RCA VR634hf 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR

Rating:
Summary: RCA's the best VCR I've ever had
Review: I've had three VCR's before this one.I don't want to mention the other VCR's brand name,but RCA has the best one.It's very simple to program,and when the time change takes place in the spring and fall,it does if for you on its own.I've never had my tape distroyed,and at 119 bucks,you can't get another VCR cheaper with all the extra's this one has.

Rating:
Summary: RCA's the best VCR I've ever had
Review: I've had three VCR's before this one.I don't want to mention the other VCR's brand name,but RCA has the best one.It's very simple to program,and when the time change takes place in the spring and fall,it does if for you on its own.I've never had my tape distroyed,and at 119 bucks,you can't get another VCR cheaper with all the extra's this one has.

Rating:
Summary: It may look simple to operate, but...
Review: This is my fifth VCR unit. I've had an old dependable 50 pound Magnavox back before remote control when VCRs were new, a JVC, a Sharp, another Magnavox which I still use, and now this RCA. This RCA unit is not nearly as easy to use as my Magnavox. Here are the biggest drawbacks with this VCR. First, you can forget about commercial advance. After recording, it spends several minutes trying to locate and mark all the commercials. The problem is, it never seems to differentiate any commercials anyway, and so it never skips the commercials during playback. You have to resort to manually fast-forwarding thru the commercial breaks using your remote control, which is a real nuisance considering that is a sales point of this VCR. I remember that it did skip one commercial during part of a commercial break one time, which probably accounts for less than 1/10th of 1 percent accurate commercial recognition! Maybe modern commercials don't make themselves easy to detect by these units. Whatever the problem, that feature needs some major work. Problem number two, there is a large bright green backlit button on the front panel -- the power on/off -- which stays lit all the time and is annoying if used in a bedroom, which mine is.

Third problem -- there is no TV/VCR button on the remote control, which is a problem if you just put in a tape and sat down to watch a movie, and you happen to be in the wrong mode. The unit is supposed to determine which mode it should be in automatically, but most of the time, I would say 75%, for whatever reason it does not determine that you need it to be in the opposite position, and you have to jump up and go push the button on the unit itself. Not too smart. Fourth problem. You know how on the newer smarter VCR units you never have to watch static or listen to white noise? Not so with this unit. When changing tapes, or changing between tape and TV, most of the time you will find yourself subjected to plenty of both. Fifth problem, and this is a real irritation with me: The remote control may look rich and full-featured and colorful with all its dazzling buttons some of which are nicely backlit when you press a button, but the buttons you need to use the most are at the bottom of the remote, not at the top where you need them, and where your fingers usually are when holding a remote control. So it takes two hands to operate. In fact most of the buttons on the top half of the remote are not needed during normal TV and VCR operation. Talk about ergonomically located. I guess that's a 90's idea that just hasn't hit the RCA labs yet. I would think that RCA would want to make a simpler, easier to use and maybe even fun remote control to keep their customers from getting so frustrated. I just don't understand their logic here, or lack thereof.

The one exceptional feature on this unit is the clock, which sets itself by downloading a clock signal from the first television station it encounters that includes a time signal in its broadcast. This means that you won't ever have to set the time again, or watch a blinking 12:00, or worry about the daylight savings time change. Nice, but hardly worth all the other trouble you'll have to put up with. It also has VCR+ which is a plus. That works nicely. Programming to record TV shows without using VCR+ is a cinch also. However I'd sure like to see some big improvements on the above mentioned problems with this product before I would consider buying another RCA product.

Rating:
Summary: It may look simple to operate, but...
Review: This is my fifth VCR unit. I've had an old dependable 50 pound Magnavox back before remote control when VCRs were new, a JVC, a Sharp, another Magnavox which I still use, and now this RCA. This RCA unit is not nearly as easy to use as my Magnavox. Here are the biggest drawbacks with this VCR. First, you can forget about commercial advance. After recording, it spends several minutes trying to locate and mark all the commercials. The problem is, it never seems to differentiate any commercials anyway, and so it never skips the commercials during playback. You have to resort to manually fast-forwarding thru the commercial breaks using your remote control, which is a real nuisance considering that is a sales point of this VCR. I remember that it did skip one commercial during part of a commercial break one time, which probably accounts for less than 1/10th of 1 percent accurate commercial recognition! Maybe modern commercials don't make themselves easy to detect by these units. Whatever the problem, that feature needs some major work. Problem number two, there is a large bright green backlit button on the front panel -- the power on/off -- which stays lit all the time and is annoying if used in a bedroom, which mine is.

Third problem -- there is no TV/VCR button on the remote control, which is a problem if you just put in a tape and sat down to watch a movie, and you happen to be in the wrong mode. The unit is supposed to determine which mode it should be in automatically, but most of the time, I would say 75%, for whatever reason it does not determine that you need it to be in the opposite position, and you have to jump up and go push the button on the unit itself. Not too smart. Fourth problem. You know how on the newer smarter VCR units you never have to watch static or listen to white noise? Not so with this unit. When changing tapes, or changing between tape and TV, most of the time you will find yourself subjected to plenty of both. Fifth problem, and this is a real irritation with me: The remote control may look rich and full-featured and colorful with all its dazzling buttons some of which are nicely backlit when you press a button, but the buttons you need to use the most are at the bottom of the remote, not at the top where you need them, and where your fingers usually are when holding a remote control. So it takes two hands to operate. In fact most of the buttons on the top half of the remote are not needed during normal TV and VCR operation. Talk about ergonomically located. I guess that's a 90's idea that just hasn't hit the RCA labs yet. I would think that RCA would want to make a simpler, easier to use and maybe even fun remote control to keep their customers from getting so frustrated. I just don't understand their logic here, or lack thereof.

The one exceptional feature on this unit is the clock, which sets itself by downloading a clock signal from the first television station it encounters that includes a time signal in its broadcast. This means that you won't ever have to set the time again, or watch a blinking 12:00, or worry about the daylight savings time change. Nice, but hardly worth all the other trouble you'll have to put up with. It also has VCR+ which is a plus. That works nicely. Programming to record TV shows without using VCR+ is a cinch also. However I'd sure like to see some big improvements on the above mentioned problems with this product before I would consider buying another RCA product.