There are Bells, But I Couldn't See Them Ringing.
Written: Apr 05 '02 (Updated Apr 05 '02)
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Pros: Offers a lot of features.
Cons: Fairly expensive, picture quality is average.
The Bottom Line: Rather pricey for a VCR, but has lots to offer. Picture quality is average. Now has been replaced by the W727 which may mean a price drop.
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| silvergt's Full Review: Toshiba W717 VHS VCR |
The VCR has a lot of the extras you expect from a S-VHS and other high-end VCR's. To put things in perspective, Let me tell about the reason I came to the decision in buying this VCR.
My daughter who is 14 months old decided that the VCR slot is a place to insert her gadgets into and move them around. She did this to my Mitsubishi VCR. I loved that thing, but not as much as I love her. :)
The next day I went to Fry's Electronics, on my mission to find a replacement. But like all good consumers, we should always check out the internet for a model that we enjoy prior to the point of high pressure sales tactics notorious at these electronics establishments.
What I found, I guess with the swarms of low priced DVD players, save for few models that feature the bare essentials, VCR's are slowly going the way of the dodos. Sony has dropped many of their mid ranged VCR's and left us with the $400 editing VCR's or the $90 low end VCRs which had the basic features. Mitsubishi also faired about the same and other manufacturers seem to follow suit.
While stomping around Fry's, I ran into the VCR section and found the W717. It had a Jog Dial for FF and REW on the unit and after looking at the remote it too offered Jog Dial and a Shuttle (variable speed). That was one of the extra features I look for in a VCR. .19 Micron heads, 4 Heads (these days anything less would be not even worth considering), HiFi Stereo (another "assumed from diagram" feature) and VCR Plus!, Commercial Skip, Auto Clock Set (a helpful convenience for those of you who leave your current VCR blinking 12:00, you know who you are.), apparently my cable system (AT&T Digital) was not compatible with this feature and was unable to use it but it does have a backup battery that will save the clock setting for 5 minutes, Auto head cleaning.
From the looks of things, this thing had everything I needed and wanted. I read more about the V3 technology that Toshiba uses in their VCR's which actually incorporates the amplifier into the heads themselves which supposedly kills virtually all video noise. Please note the "supposedly" in that statement.
My biggest gripe is that the picture quality when playing back a tape in which I recorded from my Old Mitsu (which was a great VCR!) it appeared fuzzy with much noise as if the tracking was off. I used the automatic tracking feature and the picture did get somewhat better but still not up to par with the Mitsu.
On pause and jog play back (variable speed forward or back) the picture did show a decent amount of video noise as it did also while FF or REW during playback. The Toshiba W717 seemed to fair better, when you played commercial tapes. A little better, but again the Mitsu was much better. This time the picture was grainy.
The sound is equal to or better than the Mitsu. I heard crystal clear and sharp separation of Stereo matrixed sounds through my Pro Logic Decoder.
The Auto Rewind feature was cool. It rewinded a rented tape in less then 1 minute which leaves me no excuse when returning my tapes to the video store. Now "be kind, rewind" is now an effortless process, simply watch the tape to the end and then wheeze through the rewind. Now only if this would return the tapes for me.
The menu was user friendly, but the font they used (looks very similar to the Macintosh default font) is a little harder to read, but still very legible. The psuedo GUI type menu navigation system makes the most "complicated" task (like stopping the blinking 12:00) very simple.
The remote control with it's myriad of buttons and the Jog/Shuttle controller is lightweight, with much of it's main buttons set to glow in the dark. All buttons are nicely labelled and easy to read and placement of the buttons are very intuitive.
Toshiba is not my first choice while shopping for a VCR, I honestly didn't know that they made them until now. I checked Sony and Mitsubishi almost automatic but neither of them had the right one I was looking for. I think if you are willing to pay over $100 for a VCR (I saw some basic models for $30 at Fry's!) and can excuse the picture quality (which is average, considering that I was using a scale in which is really a step above this brand/model) then you should buy this model (if you can find it, I only were able to physically see one in Fry's. But there are lots of places on the net that sells this model.)
UPDATE: This VCR has been replaced (I just bought mine three months ago and it just replaced the W714 then!) by the W727 which has a MSRP of $119 which will probably mean this one is below $100 in internet talk. The W727 has almost the same features with the exception that it offers SPQB. SPQB is Toshiba speak for Quasi SVHS playback. This is suppose to allow you to Play SVHS quality on a regular VHS. So this may cure the picture blues.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 119
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Epinions.com ID:
silvergt
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Reviews written: 11
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