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This is my second Toshiba 808 and it is just as bad as the first which was replaced. I don't understand how some reviewers claim to get a great picture on this unit...it is HORRIBLE!
The first one which I returned, had picture distortion; whereby it would overscan the picture and "bloom". I returned it..This second one was somewhat better...yet the picture still looked kind of washed out...resolution; detail...poor..
I thought perhaps it was my setup and tried a variety of cables, inputs..you name it.
I called Toshiba about this after having it a few months and they attributed to perhaps hookup or that I send it in for repair. Being disgusted..I thought I would "live" with it..and hopefully I would eventually find whatever was causing the problems. I did'nt want the hassle of a having it repaired; which in many cases has at times is kind of risky.
I have had the 808 for roughly 6 months..and it grew steadily worse...resolution looking worse..color washed out..The DNR reduction...yeah..it cleans up the noise somewhat but then cuts down even more on whatever resolution you have..This is a sorry excuse for a Super VHS vcr. My old Mitsubishi...and even an older GE made by Samsung...have better color; resolution than this piece of junk!
Now I have to negotiate with Toshiba...and hope I can some type of satisfaction.These things are made in China. Some of you perhaps were lucky enough to not get a defective unit...but seeing this is the second one which is goofed up...I would advise anyone to think twice about getting this model. This is my first Toshiba vcr. I DO NOT intend to even get another Toshiba vcr.
BTW...this might be of interest. Before I got the 808...I purchased a Mitsubishi 795, since I have always found Mitsubishi to be pretty sold performers. Well, again..I was disappointed, since the picture, once more, was lacking..and worse of all..I could not get a steady or still picture, no matter how hard I tried. I returned it...and lost a load of money, dealing with Crazy Eddie and their "games"...charging for restocking fees, etc.
My point in rambling here is to advise that both the Mitsubishi and the Toshibas seem to be made by the same manufacturer. From looking at the both of them...this is the impression I got..
Anyway, sorry to vent here but I do so to WARN
anyone buying the Toshiba 808 to be very, very wary. You might end up as I did. This is the WORST vcr I have ever used, I believe and I have worked with a number of them.
The other reviewers who have posted bad reviews here, appear to have had the same types of experiences and problems I had. BEWARE!

Similar Products Used:

Standard VHS Mitsubishi and GE JVC, others

Speedy FF and Rewind. Better than average picture on extended recording speed.

Badly written manual. Poorly designed remote. Unconventional time shifting control.

Overall, this is a nice machine for the money. It replaced a Sony which had a terrible picture (sorry, don't remember the model number), and cost $100 more than the W808. I am using it with a 5 year old 35" Mitsubishi TV.

PLUSES:
Good picture and color on older tapes.
Speedy FF and Rewind.

MINUSES:
The manual is terrible. It confuses more than helps in some cases. Lack of an index doesn't help.
The remote control feels cheap. Battery/extended command compartment seems likely to be the first potential casualty on the system.
Some controls are a little unconventional. For example, when time shifting, after programming the VCR, you have to press the Timer and Rec buttons simultaneously. This turns the VCR off. To power the machine up again, you must again press the Timer and Rec buttons, then press the Power button. A better design would have been for the Power button to switch the unit on without having to turn off the Timer control.
Recorded picture on my unit tends to have a heavy greenish cast, no matter what speed I record at. However this may or may not entirely be the fault of the unit. I noticed a similar condition, but to a much lesser extent, on my Sony VCR. The condition doesn't seem to exist on pre-recorded tapes, or when watching cable through the unit.
Auto setup was ridiculously slow. It took the unit about a half hour to scan 125 cable channels. If the power goes out, you have to repeat the entire auto setup process.

NOTES:
Toshiba needs to improve its quality control. The first unit I recieved had a bad tracking problem. I could get audio with a grossly distorted picture, or video with totally distorted sound. A discussion with my local Toshiba service center technician convinced me to return the unit rather than have it repaired under warranty. The replacement unit seems to operate properly. I used to have two Toshiba DX7 units, both of which had timer unit problems right out of the box, and which were never fixed. Quality control may be Toshiba's weak spot.

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba DX7, Hitachi, Sony.

Recorded picture, flying erase heads, setup

The VCR/TV button should be on the VCR as well as the remote and on the remote it should not be hidden under the cover plate but easily accessed. Remote keys not laid out in intuitive fashion.

Have you ever watched a movie and when its all over said to yourself "You know if they would have changed one or two little things it would be an acadamy award candidate."?

That's the W808.

It is great especially for its price range. But with a few changes it would be exceptional. All the important stuff that you have a vcr for is outstanding. I use it for editing and the V3, preamp, flying erase heads, really do a great job. The SVHS/SVHS ET/great picture with EP, all terrific.

