Video Asylum

Posted by Thur on July 20, 1999 at 10:40:01:

In Reply to: Re: rec. for vcr with s-video input posted by Norm Strong on July 14, 1999 at 14:17:35:

Norm, I had a chance to do some window shopping this weekend. I called one retailer who told me he had a demo model of the jvc 9500 for $499. Seeing the unit left me less than impressed. I was initially turned off by the gold colour. More importantly, the inputs on the front of the unit look like brass coated (?gold) versions of the same cheap inputs on the back. The first salesperson (on the phone) told me this unit has two seperate s-video inputs. The second salesperson told me that if a cable is plugged into the front, that signal overrides the one in the back. Therefore, one really does not have two inputs, just two options for inputs. One would have to buy a splitter to plug a dvd player and satellite receiver into any svcr.
In the end, I got the impression that svcrs are a fairly new product, and that better quality units are on the horizon.
Also, no vcr seems to be very quiet, so I will probably turn the thing off if not recording. Thus it would not make sense to plug an s-video cable through the vcr and then to the tv. I think we will wait a bit and hold on to the budget vcr until something better comes out.