Samsung SV-7000W 4-Head Worldwide VCR
Does the job
I purchased that VCR because I need to see French tapes (Secam-L) and was warned that the other Secam VCR (including the Samsung SW-5000W) don't read French variant of Secam. Thanks to another reviewer for pointing out. I couldn't find anything else to do that, but would be happy to include references if you send me any. This would be of interest to French people living in the US wishing to play French tapes for their kids, like me.<br />I haven't seen the bad quality other people complain about, but the image is not the best I've seen either, I had to fiddle with the tracking. Also at the beginning and the end of a tape as well, it sometimes has difficulties. But normal VCRs also do.<br />After a little bit of fiddling with the initial wiring, I managed to play the tapes on the TV, but since my TV is old and does not have all the channels (it seems the VCR broadcasts on Input1 or Input2, which my TV doesn't have, as opposed to Channel 3 like most VCRs), I had to hook it to my other VCR and when I want to see a tape, I change the input (can be done only with the remote on my VCR). Overall, I expected the wiring to be a bit simpler, but I managed to make it work.<br />I'm pleased with the VCR, as an add-on I can also read other countries' tape formats, so I do copies for my international friends. But I wish the cost wasn't so high.<br />After a bit of thinking, I think a better solution would have been to convert to DVD and purchase a cheap DVD player from Japan (amazon.co.jp for instance) which is Zone 2 (like Western Europe) and purchase French DVDs instead of tapes. But the selection is not the same though: at the present, more kid's videos seem to be available on tape than on DVD. That may change in the future.