great picture defined,bright,good managment{menu}also has in sound good highs,and lows with hard bass

basic control

to start let me say the screen is purified and detail colored,it has the best hi-fi stereo in the biz hits all the highs and lows,extended bass and i just added a s-video converter the screen is picture perfect and purest detail looks almost as good as dvds

Similar Products Used:

philips s-vhs,other sony''s

Very Good Picture and Sound

none so far

Very good picture if hooked up with audio/video cables. I'm using acoustic research cables.

Very clear picture. Quiet operation.

Cannot display current time while playing video.

Got the N60 for great price from Video Direct, but they are big @$$holes. They act like you are bothering them by ordering something. I would not reccommend you buy from them. But I do reccommend the VCR. Works great and whisper quiet operation. No s-video outputs though. Great machine for the price. Sony did a very good job with this one.

Similar Products Used:

Sharp

Sharpest Rental Movie playback you'll ever see!

Remote not backlit.

I know most people who watch movies are now renting DVD but I needed a VCR for tape movie rentals. I was very happy with the video quality of my 8 year old Sharp VC-A45 but the FF, REW and Eject were dying. I test bought the following current models that were recommended and myself, friends and my wife agreed my old Sharp had a noticeably better video quality: Panasonic 4820, 4660 and JVC S-VHS HRS3600U which was supposed to have superior VHS playback, and five current top of line VHS and S-VHS decks (I brought my old Sharp to a reseller and he was kind enough to let me A-B them into the same monitor. Even he agreed my old Sharp looked better. Several resellers said since DVD is current, less quality may be going into video heads and more into features and that may explain the higher quality of my old unit. But then a miracle happened! I discovered the Sony SLVN-60! It was considerably better than my beloved Sharp! Not only that but the regular cable channels on my TV looked Sharper when the cable feed was looped through the VCR to my Trinitron! Perhaps some kind of fine tune device?!? I don't know but the Sony SLVN-60 is the best. The video quality of recordings on blank tapes is as good as you'd need it to be but my primary concern was pre-recorded tapes. If you buy one of these and its not as good as I'm describing, replace it with the same model. Maybe your first one was defective but you will see some phenomenal video quality for a VHS deck. This is the one. Perhaps the SLVN50, 70 and 80 are as good but I can only recommend the one I have. You can find it mail order on Internet for as low as $125. I paid $149 at Circuit City and I'm keeping it. I don't want to order another to save $25 and return the one I own. Mine works exceptionally well and who knows if another might have a glitch or problem. If there were 10 stars I'd give it to this unit but I can only go as high as 5.

Similar Products Used:

Old Sharp VC-A45

easy setup

bad macrovision implementation; flawed design

If you want just to play vhs tapes,
maybe this is good for you. But beware
that this vcr is flawed in supporting
copyright protection.

If you connect the audio/video line out
of ANY DVD player (tried more than one
DVD player) to any of the
line inputs (L1 or L2) of this VCR, the macrovision
is actually ON which makes the video
unwatcheable. Macrovision should
only be turned on when recording that
is why it is a copyright protection
and should not be turned on when watching
a DVD thru this VCR.

My unit is not defective. I tried it
on another unit of the same model and
it had the same problem.

This problem is not true for other
VCRs that i have purchased recently.

I am using this setup since my tv only
has an RF input and no audio/video
inputs. To watch DVD, i have to connect
my player to the VCR, and connect the
RF out of the VCR to my TV.

easy set up. quick dail record programing. clear video & audio. quiet transport.

none

This is a great vcr. I've been looking to replace an old rca. I have tried out five vcr's and have returned them all. None of them recorded video as clearly as my six year old rca. The sony records beautifully. It's quiet and easy to use. I would highly recommend this vcr. For those of you with tivo looking for a vcr to archive check this one out. Only by paying a lot more and upgrading to s-video will ou find a better vcr.

Similar Products Used:

panasonic, rca, others

incredible hi-fi stereo,unique design,league of its own in picture quality.

none at the price

to start let me say this "to start" theres no match for this vcr's picture looks magnifecent doll, sound quality is purely great,with bass that rocks my room.as well as the next level of exellency all around.paid 88.00 and worth the 125.00 wou would pay on the net.truly amazing

Similar Products Used:

phillips(s-vhs),mitsubishi(775U)

Quick-dial record setting, allowing you to set it without having to turn on the TV or find the remote: excellent picture quality: auto-start for pre-recorded tapes.