But little things like the no VCR/TV button on the vcr, not being able to cycle through to L1 and L2 via channel selector and having to use the remote for line in, not having line in selector under the flip down panel, little stuff like that, keep this deck from being truly outstanding. Sometimes I wonder about decision making processes regarding layout design.

Having said that, I would not take it back and I DO recommend it. The latest x800 series from JVC can be had for a similar price point. But the x800 series sucks. JVC really goofed. The Toshiba blows away even the more expensive x800 series VCR's.

DNR makes a difference on really old tapes. Not so noticable on new tapes or just recorded tapes.

I've done a couple of test tapes, recorded on the Toshiba, played on other decks. Colors are outstanding, depth is very nice, no fading, colors stay solid, no artifacts, etc.

It is worth every bit of the 215 I paid for it. Maybe even a little bit more.

I would change two things in the setup. 1. Should be easier to delete a channel you don't want memorized. 2. I live in AZ and we don't do day light savings. The settings for this are confusing and the manual doesn't really explain how to set this up. The "in" and "out" for summer settings are goofy.

TV tuner is crisp and pictures look great.

The unit itself looks very nice. The colors are nice, layout is nice and simple, jog shuttle not too small, not too big. Its heavy enough that it stays put and doesn't slide when putting in a tape. Putting in a tape is very quiet and it accepts the tape quickly. And man, rewind is FAST.

So value, 5 stars. Overall rating 4 due to the "little" things that need to be updated on the next series.

Similar Products Used:

JVC 4600, 7500

S-VHS

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Outstanding video reproduction from satelite dish.
This is my main concern.

Similar Products Used:

Panasonic

clear picture even on cheap, slow recorded tapes.

images less colorful and blacks not as intense as on my live direct tv system through sony tivo

i have comparexd the toshiba w808 with my sony slv 1000 svhs vcr and find the toshiba picture much more satisfying. i am watching the image on a mitsubishi ws 65907, a beautiful 65 inch television and at that size, all imperfections are obvious. so why do i favor this $220 toshiba model over the $1,000 plus sony model? here's why--the toshiba picture is much more clear. although the colors on the sony picture are more intense, and the black footage darker, there is a lot of dot crawl and other motion artifacts on tapes made at the ep setting on the sony svhs vcr. toshiba cleans all that up with its digital noise reduction system, six heads, and svhs et recording mechanism. sony's vcr was built in 1994, and they haven't made any consumer model svhs vcrs since--i've been looking for one for a long time. the difference in color saturation is noticeable, but i find the toshiba picture very enjoyable. i am mindful of the negative review below which suggested the picture looked washed out. well, comparatively speaking, it is, sort of. but not always. when i watched a tape recorded in black and white on both machines, the shadowy areas on the sony were much darker whereas on the toshiba, they were almost brownish. however, when i wathed tina turner live on cbs, the colors on the toshiba appeared more intense and lively. although the toshiba picture dowes not show as much color detail, the difference is not that significant. what you do get, though, is a cleaner picture, smooth, that looks very close to the original broadcast than on my sony machine. i get a headache watching my sony vcr, or especially the mitsubishi, sonce both show dot crawl and other movement because of the tape moving slowly across the video heads. toshib's mechanism simply wipes those artifacts away and yields a beautiful, colorful picture.
the svhs et feature does work and improves the picture quality. the tapes are clearer and less fuzzy when recorded that way.
the negative comments below and on deja.com are not well founded i feel. this machine is worth what they are charging for it and more. i feel it will satisfy me until the prices on recordable dvd reach our solar system. i agree with others who feel that technology has improved vhs recirding dramatically and toshiba has its hand on the pulse of the times.

Similar Products Used:

zenith svhs, sony slv 1000 svhs vcr, mitsubishi svhs vcr

picture quality is execellent-better than panasonic and jvc,except for the ag-1980, but that's over 1k!

the bad reviews below-this player should have a 4+ rating

this player is excellent, it doesn't look like vhs,it looks like soft laserdisc, and that's on a good-standard vhs tape! this deck will clean up all those budget ep adult tapes you own, plus and of the old horror prerecords from 1981-the best deck i've ever own, and it rewinds faster than hell-don't like to those reviews below that are bad.
this player works fanasticly-the dnr turns on and off with the touch of a button-
this player is next to only a high priced industrial svhs deck-in the next 5 years when you transferring you tapes to digital vcd/dvd/ whatever-this will bethe one to you,
buy this
it's simply great-but don't dropkick it like the people below-that's hard on any vcr. btw i bought a demo for 250

Similar Products Used:

panasonic 4head, jvc svhs, sony, quesar, samsung, orion, emerson, just about every brand since 1985

none! My deck slipped through quality control.
I like the fast rewind/forward feature.

red and green lines during playback, DNRPRO on by default??
I pressed the DNR button on my remote control, it failed to work. I went through the manual 3-4 times.

