An inexpensive HiFi VCR
Written: Mar 22 '01 (Updated Mar 22 '01)
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Pros: Inexpensive, hi-fi stereo, useful features like commercial skip
Cons: Found auto-tracking to be dubious
The Bottom Line: Good VCR with nice features, but I give it an Average rating, because I had some problems with the auto-tracking that ate up some of my time.
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| marcman's Full Review: Sony SLV-N50 VHS VCR |
I bought this VCR recently at Target, because it was $99 which seemed like a great deal on a Sony VCR, because Sonys are usually pretty good and more expensive than other brands. I am pretty pleased.
This VCR is HiFi Stereo which is a step-up from my mono VCR. Plugged into my stereo system, it sounds pretty good. Not as good as DVD, obviously, but much better than my old VCR.
Useful features
This VCR has some useful features like commercial skip (skips ahead 30 seconds every time you press it), search for 0, search for recorded programs (by location a "marker" that is placed at the beginning of each recording), auto clock set, and front panel inputs.
Ease of use
This VCR is easy to use, thanks to a nice remote control that operates both my VCR and my Sony TV (without any setup!). Kind of nice, because I have a universal remote, but I use the VCR remote anyway, because it has specialized buttons like "commercial skip" that the universal remote doesn't have. On-screen programming makes it pretty easy to change settings and set the timer to record. The auto clock set feature automatically sets the time for you as long as it can find a time signal (usually broadcast by PBS stations). This is a neat feature, although it didn't work straight out of the box for me. It wasn't finding the time signal (maybe I had to wait longer?), so I ended up going into the settings and telling it manually which station was my PBS station so that it could set the time. Once I did that, it worked like a charm.
Picture and sound quality
Once I resolved a minor tracking problem (see below), quality is very good. Not as good as DVD (which I don't own yet, but I'm quite interested in it), but very good. The picture is about as good as any other VCR I've seen while the sound is a bit better than my old VCR, because that VCR was monaural. In case you're curious, this VCR has 4 heads and they are of the 0.19 micron variety, which are supposed to be better.
Fast rewind
Another nice feature is that this VCR rewinds very quickly. It makes a fair amount of noise while rewinding, but nothing bothersome.
Tracking problem
I had a problem while watching a rented tape of "The Apostle" from Blockbuster video. The problem was that the sound was crackly when I had the VCR in "HiFi" mode (the default). I noticed that it went away when I set the VCR to "Mono" mode. This perplexed me. I decided that it must be because the tape was not in stereo, but a glance at the tape revealed that it had been recorded in "HiFi Stereo". Why should the VCR sound worse in "HiFi" mode? Now I was really perplexed and ready to take the VCR back to the store. Then my girlfriend suggested that maybe I should play with the tracking. The VCR is supposed to automatically adjust the tracking so I doubted that this was the problem. However, when I played with the tracking I was able to get rid of the noise so that the VCR actually sounded BETTER in "HiFi" mode. This was a relief. I actually noticed that you can display the tracking onscreen and when you put the tape in, you can watch the VCR attempt to find the right tracking setting (you can see a slider on the screen moving up and down trying to find the right point). Unfortunately, the VCR always set the tracking very close to center, whereas the optimal tracking setting for this tape seemed to be a bit to the right of center. I'm not sure why this happens and I haven't tried it on any other rented tapes. This is the main reason I have given this VCR an Average rating. I will change it if I find that this problem seems to be limited to certain tapes. If you have any ideas, please email me.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 99
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Epinions.com ID:
marcman
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Location: Santa Clara, CA, USA
Reviews written: 42
Trusted by: 33 members
About Me:
If I was writing for my dinner, I'd be a heck of a lot thinner.
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