Choosing JVC DD vs no DD? (dynamic drum)
 

Hi all,

I’m at the stage now where I’m choosing a S-VHS player. For context, I live in Australia so require PAL playback.

I’ve taken a look at the recommended models [https://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/vid...ng-guide.html] and compared them to what’s on https://vcrshop.com.

Two of the highly recommended (bolded) JVC units are on there:

• JVC HR-S9700EU
• JVC HR-9600

Both of the above have the Dynamic Drum system, which from what I’ve seen online may end up failing given all the extra moving parts and plastic gears. Would I be better off getting either of the models below instead? And how do they compare with the above?

• JVC HR-S7600EU
• JVC HR-S9850 (comes with no remote)

~hl

I can't comment on picture quality differences since I own 2 JVC VCR's only and they are sisters, But the DD system will eventually fail, Actually it cracks first and works with no problems for a while until it suddenly starts the shutdown syndrome. 99% of them are already cracked.

The dynamic drum was designed to enhance the picture during pause. If you don't overuse the pause button no reason for prematute cracks imo

Not just pause, step by step, 2x, 3x, 5x, reverse playback, -2x, -3x, -5x and every time the VCR is powered on it does a self check by spinning the gears, There is no way of not using it.

I actually prefer 76xx/77xx PAL decks.

Only buy PAL decks from VCRshop.nl, don't screw around with other places.
And tell him lordsmurf sent you. (I get nothing for it, but I do want him to know where his business is coming from.)

Between 9600 and 76xx/77xx, not much.

Correct.

Probably not that high. But definitely in the 80%'s range.

Correct.

Decades ago, there was the evidence that the DD decks gave better picture. And that remains true. But at the time, it was falsely believed to be because of the DD. However, it's coincidental. The decks are just all-around better/best, though a few JVC units are similar. A lot of non-DD JVCs do slightly soften the image, various minor quality reductions. It's very tiny, most never notice, but it's obvious in a A/B comparison, assuming the S-VHS tape is high quality. VHS tapes can be harder to see differences, and it usually just appears different. I've revisited conversations, test footage, etc, that led us to that conclusion years ago. I never really gave it much thought until conversations here, this past year. We were all wrong 20 years ago.

I confirm that, the 7700 pal deck i have do soften the image (and not slightly, really blurry but i'm the picky kind, tried with ntsc tapes mostly (all modes norm, copy etc..) compared to the s8600ms
Overall the 8600 give me better picture especially with Ep tape (more stable picture, less snow, comets)
Don't beat the SR TS1U for EP tapes though

It can also be deck-based too, exact unit.

The 7600 and 7611 are my favorite, the 7711 and 7722 are next. I currently use a pair of PAL 7600, but own others, and have used/owned many others in the past. The VS30E is decent if available.

But, again, most importantly, is where you buy decks now. For PAL, VCRshop. (I currently have a full PAL workflow in the marketplace, but that will be my last one, no more, just TBCs and capture cards for PAL after that.)

Awesome, seems DD are a definite no-go based on what everyone has said.

Will be purchasing the 7600 =) They have two, but from what I can tell one is made in Germany and the other in Malaysia, definitely going for the German one.

Thanks all for the quick responses!

For the fun of it, a little comparison:

No, That's not how comparison work, PAL60 is a reprocessed output and you can't compare a NTSC VCR to a PAL VCR, comparison should be done within the same standard, using the same tape and the same VCR settings if possible. What you showed is a comparison between different outputs, but since NTSC 3.58 is the original signal recorded on tape off course it should look the best.

Does the same apply to PAL/NTSC DVD recorders? I noticed they carry a Panasonic LQ-MD800P, which I’ve been curious about.

My current suggestion ONLY extends to the PAL JVC S-VHS VCRs with line TBC.

Even then, pay attention to model info, such as DD vs. no DD, as this OP did.

I tend to make very specific suggestions, not loose suggestions.

Apples and oranges you say ? I say orange juice all around :D

I did some tests with smpte bars to compare ntsc vs pal60 (some time ago), it's very close, in fact most vhs i have digitized i used the pal60 vcr and after some minor color correction tweaks it was just about right. I'm talking SP retail tapes here. EP is another category...

Comparing NTSC and PAL decks in that sense is fine, but I would maybe do the comparison with EDIT enabled on all of the decks rather than edit vs non-edit. Some of the newer JVCs tend to overdo the noise reduction a bit regardless of system.

As you note, EP recordings may be more affected than SP ones due to differences in head widths and in case of hi-fi, difference in hi-fi head positions in pal vs ntsc. (the panasonic AG-W1 had 4 hi-fi heads and some early ntsc on pal decks lacked hi-fi in ntsc mode for this reason as the engineers hadn't fully figured out how to handle it yet.)

As for NTSC 3.58 vs 4.43 vs PAL60 it's complicated. The only difference between ntsc 3.58 vs 4.43 is that the color frequency so all else being equal it shouldn't make any difference, esp with s-video. (Though there could in theory be some difference in how well Y/C separation is handled depending on video ic if using composite).

PAL60 involves some extra processing. As detailed in this technical manual, on earlier vcrs this involved dropping every other line of chroma and alterhing phase relationships on the rest. Idk if later devices improved on this or not, especially with digital circuitry like on the JVCs where the signal is demodulated for processing anyhow it would be easy to output as whatever but idk how it was implemented.

Yeah DVD-recorders are generally gonna be a fair bit newer than the VCRs, and you don't have VCR mech issues to worry about (though the dvd drive can of course have problems still). If buying from random sellers one does have to be aware that certain ranges of models are very prone to power supply capacitors going bad (e.g most Panasonics, JVCs made after some point where they started using crappier parts and probably others).

My point is if you compare two VCR's for quality you should compare them from the same source tape and same output, You can't say VCR1 is better than VCR2 because it's output in PAL60 is better than VCR2 output in NTSC, That's absurd. If you are comparing the quality of PAL60 then both VCR's should be on PAL60. This is more of pumpkins to onions comparison.