[waltchan]

The AG Pro-Line series was first released in 1985, beginning with AG-1000 video cassette player. It has expanded greatly since. The AG-series, historically, focused more on the VHS format than digital formats today.

They were most-reliable and most-durable for first 2 years only, until starting in 1987 model with the G-chassis mechanism related. Canon also got into the VCR market in 1985 that were all clones and rebadges of Panasonic AG models, until 1988 when they got out due to poor sales. The first Super VHS (AG-1830) was released in 1988, and it marked the beginning and downfall of AG VCRs reliability and durability.

School classrooms began to be flooded with the AG-1200 series 4-head mono VCRs starting in 1989 when one VCR for each classroom began to be affordable. The first four, AG-1200 (1985), AG-1210 (1986), AG-1220 (1987), and AG-1230 (1988) weren't great sellers. AG-1240 (1989), AG-1250 (1990), AG-1260 (1991), AG-1270 (1992), AG-1280 (1993), and AG-1290 (1994) were all incredibly best-sellers. All of these models since 1989 were rebadges from Panasonic PV consumer models. Starting in 1995 with AG-1300, it began to use its own propriety mechanism chassis instead that no longer shared with PV models anymore. They were also often more-reliable and durable too, with fewer belts (or none), and no longer had any surface-mount capacitors inside. The last and final Panasonic AG VCR was the AG-2580 (2003), but it was made by JVC in order to save costs.

The award-winning AG-1980 (released in 1996) was the most-popular, but the least-reliable of the three (compared to AG-1960 and AG-1970) when S-VHS editing VCRs started to become more affordable to the middle-class families. The AG-1980 was also the only one of the three to have the common plastic slider breakage in transport mechanism.

My most-favorite is the AG-1810 4-head Hi-Fi made in 1986, and the last one that was not G-chassis mechanism related. Twin/clone model is Canon VR-HF710 and VR-HF720.