Any brands beside JVC/Panasonic SVHS worth considering?
 

I'm curious if there are any brands or models of SVHS machines that would be considered decent. Imagine aliens have stolen every JVC or Panasonic SVHS machine from Earth, as well as their clones, and we're left with nothing but other brands. Are there any that would be your go-to choice? How big is the dropoff between the best non-JVC/Panasonic/clone SVHS and the worst JVC SVHS? What would be the most you would pay for one of these lesser machines? (Let's pretend the tapes we're playing are SVHS, too, and VHS decks aren't an option.)

For non-TBC units:
I am pleased with my Mitsubishi s778u, paired with an ES-15 it's a viable setup.
Also, the Philips 960b shows up often, it's JVC built, much like a JVC-s48000u inside. Again though you need an ES-10 or 15 to steady the image on most tapes, anything without line TBC will need a stabilizing force.
I would never consider a Panasonic.
Then I have a rare-ish Toshiba W808 with great digital NR, but no other picture controls. Still a very nice machine but no TBC.

Mitsubishi did also make a D-VHS machine with TBC that I think works pretty well and plays SP and EP tapes - it uses the same mechanism as a lot of their non-TBC units from around that time, so other than the video head drum, the mechanical parts that can wear out are replaceable. That would be the HS-HD2000U.

Mitsubishi also made a medical S-VHS machine that has a line TBC, but that only plays SP tapes and also uses the same mechanism, that's the HS-MD3000, though that one only does SP tapes. The medical VCR does have an hours counter as well, so you can again get a good idea of "how used" it is. They do contain quite a few SMT caps inside all over the place, so that's a potential point of failure.

While not less expensive, the Sony SVO-5800 has a line/frame TBC combo with easily accessible TBC controls on the front which will even allow you to change Y/C delay which is an issue where luma and chroma don't line up exactly and usually chroma is shifted to the right of the image. I've found this can vary from tape to tape, so having that accessible and easy to adjust is nice. It has a variety of noise reduction features within the menus as well as an hours-meter, so you can know just "how used" the unit was before buying one - though downside with this one is that it does SP tapes only which will be a dealbreaker for single-VCR setups.

While this doesn't fit your criteria of being non-JVC/Panasonic, JVC/Victor made W-VHS VCRs that are some say are better than anything else out there for standard VHS due to having some different head characteristics that was more so they could play/record W-VHS, but had a side effect of working even better for regular VHS tapes. Doesn't have anything to do with W-VHS processing circuitry as I've verified that you can completely remove the WVHS digital board and the machine continues to work fine for VHS and has a separate TBC card for regular VHS on the HR-W5 anyway. I'm not sure if they play EP tapes or not, but I counted something like 11 heads on one of which is probably a flying erase head.

Also while not meeting your criteria (but also not on the recommended list), the JVC BR-Sx22/BR-x25 series are pretty nice once you put a lot of effort into restoring them. Not all of them contained the TBC option cards, but you'll know if it has one by the "component output" jacks on the back if they are there. They remain the only VCR that I am aware of that can knock out macrovision without any external components and they have a combo line/frame TBC. As a bonus, they can directly load VHS-C without an adapter, though that loading mechanism is extremely complicated and you need to pray that it doesn't have issues as spares are impossible to find without picking up a spare machine and shipping alone is a lot given that these things weigh like 50-60lbs and take up a lot of space. Again, not a VCR I'd choose in a single VCR setup and not one I'd choose if you don't want to put a lot of restoration effort into and be ok with it if the effort fails. I believe these are SP-only as well.

Good news is that most home movies (if they are the originals) were recorded in SP anyway and that's what people mostly want to transfer these days. If you're more into vintage commercials, then yeah, more likely to run into EP recordings for that.

Final brain dump is that the commonly used ES10/ES15's that are used for stabilization almost always have bad SMT caps on their digital boards - you won't even see them on quick inspection because they are mounted upside down on the green board that plugs into the DVD drive. They also often have bad power supply caps and they won't fully boot if those are bad but theoretically could affect output image even if the unit does boot. I can't say that the bad caps on the digital boards will affect the output quality, but I assume that the designers wanted those capacitors present and functioning, but I suppose some of those could be for the DVD recorder and playback, but I assume not all.

