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Rating: 
Summary: Mixed Blessing
Review: Although the JVC plays really well -- indeed, it has resurrected many tapes from my library that are nearly unplayable on other VCRs -- it has some serious shortcomings. For one, I'm having trouble playing retail tapes -- some tapes you rent or buy to watch a movie just won't play on this VCR. The VCR makes a winding down sound and spits it out. And just try to dub anything with it! You can't use the jog/shuttle to advance/reverse frames while it is in Record Pause. It does not pause immediately. It does not begin recording immediately from Record Pause. In short: a great VCR to play back tapes you've made from broadcasts, but otherwise: watch out!
Rating: 
Summary: Good, but not.
Review: I bought this VCR brand new from Circuit City for $299. The features are plentiful and the ease of setup is there. However, I noticed this model likes to spit the tape back out at me, and will not properly turn off, after putting a tape in. There's a lot of "noise" when recording in any mode other than SVHS/SP, ie, EP. I have had this VCR for no more than 3 months and it will not play tapes anymore. I would suggest to anyone purchasing a VCR to not buy this one. Although it works great for the first month, it will not work properly after that.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not.
Review: I bought this VCR brand new from Circuit City for $299. The features are plentiful and the ease of setup is there. However, I noticed this model likes to spit the tape back out at me, and will not properly turn off, after putting a tape in. There's a lot of "noise" when recording in any mode other than SVHS/SP, ie, EP. I have had this VCR for no more than 3 months and it will not play tapes anymore. I would suggest to anyone purchasing a VCR to not buy this one. Although it works great for the first month, it will not work properly after that.
Rating: 
Summary: Fine picture quality; great value
Review: I've owned the JVC HRS4600U S-VHS-HiFi VCR for 7 months now. I'm very happy with it overall. It has very high picture and sound quality for its price in each speed and mode. S-VHS, of course, is quite good if your TV or monitor has an S-video connector and if you can find and are willing to pay the premium price for blank S-VHS videotapes. But almost as good as S-VHS is the JVC's S-VHS-ET mode, which uses *standard* VHS tapes to make visibly higher resolution videos than are recorded in standard VHS. This is a very nice feature if you have a high-quality TV or video monitor and a strong, clean video signal to record. The only caveat is that S-VHS or S-VHS-ET recorded videotapes have to be played on other VCRs so equipped, a problem only if one might be playing videotapes made in either of these modes in other VCRs that don't have S-VHS or S-VHS-ET. The picture quality of this VCR on tapes recorded on it in standard VHS, which of course play in any VHS VCR, is a bit better than I'm used to in either speed from the similarly priced Sony VHS VCR I owned previously. The remote is very well laid out. I don't miss a jog shuttle wheel, on either remote or deck; I prefer button controls to jog shuttle wheels, anyway. I have *not* had any problem as another user reported here playing commercially prerecorded videos, and I use this VCR a lot for that. This same reviewer complained that when editing videotape from a camcorder, there is a delay in this VCR coming off pause into record mode. In my experience, this delay is between one-half a second and one second, normal and consistent enough that one can learn to compensate for it. (My understanding is that this delay is a function generally of the VHS design of tape transport, unlike the faster-responding-off-record-pause Beta VCRs. My camcorder-tape-editing Sony VHS VCR did the same thing.) I've also never had a problem loading a videocassette, or with jitter in pause, as another reviewer here reported. I've not had any problems requiring service at all. My nits to pick: programming this VCR to record a tape at a later time could be more intuitive (so what else is new?); once you figure it out and practice it a few times, though, it's easy and quick enough. I also miss the (hardly ever seen, anymore) option of being able to manually set uncompressed sound levels on videotape, a pitfall when recording music or dialogue with a wide dynamic range. And this VCR and its remote will not operate the digital-cable-TV decoder (General Instruments Starfone) used here for AT&T digital cable, so this cable box has to be left on with one correct channel, manually set, when I program this VCR to record cable TV; the manual says this VCR operates other (older?) GI cable boxes. But these are minor nits. I would buy this VCR again.
Rating:
Summary: Fine picture quality; great value
Review: I've owned the JVC HRS4600U S-VHS-HiFi VCR for 7 months now. I'm very happy with it overall. It has very high picture and sound quality for its price in each speed and mode. S-VHS, of course, is quite good if your TV or monitor has an S-video connector and if you can find and are willing to pay the premium price for blank S-VHS videotapes. But almost as good as S-VHS is the JVC's S-VHS-ET mode, which uses *standard* VHS tapes to make visibly higher resolution videos than are recorded in standard VHS. This is a very nice feature if you have a high-quality TV or video monitor and a strong, clean video signal to record. The only caveat is that S-VHS or S-VHS-ET recorded videotapes have to be played on other VCRs so equipped, a problem only if one might be playing videotapes made in either of these modes in other VCRs that don't have S-VHS or S-VHS-ET. The picture quality of this VCR on tapes recorded on it in standard VHS, which of course play in any VHS VCR, is a bit better than I'm used to in either speed from the similarly priced Sony VHS VCR I owned previously. The remote is very well laid out. I don't miss a jog shuttle wheel, on either remote or deck; I prefer button controls to jog shuttle wheels, anyway. I have *not* had any problem as another user reported here playing commercially prerecorded videos, and I use this VCR a lot for that. This same reviewer complained that when editing videotape from a camcorder, there is a delay in this VCR coming off pause into record mode. In my experience, this delay is between one-half a second and one second, normal and consistent enough that one can learn to compensate for it. (My understanding is that this delay is a function generally of the VHS design of tape transport, unlike the faster-responding-off-record-pause Beta VCRs. My camcorder-tape-editing Sony VHS VCR did the same thing.) I've also never had a problem loading a videocassette, or with jitter in pause, as another reviewer here reported. I've not had any problems requiring service at all. My nits to pick: programming this VCR to record a tape at a later time could be more intuitive (so what else is new?); once you figure it out and practice it a few times, though, it's easy and quick enough. I also miss the (hardly ever seen, anymore) option of being able to manually set uncompressed sound levels on videotape, a pitfall when recording music or dialogue with a wide dynamic range. And this VCR and its remote will not operate the digital-cable-TV decoder (General Instruments Starfone) used here for AT&T digital cable, so this cable box has to be left on with one correct channel, manually set, when I program this VCR to record cable TV; the manual says this VCR operates other (older?) GI cable boxes. But these are minor nits. I would buy this VCR again.
