Panasonic PV-9661 - Great Quality and Reliability
Written: Sep 01 '00 (Updated May 06 '02)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Excellent picture and sound, reliability, ease of use and features
Cons: design might have been better, short battery backup time
The Bottom Line: I can only recommend this VCR. Although you can find cheaper models or fancier features somewhere else, this VCR has both ...
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| dkozin's Full Review: Panasonic PV-9661 VHS VCR |
Panasonic PV-9661 is a 4-head Hi-Fi VCR. 4 heads allow you to have great looking still and slow motion effects and 3 recording speeds (SP – standard play – 2 hours on T-120 tape, LP – long play – 4 hours on T-120 tape, SLP/EP – super long/extended play – 6 hours on T-120 tape).
Of course, when you use lower speeds to fit more on the tape, the image quality degrades. So I usually use it to tape Formula 1 racing, SLP allows me to fit 4 races on one T-120 tape.
This model is great. It is inexpensive and reliable - after 2 years of ownership, I have had no problems with it. The sound quality is wonderful (I use it with my Dolby Pro Logic "Home Theatre"). In fact, the sound quality of all modern Hi-Fi VCRs approaches CD quality with high dynamic range and low noise level.
Hi-Fi VCRs use two separate audio heads located on the same rotating drum where video heads are. So this VCR actually has 4 video heads, 2 audio Hi-Fi heads and one stationary mono audio head for non-stereo recorded tapes.
I have had Panasonic VCRs for quite some time (15 years to be exact) and they always were reliable - never broke even though I used them every day. The picture quality always was great also. Once again, this VCR is not an exception.
PV-9661 has automatic head cleaning, which acts every time the tape is inserted or ejected. The auto head cleaning is useful when watching a lot of borrowed or rented tapes. Although I read in “Consumer Reports” that this feature is useless, and that VCRs worked thousands of hours without it, it is still a nice-to-have.
And probably these “thousands of hours” were spent working on good tapes. Old or rented tapes have a trend to leave magnetic particles on video heads, creating video noise.
The pause is crisp and stable, there are V-Lock buttons on the remote that allow you to adjust the picture in pause/slow motion mode if it shakes. The rewind is fast - about two minutes (not as fast, though, as some newer models that can rewind the tape in about 1 minute).
PV-9661 is also easy to use and program. Although it does not have flying erase head and Jog/Shuttle control - it is easy to edit home movies just by using Pause button! The front Audio/Video inputs are also helpful when making copies of home videos from the camcorder.
PV-9661 has index search capability and also "timestamp" - it records the time, date and channel when you start recording. When you start playback of this segment, this information appears on the screen for about 3 seconds (if you want to, you can disable this feature).
You can also assign 4-letter names to the channels. For example, instead of channel 38 you will see “CNN”.
Programming is easy even without VCR+. I used VCR+ just once (when I found the show’s VCR+ id in TV Guide). Since I never read “TV Guide” and, thus, never know this VCR+ number, it is more convenient for me to use “regular” on-screen programming.
There are two modes of index search. One allows you specify the number of index "marks" to skip (for example you can skip to the beginning of the previous recording by pressing "Index", "2", "Rewind").
If you performed timer recording, you can search for the beginning of the program you recorded using the menu. You choose the program to search for and the VCR will rewind (or FF) to the beginning of that program.
Panasonic VCRs have very high ratings for both reliability and picture quality, according to "Consumer Reports" magazine. Reliability wise they hold top position among other brands. I mean first place – Panasonic and Quasar brands of M a t s u s h i t a Electric hold two top spots in ”Consumer Reports” Magazine reliability survey (Consumer Reports Buying Guide 2000, page 37).
The looks could be better though and the battery backup time should be extended. But these are the only (and minor) drawbacks of this model.
The remote control is easy to use and has good button layout, especially directional buttons for menu navigation. The remote does not have to be pointed directly to the VCR, it even works if you point it the opposite direction (I guess my walls reflect the infrared signals)!
The remote also controls different brands of TVs, cable boxes and satellite boxes, but with limited functionality. My Panasonic 27G3 TV’s menu cannot be called from the VCR’s remote.
The front panel does not have buttons to control menus or program VCR. It has power, channel up, channel down, stop/eject, play, ff, rew, rec, tv/vcr buttons and 3 RCA jacks – composite video in, audio left and audio right channels.
Back panel has 6 RCA jacks – video in and out, audio L in and out, audio R in and out. It also has RF/cable in and out, power cord (of course) and a switch that allows you to choose channel 3 or 4 if you were to use the RF out to send VCR’s signal to TV.
There are two ways to connect the VCR to TV: RF (you connect it to your TV’s RF input and select channel 3 or 4 on the TV) and composite video (Video RCA jack, you connect it to your TV’s composite video input and push tv/vcr button on TV). The latter provides better image quality and is easier to use.
The setup is almost completely automatic – the VCR scans for available channels and determines the current time and date automatically. After power outages, it also automatically sets the date and time. Very nice feature.
I can only recommend this VCR. Although you can find cheaper models or fancier features somewhere else, this VCR has both picture quality and reliability that will be hard to find in other brands.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
dkozin
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 in Electronics |
 - Top 10 |
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Location: California
Reviews written: 838
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About Me:
I love to push buttons on electronic (audio and video) equipment. It makes me happy.
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