PAL VHS > DVD9 - Importance of VCR?

[EViS]

I've been reading this forum for a number of months now trying to learn as much as possible in regards to transferring all my family PAL recorded VCR's to DVD... However it has now come to the stage where I need to ask some of my own remaining questions, thus here is the first of hopefully not too many ;

I've read on a number of occassions that TBC's and high quality JVC VCR's are not needed when transferring over PAL VHS video... Is this correct?

If the above is incorrect, then I'm still struggling to find a suitable VCR to backup all my home made films recorded using a Sony Camcorder & Sony VCR... any help with what is best for a UK PAL user? Will most probably be needing to go down the eBay route and do not have the money to be spending £££ on importing expensive equipment...

All advice highly appreciated .

[ZippyP.]

You need to decide if your setup meets your quality requirements, nobody else can judge for you (although some might). Try your rig and see if you're satisfied, if not then you might go looking for a better VCR. Quality is in the eye of the beholder and everyone has a diffferent opinion.

[Cole]

You could go down to route of finding something like a JVC S7965 which will greatly improve your VHS tapes but they are now very hard to find. As you suggest yourself, ebay is probably the only place to be able to find equipment like this now.

I did many of my older archive tapes with an older VCR and was quite happy with the quality of what I was seeing but then I started to see the screen-grabs of what others were achieving, on Video Help, and saw that there was a huge room for improvement. But going down the improved quality route became expensive as I ended up having to get a separate TBC and a video enhancer too; although I am very glad that I did.

However, improved picture quality may come from trying different VCRs. The JVC's with TBC and DNR are very good and cleaning up the picture but can cause other problems with some tapes, such as tearing and cause jitters rather than cure them. Trying a couple of other VCRs may help as all VCRs seem to put out a different picture quality: more/less detail, more/less chroma noise, colours washed out, bright colours etc etc.

[EViS]

How can I find out whether a JVC S-VHS player has TBC and DNR? Most eBay sellers don't state such things and the PAL models are always different to NTSC ones...

Do any of these for example meet the category?

[Cole]

The ones to watch out for are the JVC S7965 and JVC S8965 units have DNR and TBC. There may be some older models but I am not aware of them.

The JVC HR-S9600U probably has, but this is a US model (and very expensive).

[lordsmurf]

For PAL, you'll need one of these:
HR-S7600
HR-S7965EK
HR-S8600
HR-S8965KE

There are a few more too, but I don't remember the models exactly.

In the model number 1234, the "1" needs to be a 7 or 8 (7000 or 8000 series). The European 8000 series is the same as the USA 9000 series.

The "2" needs to be 6 or greater. The older ones lack filters and are from the early 1990s or late 1980s.

I bought my 7965EK new from UK (German-made model) in October 2004, and they were selling warehouse stock only by that time.

There may be a SR-V10E or SR-V101E for PAL. I know the SR-V10E was an Australian PAL model, and was also listed on some UK sites in the past.

Since these are made in Germany, check out www.ebay.de for models.

Check these out!
http://cgi.ebay.de/JVC-HR-7700EU-S-VHS-mit-ET-Hi-Fi-Stero-Videorecorder_W0QQitemZ12009...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/JVC-HR-S7851-videorecorder-SUPER-VHS_W0QQitemZ200090869380QQcategor...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/JVC-HR-S8600E-S-VHS-EasyEdit-Schnittcomputer-Garantie_W0QQitemZ1900...ayphotohosting
http://cgi.ebay.de/JVC-HR-S-8600-S-VHS-EasyEdit-Schnittcomputer-Garantie_W0QQitemZ1900...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/JVC-HR-S8600E-S-VHS-EasyEdit-Schnittcomputer-Garantie_W0QQitemZ1700...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/JVC-HR-S-8960-E-S-VHS-Videorecorder-HR-S8960E_W0QQitemZ140097149096...QQcmdZViewItem
http://cgi.ebay.de/JVC-HR-S9850-S-VHS-ET-HIFI-HIGH-END-VIDEORECORDER_W0QQitemZ12009704...QQcmdZViewItem

Maybe get a German-speaking friend to ask if they would ship to UK?