Decent PAL VCRs for lower price range?
 

Hey all. I'm new here, and want to make new captures of my VHS library. At the moment, I have two VCRs: a JVC HR-D210EK from the late 80s, and a J695EK from the early millennium. The D210 works pretty well but is too old/low-end to have some of the features I want (it's mono, for a start) and the J695 disagrees with some of my tapes and I get quite a bit of drop-outs (even after cleaning the heads). I want to upgrade to something more substantial and started doing some research. It looks like a VCR with a TBC is way out of my price range (around £80-120). Would anyone have any suggestions for a decent unit in this price-range? Right now, I have my eye on the non-TBC Panasonic NV-HS8xx series.
I'm capturing with an old Toshiba DVD recorder (as most USB capture methods I've tried are a load of rubbish) if that means anything. Thanks to anyone who replies!

Welcome. :)

80s VCRs can make for neat antiques, but nothing usable.

J695EK form factor pays decent, but has way too many transport issues. However, it is just a lowly consumer VHS deck, so image quality is pretty crummy compared to even low-end S-VHS decks.

In PAL, a quality S-VHS with TBC is actually quite cheap, generally €300 to €600 range. That's low than the MSRP 20 years ago, and is about half of the new cost when you add in inflation over that time. S-VHS were never £80 to £120, and never will be. (Yes, never, because attrition will steady or elevate costs over time.)

You need to be very careful with Panasonic decks, as most are now failed. Be very wary of eBay liars sellers, with few exceptions (reputable folks like VCRshop also sometimes sell on eBay).

USB is just a communication method. There are terrible cards using every comms methods. USB, PCI, PCIe, AGP, Firewire, Thunderbolt, etc. The quality of the card isn't determined by USB or non-USB. It just happens that most USB cards are cheap Chinese junk sold on eBay and Amazon (and Temu and others). Old PCI cards were probably worse than USB is.

You're using a DVD recorder, compressed 4:2:0 mushy MPEG quality. It was great in the 2000s, not so much now, with our huge HD/4K TVs that show all the lovely blocks and smushy splostches. I mostly still approve of DVD as a cartoon collector, as animation is nowhere as harmed by the MEPg compression.