Panasonic PV-V4620 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR
Great Features!
I just purchased this VCR via Amazon to replace a seven year old Hitachi and I have to say that I am amazed at the features this thing has compared to my old one.  First of all, the commercial advance is the best feature of the whole machine.  Record your favorite program and when you come back to it on tape, as soon as you hit a commercial, the machine fast forwards past them all until right before your program starts again.  Awesome!  No more pressing fast forward and then guessing if that will be the last commercial before the show starts again.  This thing does it all for you!  My one complaint about this feature is that it doesn't do this on the fly.  At the end of your recording you have to press a key to tell the machine to mark the commercials which takes a few minutes.  That's not a biggie compared to not having to watch any more commercials!  <br />Another cool feature is the way this thing sets up your channels and sets your time.  You just press a few keys on the remote to begin and it does everything for you.  You don't even have to enter in a time.  It takes the time somehow when you either enter in your zip code or from a local channel in your area.  It also has a 24 hour memory so if your power goes out, you have quite a big window to play with.  Other VCRs that I checked out have a 4 hour memory limit  max.  <br />This machine also has a movie advance to fast forward through all those annoying previews at the start of a movie.  I haven't had a chance to try this out yet since I watch DVD movies but if  it works like the commercial advance, it should be good.  <br />The only other thing that I really don't like about this machine is the remote.  It's too small, especially the volume and channel buttons.  I don't know about you but I like to use my VCR remote to control my tv and these buttons are way too small.  The VCR control buttons like play, stop, rewind, and fast forward are nice and large but everything else is pretty tiny.  <br />Overall I'mvery pleased with this machine and all that it can do for the price.  The ... remote prevents me from giving this five stars.