Sony SLV-N71 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR
Good VCR, but has key problem
Just a heads up for those checking out reviews prior to purchase.  I bought this Sony after going through 4 other VCR brands trying to find both good audio AND video quality (not having to choose between one or the other).  The Sony audio is great, setup is great, solid construction is great, remote is easy to use.  Even playback quality of pre-recorded tapes is good.  But recording live programs is a problem because the tuner in the VCR is not up to par.  Using the VCR as the tuner, obviously necessary for recording shows, results in a lot of video noise or \\"streaming\\" across the screen, which gets worse on higher channel numbers.  I do not know if this is a video screen interval problem, bad tuner filters, video sync issue, etc.  I have tried two of these Sony units, purchased locally, and had the same result.  Very disappointing since everything else works great.  The other non-Sony VCR's had other issues, but none had such poor video quality when using the tuner.  At this point, it is worthless as a device to record programs, and frustrating to watch TV - I resort to using the TV's internal tuner.  If you can't get good video response in a VCR, the rest of the bells and whistles don't do any good.  Sure would like to know why the usual Sony quality is in the toilet on this one.