Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic PV-VS4820 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR

The feature set of this unit is (for me) a tad better better than the listed features for the similarly priced JVC units, which is what you'll be comparing it to if you are looking for SVHS-ET units that record SVHS on both SVHS tape and regular VHS tape, the principal reason for buying such a comparatively high priced unit.

The SVHS-ET (SVHS recorded on VHS tape) recording and playback is excellent, and once you see the results, you'll never go back to VHS recording - the picture on VHS tape is as good as the broadcast signal - 400 lines of resolution compared to 240 for VHS. And if you exchange tapes with someone who has an older SVHS unit that can't do ET, you'll find that recording and playback on expensive SVHS tape is superb.

The unit also has commercial advance - detects and skips over commercials, which works quite well, getting about 80% of them, with perhaps a 10% ocurrence of mistaking program material for commercials; the advance feature can be under manual control or automatic. There is also movie advance, which skips commercials at the start of pre-recorded tapes, but I haven't used it yet, as I rent DVDs, not tapes.

The one area where this unit doesn't exceed the feature set in the comparable JVC units is in the front panel video jacks - JVC also has an S-video jack on the front panel, while this one has only a standard RCA composite video jack - which will not be important unless you have a modern camcorder with S-video output that you want to dub from. If you do, you'll have a tough time choosing between this unit and JVC, as you have to pay a lot more to get commercial advance in the JVC line.

This unit is so good that I considered buying a second unit for dubbing, but I found that there is no way to differentiate between two identical decks - they will both respond to the same remote codes. Sony allows the user to designate units as "VCR1" or "VCR2", so that 2 otherwise identical units can be controlled without conflict, but Panasonic does not - at least at this price point. In any event, this is not the deck you'd want for serious editing, as there is no flying erase head, and the cueing accuracy is typical of a low cost deck.

I had a hard time figuring out how to work all the features. The instruction book is reasonably comprehensive, and covers the basics well enough, and almost all features are covered to some extent, but many of the less often used features are not explained adequately (e.g., slow motion tracking), and are are often not where you would expect to find them, or are poorly written. I called Panasonic support twice for explanations (something I have never had to do on a consumer electronics product till now!), and got a prompt, accurate response both times (a pleasant surprise). After becoming familiar with the unit and reviewing the instructions to see where I had gone astray, I found that all functions were indeed covered, but I never would have found everything without help. Whoever wrote the manual spoke idiomatic English, but simply didn't know how to organize a manual.

Overall, an excellent performer, a great value, and worth the hassle of figuring out the instructions.

Wow. This puppy continues to amaze us every day. Here's the last couple of surprises:

* After taping a show, it asks whether you want to delete the commercials right away, or do it later. How nice to have choices!

* It tapes SVHS quality on VHS tapes. Wait until you see SVHS quality, then see how yucky normal VHS looks.

* When you rent a video, one button on the remote fast forwards past all the previews. You see all the junk fly by, then the tape slows down, and the audio cuts in at precisely the first note of the movie soundtrack. Amazing.

Needless to say, we love this one.

This machine does a good job as a S-VHS machine. However, its motors grind away like a washing machine. If you can put it in the next room with the door shut, buy it.

A good vcr. I personally like the vcr plus featre. but there are many featres like Dolby ProLogic-compatible hi-fi sound Advanced VCR Plus+ recording features Rapid rewind/fast-forward Commercial Advance skips over 3 minutes of commercials in 25 seconds Multibrand universal Light Tower remote control. a good BUY!

I was leary of ordering this over the net but was very happy with it. The commercial advance is the coolest feature. It automaticly fast forwrds over the commercials without touching it. I needed a VCR with an S video hookup and this one worked well for the price. I am verry happy with the overall performance. The remote [is not good] but I don't use it much anyway.