Cleaning up/digitizing vhs tapes from mid 80s on

[starbond]

Sorry for the long delay, ended up jumping right into it. To answer the first question, yes pre-taped movies handle okay, the autotracking locks it in and both hifi and linear play ok.

ARCTech,
From what it seems going through these tapes is that it is a hit-and-miss situation. Mostly because there's no rhyme or reason to the age/recording/# of recordings done per tape. For example the tape itself may have been first recorded in 1984, with a re-recording done in 1988 with a third recording done in 1990, with the latter possibly being a different unit completely. A bulk of these tapes were originally recorded between the early 80s to mid 90s. There are tapes with recordings from TCM and other modern cable channels from the 2000s on that again play well or not depending on if the tape it was oe was a then-15 year old tape with 4 recordings already done on it.
A majority of the tapes are LP speed, which this Sony unit only playback but not record in (may not make a difference in my situation)
Sometimes I have to fall back to linear which often sounds muddy, sometimes I have to defer to L OR R stereo tracks as one channel is buzzed beyond saving.
I have the SM for the vcr and a scope but with pre-taped movies playing fine, there isnt much I can do it seems. The pinch roller IS sadly, on its way out. Not rock hard but shiny, the tape slips and chews badly during rewinds (play/FFD are ok). unfortunately i dont know the way to get a replacement or to measure the spec for a custom one.

Let me posit this: This sony vcr is a 4 head hifi unit. I also have a mid00s Panasonic 4 head hi-fi unit (with supple pinch roller still). Aside from special features, is there any reason why i shouldnt use the Panasonic one instead?