Panasonic PV-VS4821 4-Head S-VHS Hi-Fi  VCR
Beware: The "Disposable Bic" of SVHS machines!
I bought and returned this product...The PVVS4821 is made of...thin plastic - mine weighed in at just over four pounds!!  It was so light that when you inserted a tape, you had to hold the macine or it would be pushed back from the \\"force\\" of inserting the tape!<br />The writing on the rear panel is not painted, so you can't read what the jacks are for...When you try to  push in the S-Video, the whole panel bulges back; again it's the...thin plastic and incredibly skimpy construction. <br />Note that [this] Panasonic [model was made in] China for this new model...you'd be better getting last year's 4820 instead if you can!<br />The remote is terrible.  Tiny buttons that are almost useless for essentials like volume, channel. And really bad layout has you fumbling all over the remote.<br />The picture is not as good as previous units because they substituted dynamorphous heads with...vanilla video heads.  It doesn't even have 19-micron, so slow speed picture is noisy. Think circa 1984 video head technology.<br />The good thing about this unit is the commercial advance, which usually works.  Too bad that some other manufacturers...don't have this feature.  Also, the VCR Gold Plus works well, if you're too lazy...to set up your own machine once.  Instead, I'd rather have adequate power-backup so I don''t lose my programming if the power goes off for long.<br />Anyway, what a disappointment.  It's really hard to find a decent VCR these days, but I think that you'd do better with a good Mitsu or Toshiba - asd I've checked SVHS from 4 manufacturers side-by-side.  Also tested the rather poor sony slnv81.  This Panasonice ranks dead last by a long shot.  I'm writing this because I'm peeved at how their poor product wasted my time and lost me  shipping...!