Home > Consumer Reviews > Sharp VC-H965U 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR

Standalone VCRs are becoming extremely difficult to find. Nevertheless, don't buy this VCR. It's a good, basic VCR (my neighbors own this exact model and like it except for the machine's display and the door has gotten stuck a few times), has a good picture for standard VHS/S-VHS and is easy-to-operate. But this model is being discontinued and this seller has raised his price as much as he dares while he still has a few left. (I recall seeing it here for about $85 not too long ago, then $150, now $300.) As another reviewer has mentioned, it's not worth $300.

Although also discontinued, there is another, far better VCR for sale, namely the Mitsubishi HS-HD2000U. This VCR plays THREE formats: Standard VHS, S-VHS, and D-VHS. D-VHS (Digital VHS) allows you to record and play back HD broadcasts in their original HD resolution (although D-VHS tapes are necessary, which are more expensive than the standard VHS tapes). The resolution is far better than even S-VHS. This model has other advanced features such as auto/manual/slow tracking, manual and auto time counter, four search modes, repeat playback, search to blank, various display features such as displaying the remaining time left on a tape and the time gauge, RF converter, PerfecTape (tests the quality of every tape and adjusts settings to maximize recording and playing quality), and on and on. The remote even has an LCD screen with a hidden button compartment. Cool! Yet even with all these high-end features, it still operates as easy as a plain, standard VCR if that's what you want.

This Mitsubishi VCR sold for over $1000 when it was introduced. Now you can find them on eBay for $139, new in a factory-sealed box and with complete manufacturer's warranty. It's a dynamite VCR and one heck of a deal at this price.

Disclaimer: I just found the Mitsu described above and I did not hesitate to buy it. I'm not a seller of them or affiliated with such a seller in any way. I'm just alerting folks who would like a great machine at a great price. If you're not interested in the Mitsu, JVC offers a complete line of VCRs, many at a far better price than the $300 price tag here. I'm sure Amazon offers at least a couple of them.

The VCR offered here is a good, bare-bones VCR. But at this price, it's a complete ripoff. Do not buy it.

I ordered this item a week ago. A week later I get an email that says the order was canceled. No explanation.

If I had a way to rate this process, I'd give it a negative 10. If the vender is out of stock, the page shouldn't be up.

Recording and playback quality are fine (has Sharp Super Picture). It has a very fast rewind speed. It has a feature similar to memory rewind which stops at zero (Auto Zero Back). Index Search (called DPSS) is always useful.
Sharp is highly rated by Consumer Reports for VCR reliability.

I don't like the Front Panel display. It's yellow, small, difficult to read and unattractive. Thankfully, There is on screen display.

Like most recent VCR's, it is very small and lightweight, almost like a toy (5.1 Lbs.). It has a bad habit of changing from channel 3 to 2.

To reset the counter to zero, you must press the cancel key.

Why JVC and Sharp rename their features and buttons to make learning more difficult is very strange.

I used to love the old Panasonic models with Commercial Advance and the LP recording speed (I had three models with these features) but those features are now gone. Commercial Skip is far less useful but this VCR is pretty good and worth the money.

Manuel A. Calcagno

I'm amazed at how some standard features are steadliy disappearing from VCRs.
On this one, when you put a new video in it, the counter does not start over at 00000. It picks up where you left off on the last video. But you can't tell this because the display is always on clock, even when a video is loaded. You don't see the counter info until you push play.
You can reset the counter manually, but not while the video is just sitting in the VCR. It has to be moving (playing or rewinding) when you reset. Which means the 0000 is never quite where you wanted it.
The rewind is FAST. So fast it's impossible to stop just where you want. Hit Stop and it rewinds another 10 minutes before it actually stops.
Picture quality is fine.

Bought this VCR back in '04 when my '91 Sanyo, which I loved, died and I thought it wouldn't be worth fixing. Ended up repairing the Sanyo for $40 and it was still the better machine.

Picture quality is OK with prerecorded tapes, but nothing to write home about. I'm probably one of the few people still using over-the-air broadcasts picked up on an indoor antenna, so maybe my picture quality complaints aren't valid for someone with cable or satellite, but everything I record myself plays back looking like it was badly airbrushed. Tried turning "Super Picture" off, and while it was different, it wasn't much of an improvement and may have been worse. My Sanyo does a much better job with the noisier input.

Another annoying feature is the accelerated FF/REW. It's almost impossible to get within 10 minutes of the spot you want on the tape and you always have to go into play-mode with its slower FF/REW to find your spot. My Sanyo, with a slower, but constant speed FF/REW almost always gets me where I want to go faster.

When you can find a VCR combined with a DVD recorder and ATSC digital tuner for under $300, why pay $300 for this relic?