Clock not shown when tape inserted: 'memory' function (to rewind to where you started) confusing and difficult to use.

I'd done some product comparisons when my RCA VCR (about 9 yrs old) was on its last legs, and was rather disappointed. All the models I saw had lots of nice bells and whistles, but they didn't have the one thing I *really* wanted that my old one had -- a way to program directly from the front of the VCR. Apparently, with the ease of the new programming features (i.e. VCR+), that went the way of the do-do bird. Well, that's fine if you live somewhere that you can use it, but in Saskatchewan it's not an option. (Nor is auto time-set, or a host of other fancy TV features.)

When the RCA crapped out, I took one more look, and stumbled across the Sony SLV N50/60/70 series. Wow! Just what I was looking for! Not only that, but the reviews here were fairly positive. Based on that, I did some price shopping and found that I was able to get it for about US$130 at Sears -- which meant it had the Sears no-hassle return policy if I didn't like it. I bought it on the spot.

Needless to say, I have not returned it. It's been about 6 months now, and I'm more than satisfied with my purchase. The picture quality is excellent, especially considering that I'm pulling signal from the air and not from cable or dish. The auto-start feature for pre-recorded tapes is a big plus; my just-turned-three son has no problem putting in his favourite pre-recorded tapes and watching them if he's in a mood.

Lastly, and most importatly, it's got the programming wheel -- a small dial on the front panel of the unit that allows you to set up your programming almost instantly. (Push) spin dial to set date, (push) spin dial to set ontime, (push) spin set offtime (15-minute increments), (push) set channel, (push) to finish. Viola! You can set up a record-from-tv in about 5 seconds... or more than one, if you're so inclined.

Having said all that, there's a couple of things that would make this VCR just *perfect*. Firstly, the clock display goes off when you've got a tape inserted and the machine powered on. This is frustrating, as the VCR is the most visible time-keeper in our rec-room. A little "clock/counter" button (as I find prevalent on many VCRs) would have been a simple and much-welcome addition. Secondly, a way of saying "stop rewinding when you get to 0:00:00" would have been nice. There is a feature that allows you to FF/Rew to a specific point on the tape, but it's difficult to get to and not at all intuitive.

One of the reasons I went with the N60 was because it had the Commercial Pass feature. I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't this; FF when pressed, Stop/REW 5-10 seconds of screen time (because because it assumes you've missed getting it perfect)/Play when pressed again. I can do at least that well on my own (mostly due to the excellent and very intuitive design of the remote control), so this feature goes mostly unused.

Despite those minor shortcomings, I'm VERY pleased with my purchase, and would buy another in an instant.

Final note: I'd recommend *against* buying the N70; a comparison of features (from the SONY site, no less) showed that the only difference was auto head-cleaner... something that several video-enthusiast friends of mine said was not only a waste of money, but actively bad for the VCR. The little pads wear out in about a year, and if improperly affixed can fall off inside and gum up the works. It certainly wasn't worth an extra $40; go boy a $6 head-cleaner tape and remember to use it from time to time.

Commercial Pass, Index search, good quality picture once the reality regenerator is off, shows time left on tape

No clock shown when playing a tape! Ejecting a tape takes forever, putting in a tape is tricky because of notches on the plastic cover

First off, this review is for the SLV-N70. I was in the market for a new VCR since my old Hitachi vcr just wasn't cutting it anymore. I wasn't even thinking about getting a Sony (I was looking at the Panasonic 4630) but the price was decent, and it had a lot of features. Silly me, I bought it without getting a demo! But as it turns out, this is a decent machine.
The picture is quite nice with the adaptive control feature. Just don't turn on the Reality Regenerator as I thought the picture started to get distorted. I also like the quick timer dial as it sets up my tapings extremely fast. It also tells you how much time is left on your tape which is really nice.
Now for the complete stunner...you can't see the clock when you're watching a tape. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT??? This is an absolute must for me since the vcr clock is usually the only clock in my living room. I thought that was extremely strange. Also, it takes about a good 3-5 seconds for a tape to eject.
All in all, it's a decent machine, definitely not something to go nuts about. Sony should make some better personal touches to their vcrs. Personally, I think Sony is resting on their laurels while Panasonic is pumping out the good stuff at a competitive price.
I must say that I took off a star for the overall rating because of the clock issue. That just bugs me a lot.

Similar Products Used:

Hitachi, JVC, Panasonic