Price Paid:  $60.00 from pawn shop

Summary:
Just to clear up a item from my other post...I paid $60.00, not $6000.00 for the unit. For that amount, it would have to do A LOT more than play/record shows for me!
Also, the last unit should read...JVC hr-S9600U, not 960.
Lastly, the comments about "quality Bose systems" are correct, the only good thing you can get is the POWERED subs because of their design.

Price Paid:  $6000.00 from local pawn shop

Summary:
This is an EXCELLENT unit! I have experienced absolutely no problems of any kind in the last 3 years I've had this VCR. No noise problems, it's as quiet as a mouse. The picture is BEAUTIFUL! The recordings look like live TV. Even in HDTV recordings, there is only a negligable difference. Anyone that can get their hands on a JVC SVHS should get one...forget the other "cheap" brands, these are built to last and are loaded with features. That's why I have 3 of them, the 4600, the 7600, and the 9600.

Strengths:
GORGEOUS picture, TONS of features, and outperforms "cheap" SVHS machines made by lesser companies.

Weaknesses:
NONE!

Similar Products Used:
JVC HR-S7600U and JVC HR-S960U

Summary:
I am a little disappointed as I expected better quality from SHVS vs. standard VHS. Especially if you record in EP mode, there is a lot of noise. In fact, when recording in EP, there is less noise when recording in VHS mode than in SVHS mode.
In addition, as stated many times before, the playback is very noisy. I guess this would be acceptable for a cheap no-name unit but not in this price class. I guess the only solution is to put it into a cabinet with a glass door, or just turn the TV volume louder.
Also, when playing VHS tapes recorded on my old Sanyo VHS VCR, the sound was very muddy, the picture was ok. But I honestly wonder why I replaced my $99 Sanyo with something twice the price and it is hardly any better, even worse in some respect, e.g. the noisiness.

Strengths:
Good picture quality and sound.

Weaknesses:
Too much noise in the picture when recording in EP mode even with expensive SVHS tapes.
Noisy playback motor!!! How come I can not program to record only Monday-Friday??? Every cheap crappy VCR has that! You can only choose between daily (every day incl. Sat. and Sunday) and weekly. This is annoying!
Also, I don't like it that I explicitly have to turn the "Timer" on if I want it to record a program. Why doesn't it just automatically record the events as others do? Sometimes, you easily forget to turn the Timer mode on, and then when you come home, it didn't record anything!

Price Paid:  $299.00

Summary:
Very good reproduction of picture quality. My friends couldn't tell the difference between the cable broacast and the one recorded in the VCR. You do not have to buy SVHS tapes, it can do SVHS on normal VHS cassettes.

I do not know why some people complain about the noise, I did not get any. I have open cabinet and do not get any niose at all. Actually the rewider in the VCR is intellegent, it slows down when it comes to the beginning of the tape to prevent damage to the tape. The other good feature is indexing or marking. Every time you record something it marks something on the tape. You can jump to specific index. So if you record three episode of Friends and you want to watch 2nd episode you can jump at it by saying the VCR to forward to two index.

The problem,
It leaves a gap of 3 seconds between two records. So if you are making a tap of songs from MTV. Between two songs there will be a gap of 3 seconds. So if you start recording, stop it and without doing anything start recording again, there is a gap of 3 seconds. I did not like this at all.

Other problem your recordings are not portable, once I recorded a program and my friend wanted to watch it, he had normal VHS VCR. I recorded the program in SVHS mode. He couldn't play that on his VCR. Finally we ended up watching that program at my place together.

Strengths:
Recording Quality even on normal VHS tapes.

Weaknesses:
few seconds gap between recordings, portability of SVHS tapes

Price Paid:  $120.00 from Ubid

Summary:
This was purchased to replace a remoteless JVC HIFI vcr that was about 6 years old.

I like it. Especially the S-Vhs ET. Slap a Sima color-corrector (pro) in between the DVD player and the VCR and you get darned close to DVD picture quality on the dubs. I'll have to quit being a tightwad and actually buy some SVHS tapes to see how good it can get...

Anyways - a couple things that do irk me about it. Please note - I am the type of guy that doesn't read the manuals except to figure out the special functions, so some of this may be obvious to others.

It is noisy. Unless I shut the audio cabinet the grinding noise during record really... well, grinds on me.

I can't get it to record at 12am. I dunno if this is when it auto-resets the clock, or what, but no matter what I can't get it to start recording anywhere between 12-12:05. It does fine at 11:45, but no 12am. The exact same thing happened with my last JVC VCR too.

Programming can be a bugger. You can't direct input the channel numbers or times, so you have to scroll up to channel 60. If you try to go down it starts a 999, even though there is no DSS hooked up. The skipping ahead in increments of 30 is pretty nifty tho.

But I digress - the picture and sound quality is very good with the s-video cables, and SVHS (et) recordings. As long as I have the volume on something else turned on the noise doesn't bother me, but if I am reading a book while the VCR is recording, it can be a little irritating. If it was in the living room a normal distance from the couch I probably wouldn't notice, but 5 feet from the head of my bed I can hear it far too well.

But - for what I paid for it I love it.

Strengths:
Picture quality, SVHS-ET capability

Weaknesses:
Noisy noisy noisy

Similar Products Used:
JVC HR610U