Home > Consumer Reviews > RCA VR651HF 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR

This is a very basic no-frills VCR but it plays pictures back very good. At this price you can't beat it. If you have old tapes that were recorded in the LP (4-hour mode) you will find that all RCA VCRs play tapes back recorded at this speed better than any other manufacturers' units. RCA was the last manufacturer to offer LP recording capability before all manufacturers discontinued to offer it. RCA remembers and at a good price.

I broke my mother's VCR and told her I would get a new one. After looking at the reviews I decided to get this one. Boy am I glad I did. It does everything it said it did and it truly was a plug in and everything was ready. The only thing I don't recommend is letting the VCR set the time. I live between AZ and CA time lines and it liked to switch back and forth on the time, but just like anything else on this VCR you can turn that function off. In one of the reviews, it was mentioned that this VCR has VCR-Plus and they hadn't yet tried it. Well I did. Very easy instructions and went very smoothly. I love this VCR. It's lines are cleaner when in pause, more control, more everything. I'm very glad I purchased it.

I recently purchased this VCR and was very happy with the quality and features for the price. With everyone going into DVD, I would have loved to as well when my old RCA VCR finally died after eight years. It was either buy another VCR or get a DVD player and forget about watching my VHS tapes. Since that was not a practical option, I started looking at VCR's and decided to go with another RCA, keeping in mind the good experience I had with them. This RCA is equipped with stereo so that all your tapes sound incredibly clear. It has a high speed rewind, called "reverse" on this machine. (I guess they wanted to be fancy...) But the high speed is helpful as you don't have to wait very long to get your tapes rewound.

This machine also has VCR plus which I am still learning how to use. I am in no hurry since I don't tape much shows off the TV as I used to. What really sold me was that it walks you through the entire set up process making little use of the maual. There is nothing to guess and if you lose power, the clock automatically sets itself. Halleluiah! However, this won't work if you cut the power completely off from the circuit breaker.

A good, basic VCR which won't break the bank.

This VCR works just fine, but randomly, when I'm playing a movie, it will come out with a loud, annoying BUZZZZT! sound. I've rewound movies part way, and the BZZZT sound happens in different, random parts of the movie. I don't know how to stop it. I don't know how to predict it. And occasionally the machine just won't accept a video that I push into it. It spits it right back and refuses to play it.

I won't get an RCA next time.

This is a great product. I think that this model has most of if not all the features of the 66 model. There are two outstanding aspects of this VCR: the physical design and the operation. This is a very attractive unit, the silver and black design looks good, the controls are well-placed, auxiliary video and audio inputs are on the front panel for easy use with a camcorder. Also, the on-screen menus are arranged very well. Overall, I recommend this VCR very highly.