I am looking to buy a new VCR to replace my 6 year old dying Philips Hi-Fi unit. Trouble is that with VHS on the way out and recordable DVDs and DVRs taking over it's REAL hard to find a decent VCR nowadays. Over the past year or so I have purchased and returned to the store about 6 or 7 VCRs because I have not been happy with the quality of any of them, seems they're all plagued with flimsy construction but the ones that were by far the worst were: Samsung (tracking problems like crazy almost as if the heads were out of alignment right out of the box!) and Sony (graininess on every tape I played both homemade and pre-recorded) Sharp units seem kind of okay but the tape mechanism is really loud. As you can imagine my quest to find a descent (I'm not looking for perfect, just decent) VCR is starting to get very frustrating. I need a recommendation for a GOOD quality VCR that is able to playback homemade tapes recorded on different VCRs without having to mess with the tracking all the time (my old Philips unit would play just about any tape I put in it without problem). I have a vast VHS collection of both homemade and store bought tapes that I don't want to give up just because I can't find a decent VCR. Any advice and recommendations on brands you can give would be greatly appreciated!
As stated I have tried just about every brand of VCR still out there but Mitsubishi is one on of the few I have not tried yet. Thanks for the info. Where's a good place to buy from? I have not seen Mitsubishi in any of the major electronics stores.
Ultimate carries Mitsubishi. I think they only make 2 or 3 models, basic HiFi, super VHS, and maybe 1 between the two. I don't know what current model numbers are.
I have had similar problems with VHS. trying to find decent ones is like trying to find an oasis in the desert! what a nightmare?! I have to have them as my clients still demand two copies of each video tape. I own a market research viewing facility, and it's still the industry standard to to use VHS and audio cassette?!?! But the good news is that if i offer my clients dvd recording at no extra cost, they jump on it! I'm the first facility in the country to do this, London based failities are charging £25 per disc?!?! When you can use up 18 in a day, this is a big chunk of a budget gone! I'm trying to phase the vhs out now, and i'm now also looking for a decent simultaneous cd recorder to move them away from the audio cassettes. I realise this isn't much help to you. For the VHS's we bought Phillps VR750's at £100 each from any local comet store. They're not fantastic, but i don't think they'll be around all that long! Have you maybe thought about copying all your vhs over to dvd?
Yes I have though about copying all my VHS to DVD. I do a lot volunteer video production work out of my home so I have all the equipment to do it (except a descent VCR) I started to get into video production in the mid 90s so about 60% of my video footage is still on VHS, it wasn't until recently that I switched over to all digital equipment.