RCA VR704hf 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR
Superb
RCA vcrs have the very best user interfaces of any VCR brand.  I've owned 3 RCA VCR's, and spent 2 weeks with a cassette tape visiting every store in my home town, trying out 2-3 models of every VCR ( Zenith, RCA, JVC, Sony, Mitsubishi, Samsung, Panasonic, Toshiba ).  RCA is the one VCR that I could give to my 70-year old mother and she would be able to use it right away.  In fact, I bought my RCA's with the express purpose that it had to be easy enough for my mom to use.<br />The high speed transport is a pleasure the use.  It gets to the end of a tape in about 90 seconds.  The freeze-frame is superb; maybe you might want to hit the tracking button twice, but then the screen is FROZEN - DEAD STILL - like a renior painting.  Friends visiting my house have been shocked by the quality of the special effects (to be honest, it's also my Digital Zenith System 3 TV getting helping out).  There is no jog shuttle, but frame advance and variable speed &quot;forward/reverse stepping&quot; makes a job shuttle practically unnecessary.<br />The index seek - to a time, or rewind/ff to zero, is very nice.  The manual tracking on the remote is essential (and in this area, RCA beats several SONY and Zenith models in functionality).  You really want manual tracking if you have old tapes or rent a lot of movies.  This model can control a DirecTV or Echostar system, and controls a cable box.  All very useful features.  I bought a 4th RCA VCR for my sister., and they report that they are ecstatic.