Sharp VC-H965U 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR
A good no-nonsense, dependable quality machine.
We've now had this Sharp VCR for about 4 months now. The  Sharp VC-H965U 4-head VCR is a good no-nonsense, dependable quality machine. I would NEVER have thought when I had to replace my Panasonic VCR (after just two years) that it would be so difficult to find a good quality VCR. Apparently it is getting harder and harder to find well-engineered ones, even those made by the more well-known manufacturers. I had always been told about Panasonic's quality in regards to its VCRs, and how &quot;JVC had invented the VCR tape&quot;, and therefore I reasoned that my first Panasonic which died prematurely must have just been a lemon, or something of a fluke. So I (unfortunately) bought yet another Panasonic. After buying it, we had to return it within a week since it mistracked every tape I put into it almost immediately out of the box. Same with a &quot;super-high quality&quot; JVC &quot;S-VCR&quot;; I didn't even have it for 24 hours before I saw permanent tracking lines on everything I taped &amp; watched. (Those tapes were forever damaged by that VCR and my second Panasonic.) After trying a VCR/DVD combo which ALSO didn't work properly, I purchased this Sharp unit and a Sanyo VCR hoping that ONE of them just might work. To our surprise, both units work flawlessly, were easy to program, and played all of our older tapes without any problems. And the price was less than half  the price of the JVC and Panasonic units.<br />This VCR is not by any means perfect, but it is a very, very good and a safe bet. As someone here wrote, it does sound a little louder during the rewind function than some VCRs, but it is not unreasonable to live with. There is a slight problem in programming cable stations where the picture went out after the process, if you happen to have a live signal on channel 3, but the manual does address this. And the very polite customer service staff walked me through the problem after this first happened when I used the Auto-set feature. (This contrasts dramatically with JVCs &quot;Customer service number&quot; which was just a voicemail box, with no option to even leave a message) And the Hi-Fi recorded sound on this VCR is very clean. When viewed on my digital set, and the recorded picture is also clear, though an improvement it could use is that the Sharp is just a tad darker in the shadow areas than my two Sanyo VCRs. However, all around it is a solid performer, and exceptionally easy &amp; reliable to program your favorite shows. I would buy another in a minute. Yet another winner from Sharp, whom I've come to respect more over the years...ally with JVCs &quot;Customer service number&quot; which was just a voicemail box, with no option to even leave a message) And the Hi-Fi recorded sound on this VCR is very clean. When viewed on my digital set, and the recorded picture is also clear, though an improvement it could use is that the Sharp is just a tad darker in the shadow areas than my two Sanyo VCRs. However, all around it is a solid performer, and exceptionally easy &amp; reliable to program your favorite shows. I would buy another in a minute. Yet another winner from Sharp, whom I've come to respect more over the years...