Let me know next time you see a listing for a PV-1730! I could use one for parts at least if it's not working...

I don't see any of these or the GE, Magnavox or Sylvania variants on ebay.

Good news is while browsing for the Panasonic I found a nice old NEC Hi-Fi unit and bidded on it, if I win it that will take care of one on my wanted list of cool 1980s VCRs! It's a NEC N965U.

Sure, not a problem. There was one GE for sale over this summer, but the ad was relisted 3 times until finally someone bought it. I haven't seen the Magnavox of it for 3 years now, and the last one showed up was the one I sold (I did own it before). There was the first Sylvania of it that listed on August 2008 (sorry you missed it), and I bought it, but it arrived with a cracked front display. It works great though. I need to find a replacement front display. Of all the four, the Magnavox had the highest MSRP, with Sylvania next in the line, then GE, and then Panasonic. Believe it or not, the Panasonic was the cheapest, and that lead to be the best seller of this chassis. I do own the Panasonic PV-1730 as well, and it is in super like-new condition with the original ad sticker, box, packing, manual, cables, bag, and remote. The original owner told me it was used only once a year, which means only 24 times in 24 years.

The NEC N965U is a very nice, high-end VHS model. Fairly easy to find, but there are no replacement parts at all (not even the original NEC belts).

Mine works, but is very rough and is missing the front covers, and I've already had to reoil the video head cylinder bearing.

It seems someone else wants that N965U, and bidded 3 times but hasn't reached my proxy yet!

Keep coming across some cool VCRs on the bay, a buy it now Panasonic AG-5210 for $20, think I'll pick one up to play with. It has the K chassis, I don't know much about that particular Panasonic chassis, but I assume it's pretty well built since it's a commercial VCR.

Edit: Found out the K chassis is a revision of the G chassis but with a third loading motor and a simpler gear system to facilitate tape loading functions. Also won the NEC N965U!!!

The K-chassis is an upgraded chassis of the G-chassis that is capable for jog shuttle editing. This chassis is found in Panasonic PV-S4990 and AG-1960. It also comes with high speed rewind/forward, something that G-chassis doesn't have. There is a separate reverse motor that drags the tape backward with its nylon teeth belt.

jhalphen-

The JVC HM-DH30000U (and the next model 40000U, commonly called the "30K" and "40K" here) cannot directly record HDTV signals. Rather, they both have analog TV tuners built-in, and component-video HD outputs built-in. For HDTV recording, they have IEEE1394 (also called "FireWire" and maybe "I-link", I think) connections. These recorders can be used with a few set-top USA (ATSC) HDTV tuners that have the matching IEEE1394 data connection. There are also some HDTV sets that have the '1394 connectors. The tuner or TV set can often also control the JVC VCR from its own remote control.

I do not have a long-term storage solution for my HDTV recordings, but the ones I have on hard disk drives from 2000-2001 are still good.

No one lusts after the NEC DS8000U? I have two friends that still have running ones that I've kept up for them over the years. Pretty reliable overall except for the typical NEC tape guide issue on both years ago. Had to replace a few electrolytics too.

Was the PV-S4990 the one that had the MTS stereo RF modulator? Seems I recall there was only one Panny that had stereo RF output.

NEC DS-8000U is fairly hard to find on eBay, but it's a great, well-made unit and was the most popular NEC SVHS unit. I used to own one 4 years ago. There is also a much rarer, higher-end DS-8500U that retailed over $3,000 when new with all kinds of fancy features found similar to Toshiba SV-F990.

Yes, the PV-S4990 has a MTS stereo RF modulator. It has four coaxial inputs/outputs. I do own one, but I never know what a RF modulator does. Would you care to explain?

This year Christmas, my Sharp VC-H98U 8-HEAD 19-micron Hi-Fi MTS Stereo VCR (yes), which is used only on December 25 every year, will see its FINAL year recording 6 hours of memorable Christmas performances from its original analog tuner. :tears: Next year, I will need to connect it with a converter box. What a sad day analog VCRs have been. The analog tuner will never see the light again, although it begs me to work for another 20 years. :tears: The Sharp 8-head 19-micron VCRs are by far the best performing EP/SLP recording quality I have ever seen. Most professional VCRs only have 4-head and still don't produce a good picture. Good luck finding one on eBay as they are very rare.

