VCR Recommendation?

[tonyaldr]

Posted this here because it IS a hardware question after all - Can anyone recommend a VCR that they have found is better at playing back EP/LP recorded VHS tapes that were created on older machines? I have a dub deck to transfer to DVD, but the VHS quality is just awful. I'm hoping that there's something out there that is just better at playing back these tapes for their final performance!
Thanx and a Happy New Year to all!

[jjeff]

I'm not sure what brand your "dub deck" is, but the VHS in Panasonic dub decks seems to work quite well. As far as VHS only decks, I would not trust anything consumer grade anymore. There all pretty much junk IMO. I also used a 4?yr old Samsung VHS for many of my DVD dubs, and it also worked quite well. I think I got the last one Sears had in my area, and haven't seen anything decent since. By the way, by LP do you mean 4hr speed? If so, you're gonna have a hard time finding anything that plays back that speed very well. Most machines only begrudgingly played that speed. No record, no special effects. It was a Matisuia(sorry cant spell it, Panasonics parent co.)thing. It was never really approved by JVC, the rights holder of VHS. If memory serves me right. JVC jumped right from the 2hr SP mode, to the 6hr EP mode. JVC couldn't even to bear to use the LP in SLP, so they called it EP.

[KeepItSimple]

I have lots of old LP vhs tapes recorded on various Panasonics and my Lordsmurf approved JVC SR-V10U plays them well.
My criteria for playing "well" for LP or EP would be without lines in the picture.

[tonyaldr]

Thanx for the advice, guys! My dub deck is a JVC and I should have said 6 hour mode for the tapes or EP instead of LP. Years ago I remember reading about some VHS deck that had 6 or 8 heads and was considered "optimal" for playing back these kinds of tapes and was hoping someone else might have seen something recently. Thanx again!

[samijubal]

VCRs never use more than 2 heads at a time for payback. 6 heads is only good for effects, search, pause, frame advance. On a 6 head VCR, SP heads are the optimum size, size is slightly compromised on 4-head VCRs for search and pause, if they are any better it would be in SP, not EP.

[jjeff]

Actually there's a whole story to number of heads. I'll try and go off memory, but it's been 20-25 years and many beers ago.
The first JVC single speed VCR's had 2 80 micron rotating heads. Both optimized for SP.
Panasonic's parent company M* wanted to add a longer speed(they would call it LP). JVC (inventor of VHS, no matter what Sony says)more interested in quality vs recording time, wanted no part of this. Panny & Co. went ahead with the LP speed, and had to decrease the heads to something like 40? micron heads, to avoid overwriting material using the slower tape speed. This produced a good LP speed, but less than optimal SP(since there was wasted space on the tape).
JVC feeling the pinch, due to people more interested in time vs quality(some things never change), decided to up Panny & Co, and came out with a 2/6 hr 4 head machine. It combined the best of both worlds. Full 80 micron heads for SP, and 27? I think, heads for EP.
Not long after, Panny & Co. also came up with a 4 head SP/SLP unit. I personally used, and still have several original JVC and Panny 4 head VCR's, and think they were the best PQ of any VHS, with the exception of some commercial VHS's.
At some point, to cut costs, I think Panny & other later adopters to VHS decide to make the units even cheaper(my original Panny cost $1200 in '82, and my JVC was ~$1000 in 84'?)they eliminated the 4 heads and just used a compromised size of something like 35??? microns. Not good for SP since lots of space was wasted, not too good for SLP since information was overwritten.
Some time later HiFi was introduced, which lead to even more rotating heads. 4 video, 2 rotating HiFi heads, for a total of 6.
Also later more heads were added for jitter free special effects, and some of the 4 head units were optimized for special effects, instead of the pure PQ of the original JVC's and Panny's.
I think the most I ever saw was a 7 head VHS. I would assume 2 for SP, 2 for EP, 2 for HiFi, and one for special effects.
I'm just going by memory on all this stuff, and I'm sure that some of you Wiki guys might be able to poke some holes in my story, but it's the way I remember it.
So the moral of the story is, LP was never really a well supported speed. It did have it's followers, those who thought it was not as good as SP, but better than SLP/EP. I personally don't fall in this camp. I would take my SLP/EP recordings done on my 27 micron heads, any day, over LP. But I all most always used SP.
Since in your case you were talking about Panny SLP, JVC EP, I guess I would try and find a JVC 4 head recorder. Actually I'm not positive they ever made anything but 4 video head machines? I gave up following the whole VHS thing around the time HiFi was coming out. But if JVC still stood there original ground, and produced machines optimized for PQ and not time, I'd try and find a JVC VHS. Note other posters and myself included seem to think that the DVD copy of a VHS is actually better PQ than the original VHS. It's thought that the DVD format corrects for anomalies of the original VHS tape. Your "Lordsmurf approved JVC" should do a fine job recording the VHS material.
Good luck.

[samijubal]

The most heads ever used was 8 total, 6 video and 2 HiFi. This allowed the SP heads to be optimum size like I already stated. SP heads were compromized slightly on 4-head VCRs to make search and pause better. As far as I know, all VCRs have used 19 micron EP heads for years now. With the azimuth changed slightly, the 19 micron heads are optimum size for EP recording. I don't think they give any advantage for playback of tapes recorded with the older, larger heads, but I'm not sure on that. Someone else will have to answer that one.

[pyrexia]

I am also trying to find a replacement for my JVC VCR which has finally become destroyed since I bought it some 15 years ago.

I already own a Philips DVP642 for region free play back, PAL->NTSC.

I also own a Pioneer DVR-220 for dvdr recording from my tivo unit.

So my issue is that I do not necessarily want to add another dvd player to the set up. I am not opposed to buying a dvdr/vcr to replace the DVR-220, but I would want something that would work well to record my old vhs tapes of punk shows to dvd. I also have some older videos I would like to put on dvd so I can watch without them going to crap from repeated views, but I think my Danzig and Maiden videos are MV and these are not yet on DVD. Is there a hack for a good combo or is there a dependable VCR out there?

help.

[victoriabears]

Sharp are good, those with the best picture system, also the new Pana sonic VCR/dvd recorder combos really make it easy, and do enhance the picture, this DIGA thing really seems to work.
Trying to find the closest VCR to that on which they were recorded is a good idea.
JVC S Vhs vcr's with tbc/dnr seem to do little for LP tapes.

[jjeff]

I would think you would need some type of "filter" to remove the MV on your MV tapes. Since there tapes I would think even an older filter would work. DVD's require a more extensive filter but VHS's were relatively easy.
Since your old VCR was a JVC it probably had 4 heads, so to get best PQ you will probably want to find another 4 head machine(that is assuming you used SP) if you used EP it really wouldn't matter as much.
Towards the end of my VHS use I was using quite a few Samsung VCR's. They seemed to work pretty well, I think?? they were all 4 heads. I know all mine were.