Toshiba W717 Hi-Fi VCR

Rating:
Summary: Loaded but limited
Review: The Toshiba W717 Hi-Fi Stereo VCR has many great features and looks great in the stereo cabinet. It's picture quality when playing movies is okay but not as nice as the Fisher VCR I previously had. Most of the features found on the W717 are common to almost all VCR's these days. There are some features the Toshiba does not have that many. The user's manual is very difficult to read. The manual is not very helpful in the actual use of the VCR and has very limited instruction. The VCR itself is difficult to use for the average person even without many of the extra "niceities" that other VCR's offer. The connections to your CATV box, TV, or theater sound system are fairly straight forward but here again the manual doesn't help much. The Toshiba W717 does not record in EP, SQPB, or S-VHS modes but will play S-VHS and EP programs. If you want one remote to control your cable box, VCR, and TV, you have to have the cable box sitting directly on top of this VCR or it won't work. Hopefully your cable box is narrower than the VCR or you'll cover the sensor window on the VCR and the remote CATV box access still won't work. Storing channels and associating them with your current CATV line-up is a fairly easy task but is not handled very well in the manual. Overall, for what you get and the difficulties I had getting it set up, it's a pricy machine. Even though I like the Toshiba now, if I had to do it over again, if you want a simple to use, low budget VCR for basically just playing movies at home without all the sophisticated "program for the future" recording stuff.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent Picture Playback from Toshiba W717 VCR
Review: The Toshiba W717 is one of the better VCRs on the market. It plays back tapes with a very good image and has one of the best pictures around. This unit has a 4-head 19-micron video system in Hi-Fi for very good stereo sound. That's an excellent feature that gives you great versatility. It also has an automatic head cleaner and icon-based on-screen programming. Pre-recorded tapes play back with an excellent picture too. How good a picture looks is what it is all about.