I special ordered this deck from the Good Guys. My deck is currently in their repair shop. I will give them a chance to fix my deck, most of the reviews pertaining to this deck tends to be positive, Toshiba needs to do something about its quality control!! the good news? my Toshiba cdrom drive works great

Similar Products Used:

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This is clearly one of the best vcr`s out there at any price!! I had an older vcr in the house go down,so I took my Panasonic PVS-7670 unit I had out of my home theater set-up and brought it downstairs to be used in place of the old one,thus giving me a good excuse to upgrade.Ive always been very happy with the panasonic,but this was a perfect opportunity to get a higher end unit.After reading reviews and doing as much research as I could,it came down to the Toshiba and the 4820 panasonic.I went with the toshiba because of the digital noise reduction feature. I was not disappointed!! I did not think a vcr was capable of a picture this good,and I switched to dvd`s two years ago.owning over 300 dvd`s already.I may have to break out some of the old vsh tapes to watch again. I dont use vcr`s to much anymore with the switch to dvd,but I still watch an occasional movie and tape baseball and football games on them,so are still a neccesity for me, and with this Toshiba,it brings back the enjoyment again. This is one hell of a vcr.Yes, you can still fing good cheaper ones,but I did have to have a vcr with s-video,and other than the sony out there for almost a grand (are they nuts!!) this is probably the next best thing!!

Flying erase heads, video head tolerance.

Everything else! Poor picture, video receiver, rewinder, DNR, EVERYTHING.

This unit was such a diappointment. The previous year I had purchased the standard Toshiba M-785 VCR. I was absolutely amazed at the picture quality when using the Digital Noise Reduction. It made tapes, old and new, recorded on any speed look excellent. When I saw an upcoming model, the w-808, with the addition of SVHS and flying erase heads, I knew I must have it. Immediately upon it's release I bought it. Immediately upon using it I was severely disappointed. The SVHS (ET) picture is very grainy, and the edges are not stable. Most of the color washes out. The DNR on this unit is SO severe that it causes ghost images to trail behind moving objects, especially in scenes with dark backgrounds. The standard VHS picture is far less quality than my M-785. There is a constant flickering in dark scenes, but this is only on the regular VHS picture. The next big disappointment was the video receivers, both for the line in jacks as well as the RF. This unit seems to use some sort of cheap digital receiver which seems to freeze unmoving backround aspects of a received picture, thus causing an obvious digitizing. This is especially noticeable on shadows or scenes with smoke or fog. I could not watch DVD's through it since every image that gradually faded from light to dark was not a smooth transition, but rather blatant digital bands going from light to dark. This receiver also caused interferance when attempting to view or record older tapes that may be a couple generations removed from the original. Just awful. The rewinder is so ridiculously fast that there is no chance of zooming to a particular time on the tape without overshooting it time and time again. I was curious if all Toshiba VCR's have dropped in quality or if these complaints were isolated only to this unit. A person I know decided to purchase the same years model of last years M-785, which is the w-708. When the unit arrived I hooked it up on my TV and gave it some tests. The w-708 was just as excellent as my beloved M-785. The picture quality was the same, the video receiver was the same. The rewinder was still way too fast but that's a minor gripe. I was also very pleased with the SVHS quasi playback picture of the w-708, which was better than my M-785. I decided to purchase a w-708 for myself, and I love it. All I use my crummy w-808 for is constructing tapes, using the flying erase heads and recording in SVHS, and playing the tapes back on my w-708 machine, which seems to offer a better picture in quasi playback than the w-808 offers in real SVHS playback! My obvious assumption is that the w-808 is manufactured by a different company than the w-708, but using a highly inferior design. Had the w-808 just been the w-708 with the addition of flying erase heads and SVHS it would have been the perfect machine. What a disappointment. The only other plus I will give this machine, as with any of the Toshiba VCR's I have used in the past couple years, is the video head tolerance. There are many high priced machines in which the video heads clog, causing a brief white out, from the smallest little imperfection on a tape. This always drove me nuts. The Toshiba machines rarely have such dropouts, even on old battered and worn tapes. Since this plus is also on the w-708 I would still suggest that model over this one any day.

Similar Products Used:

Toshiba M-785

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poor picture

I own a Toshiba M752 regular VHS and I regard it as having the best picture VHS has to offer. When I bought the W808 SVHS-ET I thought I'd get similar picture quality in SVS.
Not so,it has the worst picture I've ever seen in SVHS.
Washed out color,poor detail,poor sharpness,color that looks B&W in some scenes. The W808 has a DNR circuit which when turned on makes the picture even worse. My Sharp has DNR and it improve the picture when engaged. To my surprise I find that Toshiba does not have any factory service centers,you must take it to your local authorized service center. I find it amazing that Toshiba has no factory service,JVC,Sony,and even Philips have factory service.

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JVC HR-S9500U ,Sharp VCS101,JVC HR-S4500U,Philips VRA999