JVC was the emperor with no clothes: period. I really enjoy reading all your different opinions. I often will copy a DVD onto a VHS tape before I watch it just to keep my blood pressure down. I would finally just throw the remote, turn on a TV station, do the slow burn and say the hell with the DVD. Have you ever tried to find where you left off the day before or went to another DVD player GRRRRR absolutely maddening! Especially if you're already 5 minutes into your damn workout and still have not found the right place. ![]() I also go from room to room with a tape and can toss it into any VCR and continue on where I left off INSTANTLY. ![]() I watch many long movies on VHS during workouts. Why? Because I by far prefer VHS to DVD simply because of practicality. This is why I am constantly on the prowl for old Panasonic built VCRs that I can revamp for reliability and long life. They won't build what the masses will no longer buy. We VCR folks are a dying breed which explains our dilemma today. Now that is pretty awful when compared to my 80's units that are decades old! We are not offered the selection anymore at mainstream stores and therein lies the problem. I have gone through six of them and their live span has ranged from 3 months to 12 months. Whether it is named Magnavox, Philips, Emerson, SV2000, or Funai, it is still a Funai. The problem nowdays is that if we want to replace a VCR, we are stuck with Walmart type stores and our selection is almost always a Funai built product. Some of the best-looking VHS recordings I have were made on early bargain-basement GoldStar (now LG) and Emerson (Samsung) vcrs: go figure. (Much later, Sanyo produced some very nice high-end VHS decks for TV studios, those were fantastic.) The cheesy no-name brands were often durable simply because they were made in such great numbers and had less features than the "name" machines. Sanyo made the least reliable Beta machines of all, and was the OEM supplier of the absolutely horrible Fisher VHS decks sold in every chain store, so I'm not sure where you came across a "good" Sanyo VHS. Quasar and Magnavox were made by Panasonic back then, and while Panasonic never had the best picture quality they were built like tanks and were the most reliable by far. Not everyone rushed to embrace VHS in the early years: quite a few folks grudgingly turned to it in desperation when their Beta loading mechanism failed for the sixth time in a year costing $50-100 to repair. I always thought it ironic that Sony didn't work the Rube Goldberg kinks out of the Beta transport design until long after VHS swept the market: people forget now, but the constant mechanical failure and maintenance costs damaged the Beta market as much as rental stores carrying more VHS. ![]() The NEC and Toshiba Betamaxes actually made much better recordings than Sony did, but were just as prone to self-destruct quickly. My favorites were a Minolta (made by Hitachi during a good phase), an NEC (great while it lasted) and the first Panasonic hifi vcr, the PV-1730 (still works!). NEC and Toshiba took forever to decide whether they'd back VHS HiFi or Beta HiFi, so for awhile each did both- badly. Hitachi quality control had more ups and downs than the Coney Island roller coaster. Many of the old-time stereo brand names chose JVC to build their vcrs, a mistake they all lived to regret when the machines began eating tapes even before the two week return period was over. Its deceptive, because a lot of the "high end" names had absolutely no video mfring capability and simply subcontracted their VCRs out to other makers. The early to mid 1980s saw a gold rush of brands hoping to cash in on the "hifi" stereo vcr.
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