"Professional" V.H.S. and S-V.H.S. camcorders

[Telecolor 3007]

How good are the "professional" V.H.S. and S-V.H.S. camcorders, comapring to theyr look, theyr price and comapring to digital camcorders?
Talking about camcorders like this (pictures taken from ebay.com).
http://cgi.ebay.com/JVC-GY-X2B-Profe...QQcmdZViewItem

[dr.ido]

ABC TV here used SVHS for some news/current affairs reporting, so they were considered good enough for broadcast use (at least by those that didn't have the budget for betacam). I've found used SVHS tapes that still had raw footage on them, but never anything interesting enough to keep.

I've used a full size VHS Panasonic camcorder, but it's not something I'd want to do again. As much as I like old gear it was just too heavy and cumbersome to use in any situation where you'd be moving around much. The original battery didn't last long enough so I had the added weight of an external gel cell battery in a backpack.

If I needed a camcorder today it is probably one of the very few things I'd actually buy new.

[Chad Hauris]

I would be very cautious of old camcorders...almost all I have seen have had problems that are probably related to bad capacitors.

[dtuomi]

That looks like a Panasonic AG-455. I used to use one for covering City Council events. They're nice camcorders. Usually the belts go bad on them.

David