Best or good VCR to buy?
 

I am a vintage enthusiast and would like to purchase a good S-VHS stereo VCR. I've been looking for one for a few days and I don't know what to choose, I've also searched the VCR forums but I still haven't figured it out. I will buy it from a local store.

Which of the following models do you think would be a good choice? I want a good stable image and not to eat the video tapes.
Panasonic NV FS88 - cheap price
PANASONIC NV HS-850 S-VHS 3D HiFi-Stereo - cheap price
Panasonic Nv-Hs1000 - expensive
JVC HR-S9500 - cheap price
Panasonic NV-HS880 - cheap price

The JVC for me (because i know this brand very well), this one has all the features you want (TbC, Dynamic Drum,Transcoder (secam<>pal), although in practice you will rarely use the transcoder, quality can be so-so, and the dynamic drum is kinda fragile (cracked gears) so you don't want use it too much.

it'll be good for retail movies tapes, home recordings/camcorders that will depend on the quality of the tape, probably not optimum.

There is no reason to buy an expensive deck (like 2-3 hundred bucks or more) unless it's brand new (unopenned box) if you ask me because panasonic is known to have bad capacitors inside

On those words, bid safely

just for precision, Tanscoder/standard convertor is only in French models(MS/EF). Other PAL land models (EU,EE, etc) do not have it and do not need it.

If you know for a fact his tapes are PAL, I would say the JVC is nice yes, but the Panasonic Nv-Hs1000 is a very good VCR as well and IMHO can be better than the 9500 in many cases. It depends a bit on the state and where the VCRs are coming from (store Vs random seller, etc). If his tapes are SECAM, the HS-850 is good.

My video tapes are PAL.