Who uses rewinders instead of the VCR itself. I read somewhere back in the 90's that using a rewinder increases the life of the VCR. At this point, I have 4. A boxed 63 corvette rewinder, a battery and external power supply unit, and two corded units.

I've always used the VCR for rewinding tapes (that's how my parents did it as well) so no rewinders here, although the daycare I went to when I was little had a rewinder for each TV that had a VCR attached to it (it was a church run facility) and I think if I remember right most of the VCRs they had were 1980s vintage units (early 1980s top loader units and mid to late 1980s front loader units.) and I remember that my aunt had a tape rewinder or two laying around that she used.

I collect anything related to vhs. I have several dust covers all with original boxes.

I collect anything related to vhs. I have several dust covers all with original boxes.

I Don't find the old tape rewinders all that facinating, I find the VCRs themselves the most facinating, because of how much variation there is in the design of them. VHS Rewinders on the other hand there isn't much to them so not much interests me.

We use a rewinder. Nothing special, just some generic rewinder. My wife has always used one, so she prefers it. I figure, it does save some wear and tear on the VCR, so why not.

I have a VHS (looks like a 57' chevy) and a Beta rewinder....The beta sees use since all the Sony made decks keep the tape looped around the video drum during rewind which causes unnecessary head wear...Other betas like Sanyo and most VHS decks unwrap the drum on (non-visual-search) rewind/fast forward and thus don't really benefit from a rewinder.

I used to recommend rewinders to people who owned VCRs that left the tape loaded around the cylinder for fast rewind like 99% Betas and some later VHS. Rewinders are a heck of a lot cheaper than head drum assemblies, idlers, belts, and the labor involved.

Me personally, I always tried to leave tapes in the played tail-out position, same as audio tapes. Tape is smoothly tensioned and wound on the takeup reel that way. Then of course you rewind it first to play it.

I use a DVD rewinder. :)

Rewinders suck, they stretch the tape and stop it on tension, not light shining through the clear leader like a VCR does.

The one I have has optical sensors. It handles tape as well or better than a VCR. You just had to know what you were lookin' for!

I've never seen one like that! Do you have any pictures of it? The cheap ones I remember were one way, but you could buy the better ones that were two way and had a mechanical counter. I don't remember any with optical sensors.

I've never seen one like that! Do you have any pictures of it? The cheap ones I remember were one way, but you could buy the better ones that were two way and had a mechanical counter. I don't remember any with optical sensors.


Here's mine.

http://www.videokarma.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=189308&stc=1&d=1450832562

Pretty cool! Thanks for the picture.

That's a nice one.

Speaking of end sensors, I remember at least one Funai built TV-VCR combo, so cheap they didn't have an end sensor! Start-TU sensor yes, but no end sensor. Machine would simply detect reel stoppage at the end and go into rewind!

Who uses rewinders instead of the VCR itself.I used one one time..... The blasted thing DIDNT SLOW DOWN!!!!!! (Slammed tha tape @ the beggining -- NOT GOOD @ ALL!!!!!!!)

Mine don't spin fast enough to "slam". Pretty slow really. Never had a problem.

Ya the one I used was pretty fast.......

After rewinding maybe 10 movies with these things, I just decided to put them up. Too slow to sit there and wait on. I'd rather just rewind with the VCR like I always have. It's not like I'm gonna cry if my JVC HR S3800U drops out on me. I've probably got 300,000 miles on her anyway.

I got a couple here but they are not the greatest.I just rewind them on an old machine that does not wrap the tape on the heads as it rewinds.

That's the thing with most VHS VCRs when you were rewinding the tape the tape was never in contact with any of the heads or capstans when they rewinded so there really wasn't anything to get worn out on them when you were rewinding tapes in them which is why I see that those VHS rewinders as a waste of money. Now I can see a Betamax VCR needing one because most Betmax VCRs did actually have the tape in full contact with the heads and other critical parts when you were rewinding tapes in them, which would result in more wear and tear to the machine, but VHS didn't ever have any mechanisms that actually left the tape in full contact with the heads and capstans and other critical parts of the machine that would result in excessive wear and tear on the machine when a tape was rewound in the machine itself.

That was the thing back in the 90's. Used to hear people saying if you don't use a rewinder, your vcr will wear out. Never bothered as I never had a problem with it. Always just seemed easier to leave it in there and just let it rewind. Most of them go into rewind anyway when they hit the end.

That was the thing back in the 90's. Used to hear people saying if you don't use a rewinder, your vcr will wear out. Never bothered as I never had a problem with it. Always just seemed easier to leave it in there and just let it rewind. Most of them go into rewind anyway when they hit the end.

That's the way it was with my parents VCR once it hit the end of the tape it would automatically rewind so we didn't think anything of it. my parents VCR (their first one anyways which was a belated wedding gift for them from my grandmother was a 1990 vintage Goldstar made Zenith VRG75 2 head mono VCR and it got used quite a bit before it was decommissioned and replaced with a Zenith 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR that my parents bought in 1996 along with a Zenith 19" TV (they were both bought from Elder-Beerman's). the Zenith VRG75 was then used in the basement with my Dad's 1985 Vintage Zenith Space Command TV (which both failed around the same time, my dad's Zenith Space Command TV had a failing picture tube as the picture on it was getting pretty dim and the colors were getting really dull looking and I was trying to fix it the best I could but it just wouldn't work so it went to the recyclers, the VCR had a failed chroma board I think is what it was, it was the removeable board assembly that sat behind the head assembly and when I tried to fix it some traces lifted on it so I tried going to a local repair place to see if they had any spare parts laying around and they just told me that they didn't have the part I was looking for and it wasn't worth fixing even if they did have the part laying around, so then that went to the recycler as well.)