Home > Consumer Reviews > Panasonic PV-V4621 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR

I purchased this VCR since my old one was also Panasonic and worked well over the years. The features of this new VCR are great. However, I am now on my second one after having returned the first. The first one made a great deal of noise from the motor and recorded video playback was grainy. The second unit is much more quiet during operation, but the viewing of recorded video is terrible. There is a very noticeable degradation of the picture upon playback and an "interference" type line wiggling along the bottom. Adjusting the tracking does not solve the problem. I have purchased new tapes, but that has not changed anything. This second unit is going back to the store tomorrow. After reading other reviews, I am wondering if Panasonic produced a bad "batch" of this model VCR. There seems to be too much disparity between reviews where some say the picture is excellent and others say it's terrible. I am still debating whether I will try a third unit of this same model and brand.

This VCR has many wonderful bells and whistles, like commercial advance, many indexing searches and great displays. BUT the recordings are terrible. I had to return this VCR. It is also noisy which you don't notice if it is in a glassed cabinet. the remote is easy to learn but the buttons are unbelievably tiny.

I love the features of this VCR, especialy the automatic commercial advance. The VCR marks the beginning and end of commercials and then automatically fast forwards through them on playback. A time-shifter's dream! I previously reviewed this as 3 stars because it was incompatible with my new Panasonic HDTV set. I found out that the TV was the problem, not the VCR. Now that I have hooked it up to my Sony XBR HDTV, I am very pleased with my purchase.

Panasonic must have a quality control problem with these units. I've read reviews stating the picture quality is great and other reviews saying it is horrible. Add mine to the horrible list. Recording at any speed results in grainy playback. The VCR is the noisiest VCR I've ever heard. The remote has micro buttons for the channel changing and the record button is too close to the channel buttons. Setup is not easy either. Mine powered up talking French, so I had to wade through the manual to figure out how to reset it. FF or Rewinding does not automatically display time remaining. You have to press the display button on the remote to get this info. Needless to say, it went back to the store. I exchanged it for a Sony SLVN71...The Sony was a breeze to setup. Didn't even open the manual. Remote was excellent. Picture quality was excellent. Plus the Sony has a metal frame and case. The Panasonic is total plastic.

I've had it a few weeks, and everything has worked as expected. The power save and commercial advance features are very useful, and work as advertised. Minor disappointments are that only 8 programs can be set up, and the programming interface could be better. For example, I could easily enter the program time using the number keys (1-2-3-0 for 12:30, for example), but instead I must use the up and down arrows, slowly advancing from 01 to 30.