VCRs that will last forever

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by andy

I spent my teenage years fixing and selling VCRs, and I never liked the Panasonic G chassis. I saw countless ones where the gears had jumped a few teeth for no apparent reason. I also saw lots with broken loading mechanisms (and this was when they weren't that old). The mechanism was also really slow and sluggish. If you wanted to go from play to reverse search and back again it would spend what felt like an eternity clicking while it changed modes. They did improve this for the last couple of years (when they used it on the AG-1970/1980) by adding a loading motor instead of driving it with the capstan motor. They also seemed to have finally fixed the gear tolerance issues, and strengthened the loading mechanism for the 1970 and 1980.

The only VHS VCRs I really like are Panasonics from 1985-early 1987, and JVCs from 1984-1988. Panasonic and JVC's mechanisms from those time periods are a pleasure to use, and rarely have anything seriously wrong. They are also easy to get into good working order. Sony Betas are also excellent with their all metal chassis, but they are very tricky to align and repair. A misaligned Sony Beta is a real disaster for the tape.

How about Panasonic's PV-V4022 from the early 1990s? I have one that still works very well. The only thing I don't like about mine is the noisy rewind, but I have an external VHS video rewinder so I don't use the deck's rewind function that much anyway.

BTW, what on earth does "Omnivision" mean as applied to Panasonic VCRs? Mine has that designation on the flap over the tape entry slot in front of the unit. Did that word have anything to do with copy protection of prerecorded VHS videos, pre-DVD era? That's the first thing that comes to my mind when I ponder the origin and meaning of the term.