Two interesting VCR sales sites

[BarryTheCrab]

I find myself window shopping too often but found these retailers.
Does anyone have any knowledge or opinion of Porter Electronics? https://www.porterelectronics.com/vcrs/
or For the Low? https://forthelow.net/

I've seen AG-1060-70-80 as well as ES-15 on these sites but have no idea how legit they are.

[lordsmurf]

You need to be very careful.

That second site is an obvious recycler, just somebody trying to cash in on video equipment. Both are, if you look deeper on the first site. Odds are nothing has actually been tested. Not truly tested. Just the ridiculous "it turns on" or "we hooked it, and saw a picture" (ANY picture, quality or not).

I get PMs about this sort of stuff all the time. Usually horror stories, after the fact.

Several recyclers have contacted us in the past, wanting to advertise. We refuse. We don't want our members to get screwed over from buying bad gear that was advertised on this site.

Any Panasonic AG-1980/1970/etc claiming to be "refurbished" needs a detailed explanation of what that means. I highly doubt it's actually had caps replaced. These days, we deal exclusive with TGrant, because of his amazing knowledge and work, and you should too if buying AG-1980/1970. (Noting that deter seems to have quit repairing these, and he was quite competent as well.)

The prices for both of those sites are ridiculous. Most of that stuff is crap. Some didn't even have those numbers for MSRP, and have sub-$100 resale value. For example, on one of those sites, they're selling the JVC non-LSI DVD recorders for $400. Or those awful (infamous!) GoVideo dual-deck consumer VCRs. Ridiculous. Even if they were charging non-USD dollars, it'd still be too high!

These people have no idea what they're selling.

Even eBay is safer than sites like this! That's really bad!

[BarryTheCrab]

Are you really really sure?

[lordsmurf]

I'm sure.

I just took a peek at the FTL's Facebook page, and the video about transferring VHS to DVD. Nonsense.
- For starters, nobody that knows about this tech calls it a "DVD minus R" (DVD-R is "DVDR", DVD+R is "DVD plus R"; the "minus" was marketing from the RW Alliance).
- SP is not the "best quality" mode of a DVD recorder.
- Furthermore, the sample video shown had way too many tracking errors, probably from bad deck alignment, as that looked to be SP mode low-budget commercial tape.

The "VCR buying guide" video was complete BS. The #1 feature to look for is a fast rewind?!

This is clueless horrible advice:

Quote:

6. Do you care about the brand? [of the VCR]
There are many different brands to choose from, but what is the best? I would recommend a Magnavox, Sony or Toshiba. In my experience, these are the most reliable options. Though, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend others if you wanted it to match your system.

* It really depends on era, as 80s vs. 90s vs. 00s all act different on those brands. But anything made within the last decade of VCR production was mostly Funai. Magnavox and Toshiba = Funai. And Sony was never really very good. To not even mention JVC and Panasonic is revealing to how much they don't know about what they don't know.

In fact, look deeper. See the articles on the site. See the attributes? Spencer Vogt and Chloe Goodine. They're on Facebook, and look to not even be out of college (18-22 age range, at most). Maybe even high school? That's her in the video on Facebook. When I stated in video, they weren't even born. Passing yourself off as an "expert" really pisses me off when you're obviously NOT an expert. Actual pros have their BS-o-meters redlining in the presence of quacks.

Best of all, they both left 5-star reviews for themselves on Facebook reviews. Just some kids playing business.

But these are your memories at stake (videos), your money, maybe even your business (trying to find quality ES10/AG1980/etc). So again, beware.

FTL is in Gilbert AZ, Porter's in Mesa AZ, two next-door towns in the Phoenix area. That can't be coincidence. No way would you magically have two stores full of VCRs/etc within mere miles of one another. Not even miles, but city blocks. You could walk from one to the other. Maybe in NYC, maybe -- but not Phoenix.

I call BS on all of this.