Not really. JVC/Panasonic (both Matsushita for a long time) were essentially a monopoly on S-VHS. Why is that, you ask? JVC/Matsushita owned the patent on S-VHS (and VHS). The VHS was licensed out, the S-VHS rarely. You'd get the odd Aiwa, Sony, Mitsubishi, etc deck, but those tended to be competing with the lower end S-VHS decks, not the higher-end with-TBC models we all use now. At most, there were rebadged, or specialty SKU/badges, from the likes of Philips.

This. Low-end S-VHS at best, no TBCs, and the ES10/15 is not transparent, it adds noise, not just repair with line TBC.

I can, seen it. ES10/15 type DVD recorders are nothing special, issues can happen on those too. The bigger issue is that the units are not transparent, quality already downgraded some, so bad caps tends to nudge it pretty wonky and obvious.

I'm pretty sure those, or something very similar, were what we used before switching to DVC Pro. We should have had about 16 of them, give or take, between the edit bays and the live playback area, but somebody in their infinite wisdom decided to part with every single one of them. So we have a few hundred SVHS archive tapes that can't be played thanks to some bone-headed decision. :mad:

Well, poop. I was hoping maybe there was a hidden gem out there that everyone sleeps on, an Emerson or something that was made with stolen blueprints! :wink2: Or, just some pleasant surprise that was stumbled upon in a thrift shop that punched above its weight.

You could roll the dice with a Sanyo GVR-S960 if you see one for cheap, maybe a S955 but I'm not sure that has a TBC. I had a S960 briefly, well put together but had a poor picture and a lot of hours on the drum so I returned it. If you stumble across a good one let us know how you get on. :D

The list of best VCRs on this site is there for a reason. They are the best for transfer, though if just watching there is a little more choice, but however most of them I suspect are still JVC.

In defense of my Toshiba W-808 "This. Low-end S-VHS at best, no TBCs, and the ES10/15 is not transparent, it adds noise, not just repair with line TBC."
Earlier I stated the 808 had no picture controls, I forgot in addition to the amazing DNR it has Fine and Soft for your viewing needs, and the digital tracking is excellent. I am playing a VHS-c tape in it now that crazy-jumped in both my JVC 7800s, and my Philips 960, all thru an ES-15 that could not make it play nice. The 808 is rock-solid, and I might test it without the ES-15. Maybe it's time for that second-tier honorable mentions list. Supplies of "acceptable" machines is shrinking by the hundreds every day. We all mostly know what units to NOT get, Sansui, RCA, Goldstar, Emerson, GE, most any Panasonic!

Alright, I'll buy one. Your reputation is on the line now. :D

No you won’t buy one, and you don’t need to but it is doing its job on this tape and that’s what I needed.
You say it’s best to have more than 1 VCR, at least one with tbc (which I have).
Aside from performance it’s a beautiful unit (if you’re into that sort of thing…anyone?).
Mostly I wanted to correct my earlier post about the no image control but editing is not possible.

If we put JVC's aside, best decks i have tested myself are from Thomson (VTH 6250F) and Toshiba (V732EF and V733EF) in Pal/secam, didn't test in ntsc.
Thomson deliver lots of fine details (bushes, leaves) 2nd/3rd plane unlike many (and i mean many other decks) but kinda grainy. Toshiba's more polished frames (adjustable sharpness= yes).


The one's to forget: Philips (always kinda blurry somehow, 3 decks i tried), Panasonic NV 6xxx not that great (wobbly frames)

The Philips I have is a 960B and it is a JVC S4800 inside. It's no wonder it behaved the same as my 2 S7800s.
But "the list" is always going to be the best units, available or not, due to in-built TBC. But if you can only afford one TBC deck, then a competent secondary deck is gonna be a useful tool on those tapes that won't play nice nice. Tools in the box.

The philips i'm talking about are 100% Philips, series Vr 600,700,800,900 with the infamous worm kit that breaks and distinguishable triangle clamp on the shaft's head drum

You don't believe I'd get gear for testing? Surely you know me better than that. :cool:

Sure! I always thought the "6-head" VHS units were purty. :P
From a VHS VCR stance, that is.
Something about the narrower height just always got to me. For that sole reason, it felt sleeker.
Not that I'd ever buy one of those. Not worth it.

I didn’t mean to turn this into a W808 thread, but I removed the ES-15 and plugged in the CMD-1200 and the edge lines remained very straight. This Toshiba when I bought it looked like it was never used, not a scratch anywhere and loads like butta. The 808 and 1200 make a pretty decent work flow.