Sony SLV-N51 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR
Nice VCR for the money
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.<br />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.  <br />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.<br />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.