Video Asylum

Posted by John C. - Aussie (B) on August 23, 2003 at 17:28:07

In Reply to: I need the the best vhs recording deck posted by Track Bike on August 21, 2003 at 10:35:34:

Last year saw the end of s-VHS machine production but there may be a few unsold ones floating around. The industry is moving towards recordable DVD machines but standards (back to the beta vs VHS scene) are still not settled. However, no machine will revive a poor tape so, before proceding further, take your tape into a shop & see how the reproduction is on a new machine.

Not all s-VHS machines have better circuitry but most do. I have a couple of 10 year old s-VHS Panasonic machines but a chip went in both of them so they only work on normal VHS now. However they have top quality tuners etc inside and remain excellent machines. But do not look at a used recorder. A new head can cost more than a new recorder.

But if you intend investing in a new recorder I would look seriously at those with internal hard disk drives. We have a JVC one here and it is excellent, particularly for viewing programs spliced with adverts. Zipping past the ads (and not overshooting as can happen with tape) is easy. You can edit the program & transfer it onto tape within the same machine if you want to. However the model I have is no longer available so I'm not sure what the current range is. Do a search on the JVC site to find out.

John

Peace at AA