Sony SLV-N750 Full Chassis 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR
OK - if it doesn't break down
I bought this unit as a dedicated source for transfering a mountain of old VCR tapes recorded from tv and my camcorder to a DVD burner/player, and it functioned well. The rewind and fast foward functions are as fast as Sony advertises, and the quality of playback is good. There's no S-video in or out, but few if any VCRs in this price range have this feature.  <br /> <br />On the negative side (for me), the following are minor irritations: The front panel elapsed time display doesn't show seconds, only hours and minutes, so it was difficult to cue the tapes (onscreen display showed seconds, but also recorded on the DVD). This shouldn't be a problem for most people, however. Also I couldn't find any way to slow-step or frame-by-frame through a scene. And after fast forwarding while playing, or just when starting to play, the sound doesn't come on for about 2-3 seconds after the picture starts playing.  <br /> <br />The biggest problem I had with this unit, however, is that a week after I bought it, after maybe a dozen tapes viewed, it started blanking out frequently during play - just 1-2 second intervals of black screen and no sound. It also started freezing and jumping forward 2 or 3 seconds at a time during play. I checked those tapes with my other VCRs, but there were no problems. So I returned this machine and am now looking at a different brand.