Panasonic PV-V4624S 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR, Silver
The best among the VCRs that are still out there.
I bought this VCR in January '05 and had it stored as a backup for any of my two other VCRs. One of them a 6-head Toshiba didn't exactly die but the heads are just worn out from all the faithful service it has provided me with over the course of several years. With that in mind, this Panasonic PV-V4624S came out of storage and has been in use for the past week and a half and here are my impressions:<br />The positive:<br />- Very good image quality: a step above the 6-head Toshiba it is replacing. I have only good things to say about the video aspect of it.<br />- Outstanding hi-fi stereo sound: the only thing better than the video quality in this VCR has to be the sound reproduction. It is top notch.<br />- Recording quality: could be better, but it is not bad. I'm okay with it, and again the audio portion steals the show.<br />- Many useful features: among my favorites are the ease for timer recording, the tape position feature (which lets you know how much time is left on the current tape for recording purposes), and the zero search feature (which ff or rew the tape to whatever position you marked as 00:00:00 on the counter).<br /><br />Hit or miss:<br />These are features that although not bad, could have used a little more work, some of this is really a matter of personal taste.<br />- The overall look and feel: this VCR's appearance IMO is not the best looking thing out there, the silver color is nice (although I do like black VCRs better) but the plastic looks a bit cheap. The VCR looks very bulky but weighs almost nothing, which is a problem when trying to insert a tape (more on that later) as the whole thing will slip backwards unless you hold it with one hand.<br />- The remote control: again very lightweight and the platic makes it look like a cheap toy. It is ugly but it is also surprisingly comfortable, although some of the buttons are extremely small, including the volume and channel buttons, the record button is only 3mm wide! The light tower feature is basically a button that makes some (NOT all) buttons light up for about 5 seconds. The buttons that light up are: Play, FF, Rew, Stop and the button corresponding to whatever it is you are controlling at the moment (VCR, TV or DSS Cable), it works well enough but I think they should have included the volume and channel buttons too.<br />- Fast forwarding and rewind are very noisy, and it is done fast enough but not proportional to the noise it makes. It is kind of like watching an 18-wheeler take off: lots of noise, but very little acceleration.<br /><br />The negative:<br />There are four things I dislike about this VCR and the last two are basically what bring the score down to 4-stars:<br />- The loading/ejecting mechanism is nowhere near being smooth, it is clunky, and worthy of a lesser machine.<br />- The \\"timer\\" indicator lights on whenever you have something programmed for timer recording, the problem is that once the recording is done, it stays on. So if you are not the only one using the VCR, there is no way of knowing if the timer indicator is on because of something that has already been recorded or because someone programmed something else or if you goofed when programming causing it not to record, unless you turn on the TV, and look at the programming menu.<br />- The front display: it DOESN'T show the tape counter. Why on earth would they bother placing a display in the front if they are not gonna show the tape counter??? It shows the clock, and the VCR's status (eg. Play, Rec, FF, Rew, etc) and some other stuff, but the single most important thing to show is missing. Got to turn on the TV and choose on-screen display to see that.<br />- In what has to be the most irritating thing ever, when you fast search or rewind and then press play to resume viewing, the thing doesn't stop where you tell it to, but instead keeps going and going. This means that if you want to skip commercials you end up overshooting or undershooting the point where a specificshow continues, if you keep going back and forth trying to get within a few seconds from the point you want, not only do you end up pissed, but also end up taking up more time then if you had watched the commercials to begin with. Ugh!<br /><br />I am currently in the market for one more VCR which will go into storage until one of my current (including the one being reviewed) dies. The options out there are meager and most of them have terrible reviews (not to mention that most of them don't even have a front-display anymore, let alone a counter display). Many of the best brands like Sharp and Toshiba are no longer making them, and what is out there has the reputation of \\"self-destructing\\" after the warranty period expires. The model that came before this VCR, the PV-V4524S had bad reviews all over, and I have seen many bad reviews for the newest model the PV-V4525S. This particular model the PV-V4624S has only had good reviews as far as I know except for \\"Soap Grandma's\\" somewhere in this site, but hers was for a different reason. I will probably be going for another one of these, but I am gonna play it cautiously and probably hold for a three month period of usage to see if it doesn't die prematurely. Regardless I gotta buy something before VCRs become extinct. Wonder why companies don't realize there is still a market out there for these machines, I guess Panasonic deserves my money just for the fact that they are still putting out a machine that has most of the stuff I have come to expect a VCR should have. A 4-star rating overall, but a 5-star rating when compared to the rest of VCRs currently on the market.few seconds from the point you want, not only do you end up pissed, but also end up taking up more time then if you had watched the commercials to begin with. Ugh!    I am currently in the market for one more VCR which will go into storage until one of my current (including the one being reviewed) dies. The options out there are meager and most of them have terrible reviews (not to mention that most of them don't even have a front-display anymore, let alone a counter display). Many of the best brands like Sharp and Toshiba are no longer making them, and what is out there has the reputation of \\"self-destructing\\" after the warranty period expires. The model that came before this VCR, the PV-V4524S had bad reviews all over, and I have seen many bad reviews for the newest model the PV-V4525S. This particular model the PV-V4624S has only had good reviews as far as I know except for \\"Soap Grandma's\\" somewhere in this site, but hers was for a different reason. I will probably be going for another one of these, but I am gonna play it cautiously and probably hold for a three month period of usage to see if it doesn't die prematurely. Regardless I gotta buy something before VCRs become extinct. Wonder why companies don't realize there is still a market out there for these machines, I guess Panasonic deserves my money just for the fact that they are still putting out a machine that has most of the stuff I have come to expect a VCR should have. A 4-star rating overall, but a 5-star rating when compared to the rest of VCRs currently on the market.