Panasonic AG7750 + 7650 good buy?
 

The 7650 is recommended in the Smurfs buying guide. Also a nice guy running a capture business competing with mine once said "If you are to buy a Pana SVHS pro player/recorder buy the 7650 and/or 7750 - NO OTHER"

Now there happens to be a 7650/7750 combo for sale together with a Sony EV-S 1000E Hi-player/recorder not far away from where I live. They ask around $800 together with a WVJ-MX50 + editing controller for the Panas. The 7750 has some issues with the tape threading and would need some service.

I already own a JVC HR-S7700 and a Panasonic NV-HS960. Would there be any advantage investing in the 7650+7750? Also would the frame syncronizer in the MX50 be of any use? in the And is the price tag reasonable?

I'll answer this myself, apologising for hastily starting a new thread instead of doing my homework. The answer is one simple googling away. You'll get a better performing consumer S-VHS player for the fee a service technician would charge for just removing the cover of an AG. Sorry for littering.

Well they're not bad decks (SP only though) if they're serviced and working, though if they need work they're probably not going to be worth it compared to a comsumer SVHS. They're huge and heavy after all so just moving them around will be a hassle.

The Sony isn't all that interesting other than that it supports PCM audio which consumer camcorders don't (and thus won't normally be found on consumer tapes either), though there are better decks with that if required.

We have eight of them (both models) and racks of spares.

They're fantastic quality machines, but an acquired taste - remember not only are they SP speed they also only have manual tracking with a gauge so you'll need to supervise any transfer with them on anything other than a perfectly recorded tape. We use a locked system for many of our transfers so these ARE a necessity.

We have 7350's as well - also fantastic machines. I personally don't buy in to the "pro machines can't blah blah blah" as we've run some tapes that wouldn't play in anything else through them with great results. The whole thing is a crap-shoot. The linear-audio system is a bit strange on them too and they'll only output the left-channel on a monaural tape.

We use NV-FS200s for LP or anything that won't track precisely, if you're just doing it for yourself I'd look for a decent domestic deck rather than one of these.

Main issues are the cheese-soft heads, component level repairs are tricky, and the audio set-up will infuriate you if you go for one of these, which it doesn't sound like you're going to anyway. They're big, noisy buggers too as they're designed to work long and hard in editing bays so have fans.

I don't mind people speaking ill of them, it drives the price down for those of us that like them.

Fantastic machines, but like I said, not for everybody.

Thank you fore some good input. @RobustReviews, what does a locked system mean?

We run our capture devices, TBCs and playback decks 'genlocked' together, some of customers have it as a requirement of their order. We occasionally take S-VHS transmission records from broadcasters, hence we do need the facilities. Basically, everything has the signals synchronised, it's a massive and complicated topic I leave to our broadcast expert.

When we run Betacam/Betacam SP/UMatic it is a requirement, but that's a whole other discussion and not one for this forum.

I'm not getting drawn in to merits (or constraints) of using it, but I've learned over the years it's not worth arguing with customers - simply follow their instructions, they settle the invoices, everybody is happy.

We recently did some 'emergency' transfers for C4 in the UK (well, for their broadcast, they didn't place the order, it was via a production company) and it was a requirement for S-VHS footage. They had something in archive from Japan of all places they urgently needed for Tx.

Wow, cool. I'm well aware of the genlock technique from my work as an audio engineer. And no, I don't understand the idea of genlocking an analogue source either, but as you say, the client stipulates the requirements.