Sanyo GVR-S950 SVHS VCR

[swiego]

I have been pleasantly surprised by the performance of the Sanyo GVR-S950 SVHS VCR as a playback device for tapes. It does not seem to have much of a following and generally is not well known. In a nutshell, it was mid-1990s deck targeted at animation and designed for single-frame editing. MSRP was around $3,000 back in the day. It's quite well built, and certainly interesting - it has some on-board color/tint adjustments, manual tracking with video level meter, and probably most importantly, what appears to be a truly excellent recording/playback mechanism. It's recording ability is, in a word, phenomenal... I understand its SNR to be on par or superior to the various JVC/Panasonic/Sony broadcast decks of the era (e.g. 55dB) although there is precious little information about this or most anything else about it.

It's not incredibly feature rich as a playback device. There's no TBC. There's no DNR. And probably most painfully, it doesn't seem to play EP or LP recorded tapes... there's a poorly tracked signal for a few seconds, then an eject I'm assuming this is a feature and not a bug.

At any rate, I found that playback quality is at least on par with my JVC 9911U regardless of what material I threw at it. Noise levels were good, the deck itself didn't generate much in the way of timebase glitches despite the lack of TBC, image was sharp, there is no weird noising, banding, artifacting or most anything at all. I'd be more than happy to say that it's on par (in terms of playback quality) with my 9911U.

There allegedly is/was a GVR-S955 with some updated firmware for improved RS-232 control, a better transport and (allegedly) some form of TBC, although this may or may not be true. There's very little info on these pro Sanyo units.

Some captures from the SVHS version of Days of Thunder (yeah, I know, dumb movie, but it was all I had on hand, and it *is* a prerecorded SVHS.)

JVC HR-S9911U:


Sanyo GVR-S950:

[swiego]

Just a follow-up... I've done quite a few hours of captures using this thing, and it is convincingly better than my 9911U for both VHS and SVHS playback. There is much less noise, despite the lack of any apparent DNR circuit, color looks great, and though I don't believe there is TBC in it, it doesn't seem to skip a beat on playback once bit. Downsides are the manual tracking (though the video level meter helps!) and the fact that it won't play EP/LP tapes... the latter being a big downside. The upside is that I suspect this is a better unit than the various JVC/Panasonic units that are on vogue, but because there is so little information on it, it does not command the price premium.

If enthusiasts happen to stumble across one of these, I highly recommend it.

(Again, this is not to be confused with the typical consumer Sanyo VHS player... this was a pro unit with what feels like an extraordinarily robust build.)

Not many pictures but I found some on the net,

[sphinx99]

I've been using this deck to capture a few SVHS tapes (recorded to SVHS from a SVHS Panasonic AG-series camera) and I must say that this deck has been a gem to use. No TBC and still can't get it to play regular VHS EP tapes... well, it'll start then eject after a few seconds. But SP tapes and SVHS is stellar... not so much noise, a steady picture, and what seems like a lot more detail than I get from my JVC 9900-series.

Definitely recommend it if you want something to experiment with (for SVHS). Here are some captures from an Indy Jones SVHS tape. I've seen some more impressive SVHS captures here and there, to be sure, but not too many that manage this level of detail.

[lordsmurf]

I see aliasing -- a sure tell-tale sign of artificial sharpening going on.

[sphinx99]

Must be a pretty good sharpening technique, not a sharpening halo to be found and noise remains in check!

[George Gann]

I have 2 of these machines we bought new, and were going to use in single frame recording of animations from 3ds studio. long story short my associate really never got things off the ground, and we have them wrapped up taking up space.

My question is I want to sell them will all the cables and stuff, but have no idea what they might be worth now, and who/where I might ever advertise them.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.
Thanks George

[sphinx99]

This is the sort of equipment that is hard to price because almost nobody knows what it is. I've seen a few of them go for around $100 over the years. That's not a guarantee of their value, however; you might get much more or much less. They do turn up rarely on craigslist or eBay.

I still feel that this is the best VCR I own for SP tapes. I get a consistently better capture out of it than my JVC 9911U, Panasonic 1980P and AG-7750. I wish it played LP and SLP/EP tapes.