Technical advances for extremely
good price!State of the Art!

Noisy motor at tape load point.
(Has 6 heads...noisy as is similar pro-machines.
Heavy duty motors.

This is an excellent machine...by any
standards. For the money it is a steal.

Its picture is minus a lot of noise that
creeps in on a lot of other SVHS-VCRs.

The DNR is state-of-the art! It does indeed
make your older tapes much better than you've
seen them. The picture is bright...pastels are
truly pastel and not deep/dark and no detail.
Don't mistake this for a washed out picture,
It's just that you've probably not experienced
this quality in a consumer type product.
The Six heads help in this matter. Older SVHS
tapes recorded at EP are much better on this
machine..a lot of video noise is gone or suppressed.

So if you are looking for a SVHS machine at
a very reasonable cost with state-of-art
internals...do look at the Toshiba. You'll
need a modern 36inch or 55inch rear-projection unit
to truly experience this VCR.

Also, don't be thrown off your search for a
good VCR by those that have an "axe-to-grind"
or a hidden agenda! Note that a number of
professional reviewers have raved about this
machine..look around the net. Both the W804
and the W808 are solid contenders. I've tried
both...BTW, as of this writing, In noticed the
W808 is in short supply...the reviews are getting
the attention of a lot of people.

Anyway..good luck..and look around. The JVC
top of the line units are decent also...but
the Toshiba price wins out in this battle and
its video presentation is second to none in the
Consumer market hardware.

Leonard...

Similar Products Used:

Mishibishi SVHS units since 1990.

inexpensive S-video recorder

noisy mechanism

This VCR is a pretty good deal. The svideo output is definitely an improvement over conventional VCR outputs (though I won't go so far as to say it even comes CLOSE to a DVD (especially with component out)). The output is about the same or better than my JVC BR-S800U svhs editing deck - technology has improved in a couple of years.

The DNR is nice - being able to filter the RF is a bonus.

Now the grips:

1) The cable remote is limited for positioning, and the selection of boxes it can control isn't as modern as it should be (it wouldn't control the GI sdt2200 cable box - luckily, my cable company also uses a zenith, which it does control). Given that every other remote I have CAN deal with that box, Toshiba needs to update their IR tables.

2) The manual is an abomination. It is confusing and doesn't have an index.

3) Wish it as a 30 second FF for commercials.

Overall, it's pretty nice. Can't complain for $220.