Rating:
Summary: Mixed Blessing
Review: This is my first S-VHS VCR and I am very satisfied. The options alone are worth the price, let alone the S-VHS-ET ability. For those of you new to S-VHS, it's a technology that reproduces picture quality 60% better than the standard 19micron recording heads in your typical VCR. Unlike S-VHS players of the past, this S-VHS-ET unit records S-VHS resolution on standard VHS tapes. There's no need for those expensive and impossible to find S-VHS tapes. However low quality tapes will give you low quality recordings and that is especially noticeable on this VCR since it records at a very high resolution. I have a lesser model S3600U which does not have some of the features of this particular model. Namely the flying erase heads and audio dubbing capabilities as well as a front mounted S-Video connectors. If you have a JVC camcorder, this VCR contains the 'compulink' capabilities. It also has S-Video out and in which dramatically improves the picture quality on your TV set. The VCR also has active video calibration which automatically adjusts the tracking and other technical features to give you better playback and recording quality. This unit also has automatic time/date setting which sets the VCR's clock and date automatically using a local PBS channel. Very handy if you also want to set your watch to the exact time. The only gripes I have about this VCR is that I've been having problems with it feeding the tapes. For some reason the tapes tend to get hung up when loading down into the VCR. The VCR does eject the tape so it's not a major problem, but it may take a few tries before the VCR excepts the tape. I also wonder if I'm causing damage to the VCR or my tapes every time it gets hung up. Another issue is it's pausing ability. For such a hi-tech VCR you'd expect the pause image would be very good. But that's not the case. The top of the screen is always blurry and jittery, just like one of those old 2-head VCRs. And S-VHS recorded tapes cannot be played on traditional VCRs so you must be aware that once you record anything in S-VHS, you can only play it back on an S-VHS capable VCR. However, S-VHS can be deactivated and it will record like a typical 19micron head VCR. Since VHS does not have a bright future in this digital age, this VCR maybe more than you need. This unit is great for those of you who need it for editing purposes; want S-video connectors; are very neurotic about sound and picture quality of your recordings; or just want an excellent playback and recording VCR. All in all, a wonderful machine although the technology does not show promise in this digital age. So hang onto this machine if you record anything in S-VHS.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent Value for S-VHS
Review: This is my first S-VHS VCR and I am very satisfied. The options alone are worth the price, let alone the S-VHS-ET ability. For those of you new to S-VHS, it's a technology that reproduces picture quality 60% better than the standard 19micron recording heads in your typical VCR. Unlike S-VHS players of the past, this S-VHS-ET unit records S-VHS resolution on standard VHS tapes. There's no need for those expensive and impossible to find S-VHS tapes. However low quality tapes will give you low quality recordings and that is especially noticeable on this VCR since it records at a very high resolution. I have a lesser model S3600U which does not have some of the features of this particular model. Namely the flying erase heads and audio dubbing capabilities as well as a front mounted S-Video connectors. If you have a JVC camcorder, this VCR contains the 'compulink' capabilities. It also has S-Video out and in which dramatically improves the picture quality on your TV set. The VCR also has active video calibration which automatically adjusts the tracking and other technical features to give you better playback and recording quality. This unit also has automatic time/date setting which sets the VCR's clock and date automatically using a local PBS channel. Very handy if you also want to set your watch to the exact time. The only gripes I have about this VCR is that I've been having problems with it feeding the tapes. For some reason the tapes tend to get hung up when loading down into the VCR. The VCR does eject the tape so it's not a major problem, but it may take a few tries before the VCR excepts the tape. I also wonder if I'm causing damage to the VCR or my tapes every time it gets hung up. Another issue is it's pausing ability. For such a hi-tech VCR you'd expect the pause image would be very good. But that's not the case. The top of the screen is always blurry and jittery, just like one of those old 2-head VCRs. And S-VHS recorded tapes cannot be played on traditional VCRs so you must be aware that once you record anything in S-VHS, you can only play it back on an S-VHS capable VCR. However, S-VHS can be deactivated and it will record like a typical 19micron head VCR. Since VHS does not have a bright future in this digital age, this VCR maybe more than you need. This unit is great for those of you who need it for editing purposes; want S-video connectors; are very neurotic about sound and picture quality of your recordings; or just want an excellent playback and recording VCR. All in all, a wonderful machine although the technology does not show promise in this digital age. So hang onto this machine if you record anything in S-VHS.
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