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Welcome to the site.
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I've been offered a Panasonic NV-SJ220 for a good price.
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The Panasonic NV-SJ220 is just a basic consumer VCR from the late 90s or early 2000s. There's really nothing special about it in any way. If anything, the Panasonic consumer VCRs of that era had annoyances with blue screens popping up in the middle of playback. Sometimes a bad frame or glitch in the video would trigger several seconds of blue screen, which would knock out both audio and video. It wasn't a great choice for a playback VCR, though there were much worse models to be had.
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As far as I can tell it's not genuine SVHS but quasi.
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SQPB, or Super VHS Quasi-Playback, is basically nothing. This simply means a plain VHS VCR can play a higher resolution S-VHS tape at standard VHS resolution.
Suggested VCRs are good because of the features found on the VCR -- it has nothing to do with S-VHS playback. In fact, most people using these high quality S-VHS VCRs (including myself) will primarily be using them for the playback of VHS tapes made on consumer VHS equipment (or even commercial VHS releases, for personal conversion work).
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I've looked at the VCR Buying Guide thread and been watching out for some of the recommended models on eBay, but if they ever do come up they're usually very expensive (to me at least). I guess my budget is probably £25 (GBP) delivered, but ideally around £15.
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Unfortunately, your budget is much too low for buying a decent VCR of any kind. You'll have to spend probably 10x that amount. In $USD, you need to spend $200+ most of the time, to get a good VCR. Converted to £GBP, you're looking at at least £100, but more realistically, given the supply/demand for PAL units, I'd say it would be a budget of £150+.
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Maybe I should think about spending more for a better one, but keep in mind that if I sell it afterwards I should get a decent percentage of the outlay back?
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Yes, if the unit is in good condition, it can be resold for a fair value. I've seen people sell these excellent VCRs for the same or even more than what they originally paid. Again, assuming the unit is in good to excellent condition, from a non-smoking home/office, etc. (Tobacco smoke is a destroyer of VCRs.)
The DigitalFAQ marketplace forum, eBay, and Craiglists are the usual suggestions for buying/selling VCRs.
For PAL units, here's an eBay tip: check both eBay.co.uk (UK) and eBay.de (Germany). You'll sometimes find more German sellers with JVC S-VHS VCRs being sold than UK. All PAL S-VHS JVC VCRs are made in Germany from what I've seen, as it applies to the suggested models. PAL is PAL, more or less. Some German sellers are stubborn, and won't ship outside Germany (stupid, as far as I'm concerned), but others are not so tunnel-visioned and understand we live in a world market.
