buying advice needed

[jdwk]

I like pro equipment and hatee how cheap consumer model VHS decks got, I was thinking since they are cheap now, about buying a panasonic AG series unit. I still have tapes, lots of them....some questions:

will they at least playback slower speed tapes? how much better is the pic quality than consumer models? out of the 73 series is there " a best one to get" because of build? is there a better pro model other than the panasonic ag series? whats a good pro beta model? ( not betacam) I am looking to have something to playback any format I may encounter, thats the other reason for purchasing this kind of stuff.


while im at it, whats a good model of 8mm video deck to get?

thanks for any help you can provide.