Good DVD recorder for transfering VHS tapes?
 

Hi! I thought about buying a JVC HR-S7600EU S-VHS player that has TBC, and I want to trasfer some tapes to digital. What may be the best PAL DVD recorder with harddrive to use in combination with it? Are LSI chipset based DVD recorders the best for VHS transfers? Cus I heard some DVD recorders are a bit bad.

And also, how does using a JVC HR-S7600EU in combination with a good separate DVD recorder comprare to using a combo unit, like the panasonic DMR-EX98V or similar?
Have had a Panasonic DMR-EX98V before, do those combo Panasonic DMR series not use LSI and may be not as good?

And yeah, if I hook up a VHS player to a DVD recorder I plan to use S-VIDEO or SCART instead of just composite for best quality of course!

I like the one i have sony rdr hxd990. Amongst other things : can record on hdd in 15000 mbps, line tbc works, support ntsc pal secam, hdmi and component out. Great features in other words. Did i mention the proc amp options ( tint, details,sat b/w levels etc..)

I don't think any of the PAL Panasonics other than the DMR-ES20 use a LSI chipset, that was mainly a thing with the north american ones with digital tuner afaik. The LSI chipset is found in JVC, LG and some others - there is a non-exhaustive list on the forums.

LSI gallery here: https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...ipset-dvd.html
Mostly complete.

Panasonic with LSI not good, do not buy. Bad bitrate settings, other issues. Only the JVC should be considered now, few exceptions.

Thanks for the replies! :congrats: Hm, maybe I go for one of those JVC DVD/HDD recorders with LSI chipset. But also, it got me thinking looking at that LSI list, how does JVC HR-S7600EU comprare to the VHS player inside JVC DR-MX1, DR-MX2, DR-MX5? I guess it does not have S-VHS at least, but yeah I don't have any S-VHS tapes really. And do they have TBC? I guess it's better to go for JVC HR-S7600EU and hook it up to one of the JVC DVD/HDD recorders with LSI?

On the newer VHS VCRs JVC tended to share mechanism (sans that the SVHS ones have a tape stabilizer thingy added) and much of the ICs between SVHS and VHS decks from the same lineups. The MX1 and MV5 are a bit newer so use the later mechanism and parts similar to the last JVC SVHS decks. The non-SVHS ones lack the SVHS bits and digital stuff (either 3d TBC/DNR or some simpler 2d chroma NR in the SVHS decks without TBC/DNR). The non-SVHS ones of course also lack SVHS output from the VCR side, including on he vhs/dvd recorder combos. The digital part on those is connected via composite internally. The image quality didn't change much from the 99 models like the S7600 to the later models.

As noted e.g the MX1 doesn't have the digital processing of the SVHS models. The digitizer chip is some custom JVC thing though, and has some limited line tbc-y functionality though at least from the quick testing I've done on my MX1 it seems a bit prone to frame drops and the same vertical jitter that the TBC/DNR thing in the SVHS JVCs does (maybe there is some tech overlap between the chip in the TBC and in the dvd-recorders since both are JVC ICs). The dvd-recorder one does not do any noise reduction on it's own though, the LSI mpeg encoder chip does seem to to some degree, but only on recording to dvd and hdd, and may depend on bit rate, not sure.


Unlike many other dvd-recorder/VHS combos the normal video output of the MX1 does not go via the internal digitizer (other than when dubbing to dvd/hdd). It also had some bad power supply capacitors that needed replacing for it to work, and that seem to be an issue with some of the JVC dvd recorders, seems they cheaped out a bit on the parts. Afaik the MV1 and MV5 are similar to the MX1, but without a HDD.

One issue I have noted on the MX1 and the related XVS20 (SVHS/DVD player combo) is annoying noise/crackle on the linear audio track though, and some others here have reported similar things on related late model JVCs. I have not managed to figure out what the cause is, but it is a serious point against using a MX1 and related as the device playing the tapes. Haven't noted that problem on the slightly earlier jvcs such as my S8500, and S8600 (mostly the same as the S7600 but with some extra editing features not relevant for digitizing) and others.

Note that many of the other JVC branded dvd/vhs combos are made by LG and are completely different internally, don't know if any of the those that featured a dvd recorder like the DR-MV100 were sold in Europe. The LG dvd-recorder combos also use a LSI (or successor) system chip but are completely different in any other way. There is also at least one that's funai internally (DR-MV2) and again completely different.

Thanks for all the info! will probably go for S7600 and a separate DVD recorder I think then. :)