JVC HRS5902U 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR, Black
A must-have with HDTV - but some features lacking
Ever since I bought my Samsung 50&quot; DLP HDTV a few months ago I've been on a quest to upgrade my DVD player and now my VCR player as well. To be brief, if you have an HDTV, and you intend to still keep using VHS cassettes, then you must have this VCR.<BR>Only recently I learned that an S-VHS (Super VHS) VCR gives you a resolution of 400 lines, as opposed to your standard VCR which gives you 230 lines of resolution. Obviously, for a standard TV you might not notice much difference. But for an HDTV, the difference is amazing! Here's a summary of my experience with this VCR:<BR>Pros: <BR>1) Super Video Quality. I tried recording a TV program on a standard VHS cassette (in fact the cassette is very old, recorded over many, many times). Remember, this VCR allows you to get the S-VHS quality even when recording on a standard VHS cassette - you don't have to buy an expensive S-VHS cassette (although it should give a little better quality). When I played back the recorded program, it was unbelievable! The picture was clearer than what was broadcast on TV - now that's impressive!<BR>2) I mentioned it above, but it really is an additional bonus - the fact that you can record S-VHS quality on a standard VHS cassette. You do have to change the default setup to enable this 'ET' mode (that's what JVC calls it).<BR>3) The '24Hr Jog Dial' - I really like this feature. With this you can setup to record a TV program within the next 24 hours. You don't have to turn on your TV. All you do is set the start time, the end time, and the channel using the jog dial on the VCR. Very neat feature.<br />Cons:<BR>1) When playing a tape, the display on the VCR will NOT show the counter. In fact, the display NEVER shows a tape counter at all! If you want to see the tape counter, you have use the OSD (On Screen Display) and then you can see the counter on the TV - that's annoying!<BR>2) Auto clock doesn't work with cable - They actually warn you about this when you try to set the Auto clock. When I first got the VCR, I left it in for a few hours before finally giving up. I had to set the time manually. By contrast, my Sony VCR can set the time in less than 5 minutes using its auto clock.<BR>3) No memory backup - if you have any programs scheduled to be recorded, even a 1 second power glitch will make you lose everything! For a VCR this expensive, they could have added a simple battery backup!<br />On a side note, I thought it important to mention that when playing tapes that are NOT recorded with S-VHS (like my older Disney movies), the output is not at 400 line resolution, it's at 230 lines. But the picture quality is as good as you'd get with any other high quality VCR. In other words, to avail of the S-VHS quality, you must have a tape (movie, etc.) already recorded in S-VHS to get the full benefit. <br />Side note no. 2 - Also remember that when you record in S-VHS mode on a cassette with this VCR, you may not be able to display it on another VCR that does not support S-VHS. I have that problem with my other Sony VCR - it cannot display S-VHS recordings (looks very fuzzy). But that's a fault of the Sony VCR of course, not this JVC one.<br />So, in summarizing, there definitely are some annoying facts about this VCR. But you may forgive and forget when you see the picture quality it's capable of producing - near DVD quality! I would recommend buying this VCR - but only if picture quality is absolutely essential.