Panasonic AG-7350 or JVC HR-S7600 for digitising?
 

Hello,

Starting a big project digitising about 200 s-vhs tapes, and have a few players on hand. Work at a museum.
So I thought I’d check in with the guru central.

Considering I have a Datavideo TBC-1000, which player is preferred? I know the JVC have built in TBC, but there are many tapes, and kind of thinking the Panasonic will be more “durable” and stable.

With a dedicated TBC, will I notice the difference between a player with or without built in TBC?
Also the dial style tracking knob on the Panasonic is preferable to the remote variant on the JVC.

The Panasonic only have a few hundred hours on it, regularly serviced. Used in a professional environment. The JVC is lightly used, but has been used as a tuner and tv recorder. It’s a bit dried out, needs new rubber band and lubrication.

Hopefully someone here have the insight to guide me in the right direction.

That Panasonic is a near-paperweight. The only model recommended is the AG-1980P, not any random Panasonic S-VHS deck. Even this model in "good condition" should be passed on, unless it's super-cheap ($100) at some offline venue. This was not a VCR, but a VTR, made for editing S-VHS tapes. The playback output (especially VHS) will be craptastic, as it was not meant for playback. SP only, too.

The JVC 7600 will be better quality, more versatile, intended for playback.

However, as a museum, there are other JVC models to consider.

Why did you decide on the 7600? Was it due to price (mistake), or because some "local person" had it (mistake), or something else?

DataVideo TBC-1000 is a frame TBC. The JVC built-in is a line TBC.
Frame cleans the signal.
Line cleans the image.
You need both.

The 7600 for 200 tapes is doable only if it gets tune-up beforehand. Realign, re-lube, fix anything in needed.

I’m looking forward to reading the opinions of the most experienced people here.
For me, with maybe 1,000 tapes or so under my belt, the JVC all day long.
Condition of your equipment is very important, a second backup S-VHS unit is very beneficial, as is the availability of a Panasonic ES series DVD recorder (certain models) to help stop the top tearing that some tapes exhibit.

Thank you for a quick and comprehensive response.

The 7600 is what’s available locally, there are very few s-vhs players for sale, and if they turn up they are often $1000 or more. With a limited budget it’s what we can get at the moment. EBay often end up quite expensive with shipping and taxes, and more difficult to complain if something is wrong.

What other players do you recommend? I’m in Norway so it has to be PAL.

Ah, PAL, that does change the conversation some. The 7600 will be fine. Just heed advice of proper maintenance before starting.

PAL decks tend to be less costly than NTSC (because most of the world is PAL, therefore more supply, and less used per capita), but $1k USD for PAL seems high. My own refurb'd PAL decks aren't that much, and I was a tad more than VCRshop. Methinks you were getting highball screw-job type offers due to being a museum. Some shysters see you as money pot, and double their prices. I have experience with that, from my studio days, and some higher ed before that. Watch yourself.

Thank you for your guidance.

The local market is very small and can go weeks without a s-vhs player for sale on the local “Craigslist”. And not really a decent supply to find in A/V groups, so it’s a sellers market. We were lucky to snag the 7600 for $500.

I’ll get this serviced and go ahead with the project. And also keep notifications on for players and hope for a good deal on a backup deck.

Thank you again for all your help!

I've owned on of these PAL decks for many years. They were well designed for hard work, low maintenance in a pro/ semi pro production environment. If as you say it's been well maintained and has low head hours (this model has a head hours meter) it might be worth trying. Perhaps the main down side is its age (mid 90's?) so capacitors may need replacing.

Buying any tape based deck is a gamble these days as they're complicated beasts, parts are increasingly scarce, if available at all, and service techs increasingly hard to find. Finding a good service tech available for the life of your project might be worth pursuing.

IF you're gonna use that model you would want to use something else than the TBC-1000 with it as the TBC-1000 doesn't do much if any horizontal stabilization. Granted you probably want to have that anyhow (panasonic dvd-recorder or similar) as a backup option for tapes where the JVC SVHS TBC has issues with horizontal jitter which isn't uncommon.