I got this from Danny yesterday in with the box, owners manual, and remote. It's in pristine condition with only minor cosmetic blemishes. It works, but the belt that drives idler gear is streched so it has trouble rewinding and fast forwarding. I'll be getting a belt kit for it soon. Here (http://youtu.be/9HzBHfwpF5E) is a video.

I have a Sears badged version of that.

Very nice. Sanyo did a great job of supplying lower-cost Beta VCRs to complement Sony's mostly expensive ones. They even made a decent Beta Hi-Fi one, if I remember right.

Yeah well, the build quality of this VCR is pretty lackluster. Lots of plastic, poor fit and finish, but it does work. Which is more than I can say about EVERY Sony Beta machine I've ever owned. Getting the new belts in was absolutely NOT a party. Lots of very hard to reach screws. Putting it back together was trial and error.

Hehe, I took this VCR to my band director today (ironically, his parents had the same VCR years ago), and we played an old band tape. The VCR did pretty well, it only flubbed a few times, but the band playing was horrible.

I had one of these a few tears ago. The Sanyo and Sears models aren't as plentiful as the Sony machines. Sorry to hear about your difficulties finding a working Sony machine. I've been lucky in that out of 6 Sony machines I've picked up, 5 work great and the 6th only needs minor work. The one thing I have had trouble with is finding tapes. When I still lived in California they were easy to find, but down here they are few and far between.