RCA VR637HF VHS VCR

Pros: Great looking and easy to use!!
Cons: None

I have had this VCR for over a year now, and it works great! The past 2 years, I went through 5 VCRs. Every single one I got was horrible--some started working bad before the 30 days for returns was up, so I was able to take them back. But, others...

Pros: price
Cons: just about everything you want it to do

I have owned this VCR for approx. 4 yrs. I wasn't all that impressed with the functions and overall cheap feel from the day it was purchased. The clock always looses time and each time you want to record you had better check setup (video input).
Now the video head has died. Straight to the trash with this one. I have and still do own RCA products, but this one is poor.

Pros: It is a VCR, which I wanted.
Cons: Just about everything else.

When I first got this VCR, I was impressed with how much clearer the picture was compared to my old VCR, but unimpressed in its functionality. As my old VCR was 5 years old, and used about 10 hours per week, I put the difference up to age & use. I've now had this VCR 6 months, it's picture quality has degraded, and it can no longer track properly. Stopping a recording that has started is a problem, and the remote works poorly even with new batteries.

Pros: Good Clear Picture and Sound
Cons: Clock won't work and shut off timer

Has all the other reviews say that theres are breaking well mine works but the clock well... i can't get it even to work.. the pause is slow and stuff but the thing i hate the most is the timer.. after so long the VCR shuts off.. i hate that because i will be using my PS2 and it will shut off.. i don't know if that is something i can change or not because i just got the VCR but...

Pros: Low cost
Cons: Early mechanical failure despite careful treatment.

I disagree with the earlier review about the automatic clock setting - it properly sets to the timezone, daylight savings, and timecode transmitter by one of your local stations. If any of the above settings (including the information transmitted by your TV time code carrier), you'll get that as a result.

The picture quality is OK. Recording OK. Ease of programming the recorder is OK. Memory while unplugged surprisingly good.

It's slow to "change mode" when playing. Takes a long time to pause, fast playback or reverse playback, or simply to start playing. That's annoying, but tolerable given the cost.

What's not tolerable is the durability. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, but this VCR lasted about 16 months with never more than 2 hours a day use.

About a month ago, it crunched a library tape. I've observed the mechanism and lubed a couple sliders that were showing wear. It now fails on every tape inserted with contact switches not recognizing the "record" tab on the cassette, the "tape in place" sensor suggesting the tape is not properly strung, and whole mechanism just messed up.

Pros: price, good, clear recordings.
Cons: SPECIAL FEATURES DO NOT WORK!!

I've only had this for about a month, so I cannot speak to durability & all, but the ONE reason I chose this model over others was the showsaver feature. This, along with the auto clock set, is supposed to reset time & programed recordings in the event of a power outage. I have not yet had occasion to need this feature, but for some reason, the auto clock set just suddenly reset itself, an hour earlier than the actual time & completely messed up my timer programming. So I'm writing this just to warn people, if they are looking at this model specifically for that feature, it does not work.