Home > Consumer Reviews > Toshiba W712 Hi-Fi VCR

Four Video heads, HiFi and Stereo record and playback are all standards on this unit. This is one of the best VCRs on the market. It plays back tapes with very good images having one of the best pictures on the market. The 19-micron video heads record and playback a sharper picture than standard heads in the EP mode. Pre-recorded tapes play back with an excellent looking picture too. This unit also has automatic head cleaners and `superfast' rewind.

This is a very good VCR. I saw one of these while shopping. Visiting audio and video stores with the kids is a regular weekend pastime with us. This machine replays VHS tapes giving one of the best pictures on the market today. The picture was very good. The color alignment looked good on the Panasonic Super-flat TV and especially the Sony Wega TV sets. Resolution was excellent. Usually a good TV set makes VHS tapes look bad. That was not the case here. For controls and features I like the front panel shuttle control. It also has digital tracking which is a must now days. Front and rear A/V inputs are also a feature that I also find useful.

I bought this VCR in September of 2001 when my last Phillips VCR froze up on me and I couldn't get it to work again. I bought the Toshibia to complement my Toshiba DVD I had bought several months previous. I record several TV shows a week on it (still haven't broken down and bought the digital recorder) and I've only had a couple of problems with it after 18 months. I use the VCR+ feature and it works wonderfully because it's so accurate and I don't have to remind myself to set for the program every week. The quality of the recording and the viewing of all tapes is excellent. A previous reviewer commented on the fact that the advance through commercials is too fast, but it actually has two speeds of advance and the slower of the two works very well to zip through commercials.

The reason I couldn't give it 5 stars is that it is a bit confusing to set up at first and the instruction booklet is not as detailed as it could be for helps. Also, for some reason whenever we go on Daylight Savings time, the VCR moves the time ahead by two hours instead of just one. Appearently the mechanism that determines the timezone when you plug it into the cable has trouble recognizing it, so I had to turn off the feature to mannually set the time.

Other than that, I've been very pleased and given the circumstances, I would probably buy the same player again.

My last VCR machine lasted 14 years, and I miss it. It cost several hundred dollars more than the Toshiba, in pre-inflated dollars no less. But it was far better, and easier to use.

The only thing the Toshiba does better than my old one: VERY FAST rewinding!

The Toshibas problems: its fast forward and rewind, thru the remote are also too fast for short bursts. e.g. Trying to skip thru commercials without missing the program is tough, when you're flying at such a speed.

The VCR+ system is not that easy to use. Setting it to record programs is easy enough, but if you make a mistake, and want to cancel it, or erase everything, or stop the recording in progress, good luck in trying to figure out what to do!

Setting up the machine initially, in terms of the clock, and the channels, is supposed to be easy. The clock is supposed to set itself off a radio signal. It did that once, the first time I used it, and has never worked since (after each power blackout, which happens about 6 times/year). And it was off by several minutes that one time. The channel selection is cumbersome and slow, and takes several minutes. And that too has to be redone after each power blackout. So much for automation being a labor saver. I bought a computer UPS back-up battery, as a way around of not losing the settings, because it got to be so aggravating.

I think the biggest problem is that they simplified everything so much that each button on the remote has too many multiple uses, and trying to remember what else the volume + button, and all its mates, do is not something I choose to commit to memory, and so I'm reduced to having to look it up in the manual every time I need to go thru the rigamarole yet again.

As for its recording: it works. I can't tell the difference between my old machine, after it was 14 years old, and this one when it was fresh out of the box though.

I has a Toshiba vcr that was beginning to make some strange noises, so in 11/01 I bought this one. Last night the old guy
finally gave it up, so today I started to set this one up. It
has taken hours - it will still not record... There is no way
I've seen to set it up to record the same program, every day. The instructions are impossible to get through - they took a perfectly good product and "belled and whistled" it to death. I will donate this for the tax right off
and shop for a more simple mined machine...