVHS820 and 825?

Sorry to go on a bit.

Thanks

:confused:

[MikeK]

Originally posted by Damian Arstall
Hi all,

Last weekend I purchased the JVC HR6700 from Comet (first mistake) for £200. All seemed fine until I tried to plug my RF lead to the tv into it. It took several slivers of metal of the socket, though it still seemed to work okay. The machine was quite noisey in operation but I could live with that.

I was going to put up with the two above complaints until I tried a true S-video recording from DVD to SVHS. The picture whilst having more detail had very noisy edges and occasional sparklies. Using the same TDK XP tape in VHS mode produced a much more natural picture with less detail but no noise or sparklies.

JVC claimed this is'nt right but it took some time to convince the muppets at Comet that all was'nt well. I have now thankfully got a refund. I would have tried another HR6700 but thought it best to investigate further.

Now is this normal? The picture was'nt that bad but a dissapointment when the VHS pictures were really good.

And for a replacement......what do people think to the LG S909NI SVHS VCR for £130? Whats its VHS performance like? Has it got a 4 pin SVideo out? Would it play SVHS ET recordings and can it receive S-Video signals through one of the scarts?

And finally has anyone tried the new Panasonic SVHS ET recorders...mainly the NVHS820 and 825?

Sorry to go on a bit.

Thanks

:confused:

No, it certainly isn't normal.
I have a pre ET 6600 model, and have had no problems whatsoever for the 18months I've had it (touch wood).
Very pleased with the performance all round - so no complaints at all. Sounds like you were sold a duffer there - not common, but not unknown either!

No idea about the LG model, but a SVHS VCR for £130 does look a bit of a bargain - if it's any good. That said, I bought a Daewoo Nicam 6head VCR for the bedroom (different company I know), and it's crap. Very average picture and sound, and an annoying habit which means any (and I mean any) slight tape defect, causes the OSD to come on screen for about 5 secs and there's no way to stop this. All in all, a poor product (but it was only £100 - it looked a bargain for the bedroom at the time)

Sharp also do a cheap SVHS VCR, but although it's had some favourable reports, I have no experience of it personally.

Panasonic VCRs are fine, even though I do think they are overpriced. If it were me, I'd try another JVC 6700 - the chances of getting two duffers on the run are very remote, but you may have been put off them now.

[SOUNDSTYLE]

I know that the next best sVHS ET is the Sharp model VH2000 (or something like that).

It costs about £160-180 and for the money is very good.

It looks good aswell.