Panasonic NV-SV1 worth buying?

[oblivionaccess]

I'm new to VHS capture and have been planning on upgrading from my old VCR to an S-VHS VCR. Looking on eBay I've been finding a lot of listings for the Panasonic NV-SV1 from Japan. It seems to have a built in TBC as well as an NR option, both of which can be turned off separately. It's also relatively inexpensive compared to most other S-VHS listings I've found. I'm actually interested in buying a Japanese VCR because most of the tapes I plan on capturing will be NTSC-J, though I imagine I'd also have to buy a voltage converter if I went down that route. Is this a good model to buy for someone looking for an entry level S-VHS VCR?

[aramkolt]

I haven't personally tested it much, but I do have one for testing. They do make voltage converters that will lower US voltages from 120 to 100, but the end resulting voltage can be pretty variable as mains voltage can vary throughout the day. I think the inexpensive step down converter I got off of Amazon made my mains voltage more like 110V. A cheaper alternative would be a Variac/Autotransformer where you can dial in the exact final voltage. As far as I know, NTSC-J tapes will play fine on regular NTSC machines, they just have zero IRE for black which may just require setting your capture card to not clip to black at 7.5IRE, or you could just boost blacks up with an analog proc amp. So yeah, not super helpful information, but you certainly can use them with a little adaptation. I think Deter at one point was selling one that he said was pretty underrated in general but he wanted like $800 for it or something. Seems they can be found easily for under $250 directly from Japan. I will say they are full of ELNA capacitors which I'm not really a big fan of, but my unit seems to work ok as is.