Panasonic PV-V4611 4-Head Hi-Fi Stereo VCR

Works great

we had a lot of old VCR tapes that we couldn't play because our old VCR player died. This company was a real life saver because now my grandson can watch all the Disney favorites

My old generic brand VCR recently bit the dust just after the 1-year warranty expired. I decided to invest a little more money into a name brand unit this time and I've always heard that Panasonic makes pretty good VCRs. I have not had any trouble with this unit after 3 weeks of heavy usage. The picture and sound are of good quality on recorded material. I was not able to set up the auto-clock feature, perhaps because my local PBS station is junk anyway. In any case, what's so hard about setting the clock yourself anyway? The only complaints I have is the fact that the front of the unit seems a little weak as the plastic feels somewhat cheap, especially the buttons, although I hardly use them as I use the remote more often. Another complaint is the remote. There are far too many small buttons and I often have a hard time to figure out which one to press at night, even if it is lighted, this can be remedied with a good third-party universal remote. Overall I am so far satisfied with my purchase, assuming it lasts more than the 13 months that my last generic VCR lasted.

I've now owned this VCR for a number of months & am very impressesd. I bought it... new. it has great features, is easy to understand, and the manual's pretty good. others' reviews say it is light, which it is, but who cares - it just sits on a shelf. unless you're driving your tv cart down hills, the light case shouldn't make a difference. as light criticisms, I *do* wish the remote had a slightly different button orientation - 'pause' *is* in a weird place. I also wish Commercial Skip functioned a little differently - you basically fast-forward a minute at a time, rather than some kind of sensor. HOWEVER, having that feature at all is great, as is 'tape placement', end-of-program-search, VCR Plus features, and a self-setting clock. For the price, i think it's an amazing find...

[Are you wanting to buy this?}...don't bother. I had the Mod 4021-- TWO of them which Amazon.com graciously accepted back. They both had lines and screen "noise" and poor sound. So I decided the 4611 would be the answer to the problem. WRONG! Same old same old. It records fine: that tape plays back on ANOTHER VCR fine. But the playback on this machine, whether taped there, or at another source, is bad bad bad. Tracking clears it for a few minutes, then it goes bad again. I tried diff. brand tapes, two different TV's. Nothing worked, so I returned it. Don't buy it, unless you can easily return it to your merchant!

I am satisfied with the quality, but disappointed with the features, specifically VCR+. I had been using a Panasonic PV-4564 for a long long time and I liked it a lot. It finally got a tape stuck in it (as has every VCR I have ever owned at some point, oh well) and I figured with the prices so low on this 4611, I would just buy a new one instead of fixing the old. The most important feature to me is the VCR+ feature, particularly how my old VCR could change the channel on my cable box. When I did my research, I ruled out all VCRs without VCR+. When I got this PV-4611, I was extremely surprised to realize that Panasonic has apparently silently done away with the external control feature! (History reminder; the *original* VCR+ systems from the 80's were tiny little remotes that sat on top of your TV and sent out the right infared codes to control your VCR and your cable boxes. And they also worked off of those crazy numbers in the TV guide, of couse. Apparantly, now VCR+ only means ONE of those things.) I cannot find information on Panasonic's web site about my old VCR, nor can I find any info on whether they even have any current models with the feature I want. Just to be clear: the problem is that I have to set my cable box to the right channel in advance of my timed recordings. And I cannot record shows from two different channels without manually changing the channel at the right time. Of course, I could do away with my cable box, but then I could not record from scrambled channels like HBO. Grumble. The actual VCR I received is working fine and the quality seems good. I'm going to keep it (but only because the price is so low), but I'm sure irritated with Panasonic. p.s. Does anyone know what "VCR+ Silver" really means?

OK

I would have given this no stars, but it did work when it first came. Set-up was ok, it is a bit loud and you can not record and watch a different channel at the same time. ( kinda what VCRs are for ) It was grainy when you record, and the sound was ok. Now like I said this might just be the unit I got, but I would not buy this again. I am going to spend the extra money and buy something better.