An MTS stereo modulator puts out a stereo encoded signal on ch 3 or 4. Handy feature for people who insist on hooking up their VCR to the TV with a single RF cable! When I was full-time active in the VCR service biz in the '80s and '90s I had quite a few people over the years come in saying the stereo light on their TV wouldn't light up when they played a tape. I had to explain that the RF modulator in their new stereo VCR was actually mono, and for stereo it would have to be connected to the TV with stereo audio-video cables.

My situation in my house here, I bought a stand-alone MTS Stereo RF modulator to run my C-band satellite and VCR through the rest of the house via a single 75 Ohm coax to the stereo TVs in other rooms.

As far as I know there was never an easy cheap way to produce an MTS stereo modulator which I figure is why they weren't included in any more VCRs. Cost to include MTS stereo encoding was the prohibiting factor best as I can tell. Not aware of any single chip ever developed that would do that.



Now if you had that DTV converter box A&V plugged into an MTS stereo modulator then you could feed that RF to your Sharp on Ch 3 or 4 and its tuner wouldn't know the difference! Of course direct would be better quality but the stereo VCR tuner would get used at least!



Do you have a picture of an NEC DS-8500? I thought that was the one that used a Panasonic chassis...??? I know there was at least one NEC that did.

I remember working on a few of those SV-F990 Toshibas. Super fancy elaborate high $$$ machine! (EDIT: The machine I was thinking about is the SV-771 with the optical sensors that automatically slide the door down and cassette tray out as you come near the front with a tape, one sold on eBay a earlier this month.)

Regarding that NEC tape guide issue, when my N965U arrives, since its in working condition, anything I can do to prevent the guides from getting screwed up in the first place? I definitely don't have the means here to replace and realign tape guides, I heard its fairly difficult, especially since it's a Hi-Fi unit.

No, I don't have any picture. The last one showed up on eBay was somewhere in summer of 2007. This unit has a sliding door tray with double flying-erase-heads. It is made by NEC. The last NEC VCR, made in 1989, was made by Panasonic, and it wasn't SVHS. I saw it on eBay before.

It's not real difficult but does require great care since you are working around the heads and drum replacing the guides, then you have to set up and align the tape path and probably the X-value of the A/C head and check and align as needed for smooth tape path forward and in reverse search. Maybe you will get lucky and the one you are getting has had them replaced sometime in its past with the improved guide base ass'ys that have the little set-screw to keep the brass sleeve from moving. I've done lots of these in the past but not one in 5-6 years at least. If not don't know any preventive measure unless you want to try and lock them in place before they do move with glue or epoxy of some sort which I don't recommend and is questionable practice at best. Any I would see like that from a previous repair attempt elsewhere with glue, paint or JB Weld would always get new guide base ass'ys no matter what, figuring they would eventually work loose again. But finding new ones nowadays might be hard to do so there might not be an alternative to doing the glue thing to them hate to say.

The Toshiba SV-F990 is a super, fancy unit. I bought it (extremely rare) as brand new, factory-sealed, never opened, never used from the box for $500, and the original box is still in new condition after almost 20 years. I had way too much fun breaking its factory sealed for the first time in 20 years.

Zenith's only S-VHS VCR was relisted and now going for only $25 starting bid. It will be very sad if it fails to receive a first bid, as this is a really good price based on the condition and rarity, and it's AK's most favorite brand.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=250348028944

I hope someone here in our forums gets this VCR. It's the first S-VHS machine I've ever seen in my life, and it looks like it just came out of the box for the first time. The low opening bid should help as well.

BTW, a bit OT, I am aware, but this question occurred to me while I was looking at the picture of this S-VHS VCR. What is the difference between standard VHS and S-VHS? My best guess is that S-VHS was capable of greater resolution than straight VHS. It looks to me as if the S-VHS VCR uses smaller cassettes than ordinary VHS machines as well, and if that isn't enough, the S-VHS recorder looks a lot smaller than most VHS units.

S-VHS VCR offers higher picture resolution and use its own S-VHS tape. It can playback both VHS and S-VHS tapes. S-VHS was considered to be high-end and flagship during the late 80s to mid-90s. Tape is standard size. The smaller size is called S-VHS-C, which is similar to VHS-C, and works for camcorders only.