Home > Consumer Reviews > Sony SLV-N51 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR

This is a nice and fairly inexpensive VCR. Because of my schedule, around 98% of what I watch has been recorded so I give my VCR a workout everyday. I'm just an average person, and I'm not trying to obtain a state-of-the-art home theater system. However, I'm particular about performance. I have been known to return three or four VCRs to the store before selecting the one I wanted to keep.

I never owned a Sony so I cannot compare within the same brand. I bought a Sony once and returned it because the remote had microscopic buttons. This is not a problem with this model. Its picture and sound are great. It plays tapes recorded on my other VCR perfectly, which was not the case with my old VCR. The Sony was easy to set up. It rewinds and fast forwards lightning fast. So far, I have no complaints about performance.

I do have some petty problems with it. I find the universal remote extremely irritating. The numerical buttons control the TV only if the TV is a Sony. Mine isn't so I have to use the channel up/down button. The play/ff/rr/pause control is actually one big circular button that is somewhat hard to deal with. The super fast ff/rr is a good feature, but it is too fast when zipping through commericals or when trying to stop at a certain point. I find programming the VCR for timer recording sort of annoying. It isn't hard, but I wish it was set up differently.

I know it sounds like am am griping too much. I have no problems with the way this VCR performs. My complaints are personal preference issues. I definitely recommend this VCR.

I viewed tapes on several of these machines (Sony SLV-N51) over the weekend. I was not pleased with the picture at all. Picture playback is what it should really be all about. All of these units I played pre-recorded tapes (SP mode) on looked grainy or almost like I was seeing double (hard to explain). The picture just did not look right. I played HOW THE WEST WAS WON, SPARTACUS and Disney's THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME. The animated HUNCHBACK looked best. If you watch animated movies I suppose it did not look all that bad. It's difficult to recommend this Sony unit. This is very disappointing and unfortunate. I am getting the impression that manufacturers are letting their VCR lines get out the door with very little QA involvement. That is a shame.

I have owned Sony VCR's in the past and wanted to replace a 4 year old model with this one. What a piece of crab this is (actually all of Sony's new models are junk, since I replaced this with slv-n81 and same story!). The picture quality is really bad even when recording is from digital cable. Rented video's do not look very good either. If your looking to buy a vcr stay away from this year and last year's models. Ever since Sony moved it's production to Mexico, their quality has gone down dramatically. Sad!!

I had a cheap (...) VCR for 7 years that survived two toddlers and countless hours of Disney replays. When I finally had to replace it, I looked for another inexpensive VCR that would stand up to more abuse from kids. I decided to spend a few extra bucks to get a Sony because of their reputation for high quality equipment. BIG MISTAKE!!! Within 6 weeks I started having problems with it. The audio went out completely, the picture was snowy on every tape, and it even started chewing up tapes. I got a huge hassle from Sony Customer Service. They tried everything possible to avoid honoring the warranty. When I finally received a replacement (ten weeks later), it didn't last any longer than the first one. So here I am again, waiting for them to send me another machine. It will be a long time before I even consider buying a Sony product again.

This has to be the worst peace of electronic #@&! that I have ever bought. I have had two Sony VCR's in less than 6 months. The first one would not track and eat tapes when it rewinds, returned in and they gave me a new one. I had the second one for 110 days and it stop tracking on anything it recorded. Since its past the 90 days Sony told me that parts are covered but we all know it's the labor that cost. Please save yourself some money and time, do not buy any Sony VCRs