Hi there,


I've taken advantage of a sale at our local Goodwill, in which one can purchase 20 VHS tapes for $5.00.

Can anyone recommend a good, cheap, common model of VCR? Specifically, one that's common around thrifts? Does such a thing exist?

Thanks,
Peter

Hard to say a lot of Japanese and American brands were manufactured by contract manufacturers in Taiwan and Korea then maybe China for lessor known brands.
I had 3 Toshiba's decent . I would want to stick with name brands Sony,Pioneer,Panasonic Toshiba ,JVC. I would think that the better models 4 head HI FI stereo type would be better .The transports in them were manufactured eveywhere so it`s a crap shoot . If you can find Japan or Taiwan made might be of help to get a decent one.

I would pick Panasonic overall as my first choice. They made a lot of VCRs, and many or most of theirs were always among the most reliable, I have found.

Thanks for your suggestions. I went through an older thread and found that someone suggested 1992-1997 non-Funai Hitachis, so I'll be on the lookout for those as well.

Find a college who is getting rid of their Panasonic Industrial editing VHS Decks or Sony decks in that class. They were the most reliable VHS machines as they had to take heavy use and built with easier maintenance and servicing in mind.

You can tell when a VCR is a so-called pro model, as they have BNC connectors on the back, instead of RCA jacks. I'm really disapointed in the last run of Panasonic units. They seem to work OK, but if You play back a tape in another unit, the audio is rather poor. Those are the ones with the stamped steel transports.

In my experience JVC consumer S-VHS and S-VHS-ET machines which I use as daily timeshifting/archiving machines seem to be reliable and of good quality.

The reliable deck of the household for the past decade or so has been a JVC HR-A56-U from around 2001. These are relatively common in thrifts; should I bother picking one up?

The reliable deck of the household for the past decade or so has been a JVC HR-A56-U from around 2001. These are relatively common in thrifts; should I bother picking one up?

Yes, I believe you should. In my opinion JVC made the best VCRs. Try picking up a JVC S-VHS machine, if possible. I notice that the Panasonics have been mentioned in this thread but I would avoid Panasonic unless it's one of their S-VHS VCRs, as their regular VHS units often had difficulty tracking tapes properly.

I have a JVC from early to mid 90's. Still works great. Panasonic were always good too. The university would always buy them because they could get parts easy for them compared to everyone else. But I don't remember seeing many come thru the shop.