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I have 3 of these VCRs in my house,and the first one was manufactured in 1998 and I just cleaned the heads for the 2nd time since I've owned it.I've never had any trouble with tapes in any of these units.The 2nd unit is in my room,and the 3rd unit came over from my dad's house(he switched to using a combo VCR/DVD player)I like the 2002 model that I'm using now because it's lighter and if I need to clean the heads,it's easier to because there are less screws to remove and the top is a one piece cover.The 1998 model has the sides and you have to unscrew 2 screws at the bottom.The remote that came with the 1998 model works with the 2002 model which is nice because the 2002 remote failed when my niece spilled liquid on it.
Returned it immediately and got another one that did exactly the same thing. By then it was too late to return to the store so it's sitting on a shelf as a paperweight. So one of three worked. I bought two of these. One has been ok but the second one would spit out any tape you fed it. On another subject, the remote is awful - so I use an old "Tower" remote I got at Goodwill.
The image quality and sound isn't very good at all and is of much lower quality than that of my equally priced Sony SLV-N51. I guess I must play a lot of rented tapes. BTW you might like to know that the most reliable VCR i've ever had was, err IS a Philco 2 head mono VCR. Just recently the image quality has been getting worse and worse.
Auto Head Cleaners are useless I think. Tapes recorded on another VCR in EP/SLP are nearly unviewable. The Sony has it's problems and it's the best VCR but I would easily say it's better than this one. Dirty HEADS you ask. Now I have a bunch of tapes that are bad. causing this line. Best picture quality i've seen in a VCR actually.
Turns out that when I opened up my VCR there was a bunch of gunk on a roller guide. Next best would be an old RCA Home Theater 4 HEAD Hi-FI VCR which they don't make anymore. Just cleaned the heads for the first time and it still plays perfectly fine. The remote is pretty decent and has well layed out buttons. What's strange about this VCR is that it now seems to pick up more of a fuzzy picture than when playing it in my other new VCRs. I find it strange that this would so easily happen after just 4 months of use. Purchased it in 1991 and it's STILL going.
To bad there isn't a VCR out there that wouldn't pick up this garbage so easily. About 10 of them that were played. Cleaned every part that can cause problems and still the same. I purchased this as a secondary VCR to my Sony SLV-N51.
I also have to mention that 2 months ago all my tapes started to get a faint horizontal blue line (with what looked like fuzzy "noise" in it) in them. During the first few months I had no problems at all. Cleaned them as usual (not with a TAPE CLEANER) and still the same. This is most likely the worst VCR I've owned.
I play certain tapes and the picture is all fuzzy. To bad the poor thing died in just under a year.
Quit working after 4.5 months--repair shop said that every Panasonic made in 2002 had a bad carriage assembly. This is junk. Had a 1990 Panasonic which lasted 12 years.
Eventually, it just stopped accepting them at all. Luckily the store took it back. The machine seemed fine for the first few weeks, then got harder and harder to get a tape in. After three VCRs in one year, I am considering the possibility of copying all my tapes to CD and just using DVD.
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