Panasonic PV-V4612 VHS VCR
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- VCR Type: VHS
- Number of Video Heads: 4
- Audio: Hi-Fi Stereo
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Panasonic *USED* to mean quality -- sadly, no longer
Pros
Commercial>Advance, Good Video Quality
Cons
Lousy user interface, Sluggish deck handling, Programming interface absurdly stupid, Won't accept some VHS tapes
Recommended it?
No
The Bottom Line:
Avoid this VCR. Most irritating of all is about 15% of standard VHS tapes won't go into this unit. Programming is moronically painful. Easy to mess up.
I was shopping for a VCR with Commercial>Advance?. I usually buy RCA for this feature, but they've been cutting the VCR line and it's getting nearly impossible to find a dealer that carries any selection. I came across this Panasonic model, and (many years ago) the Panasonic brand (used to be) associated with a quality product. Not so any more.
In side-by-side comparisons of my surviving RCA VR652HF and the Panasonic PV-V4612S, the RCA has near-instant response to remote control commands (e.g., when changing from reverse-scan to forward play, as when replaying a scene), where the Panasonic overshoots on the backing-up, then takes nearly 2 seconds to resynchronize and begin playing audio. When tape noise causes momentary tracking loss, the audio drops out entirely. The RCA simply scrolls a static band up the screen within ~0.75 sec, and you don't lose any audio, so don't miss the punchline.
The Panasonic "marks" the tape with dozens of extra "VHS Index" points, making any other brand of VCR stop far too often when searching for the next Index mark. My RCA-recorded tapes are interchangable on 6 other brands that I've tested, including this Panasonic.
The remote is horribly laid out, and it's too easy to change "global" system settings (one example is inadvertently selecting "SAP Audio" for all subsequent recordings, then coming home to a 6-hr tape with no audio track, since there was no SAP being broadcast). Such settings should be buried under menus, not on a single-toggle button at the very lower-left corner of the remote. Too easy to bump when picking up or putting down.
Programming is exceedingly painful, because ... get this ... you cannot type in numbers using the supplied number keys. Instead, you have to use a painstaking UP-CHANNEL / DOWN-CHANNEL poke, poke, poke, poke, poke method. If you are on cable, with 50 channels, this is merely awful. If you're on satellite, it's truly the VCR from HELL.
Didn't notice that you have a conflict (overlap) between two programs? That's ok, because neither does the Panasonic. No warning. No error. Just a botched recording.
There's so much plastic and so little metal in the manufacturing that this unit is noticeably noisier than the RCA, and seems much flimsier.
Finally, the most absurd insult of all: you cannot insert about 15% of VHS tapes into this unit. The tape WILL NOT GO IN. In spite of VHS tapes having rigid specifications for physical dimensions and reasonably tight tolerances, and in spite of every other single brand of VCR that I have EVER owned accepting every single tape that I have ever bought, this Panasonic VCR will not allow about 15% of my collection of tapes to be insert into it. Huh? What is the matter with the Panasonic engineers? Picture yourself coming home with that latest rental from Blockbuster, anticipating showing off your big-screen TV to your friends coming over in a half-hour, and ... the rented tape CAN'T BE INSERTED INTO THE VCR!
Lazy, incompetent, or just plain stupid? Your choice. I only regret that I bought these at discount prices, and can't return them. Instead, they're going to the landfill. I won't wait until the New Year to resolve NEVER to buy anything Panasonic again.
In side-by-side comparisons of my surviving RCA VR652HF and the Panasonic PV-V4612S, the RCA has near-instant response to remote control commands (e.g., when changing from reverse-scan to forward play, as when replaying a scene), where the Panasonic overshoots on the backing-up, then takes nearly 2 seconds to resynchronize and begin playing audio. When tape noise causes momentary tracking loss, the audio drops out entirely. The RCA simply scrolls a static band up the screen within ~0.75 sec, and you don't lose any audio, so don't miss the punchline.
The Panasonic "marks" the tape with dozens of extra "VHS Index" points, making any other brand of VCR stop far too often when searching for the next Index mark. My RCA-recorded tapes are interchangable on 6 other brands that I've tested, including this Panasonic.
The remote is horribly laid out, and it's too easy to change "global" system settings (one example is inadvertently selecting "SAP Audio" for all subsequent recordings, then coming home to a 6-hr tape with no audio track, since there was no SAP being broadcast). Such settings should be buried under menus, not on a single-toggle button at the very lower-left corner of the remote. Too easy to bump when picking up or putting down.
Programming is exceedingly painful, because ... get this ... you cannot type in numbers using the supplied number keys. Instead, you have to use a painstaking UP-CHANNEL / DOWN-CHANNEL poke, poke, poke, poke, poke method. If you are on cable, with 50 channels, this is merely awful. If you're on satellite, it's truly the VCR from HELL.
Didn't notice that you have a conflict (overlap) between two programs? That's ok, because neither does the Panasonic. No warning. No error. Just a botched recording.
There's so much plastic and so little metal in the manufacturing that this unit is noticeably noisier than the RCA, and seems much flimsier.
Finally, the most absurd insult of all: you cannot insert about 15% of VHS tapes into this unit. The tape WILL NOT GO IN. In spite of VHS tapes having rigid specifications for physical dimensions and reasonably tight tolerances, and in spite of every other single brand of VCR that I have EVER owned accepting every single tape that I have ever bought, this Panasonic VCR will not allow about 15% of my collection of tapes to be insert into it. Huh? What is the matter with the Panasonic engineers? Picture yourself coming home with that latest rental from Blockbuster, anticipating showing off your big-screen TV to your friends coming over in a half-hour, and ... the rented tape CAN'T BE INSERTED INTO THE VCR!
Lazy, incompetent, or just plain stupid? Your choice. I only regret that I bought these at discount prices, and can't return them. Instead, they're going to the landfill. I won't wait until the New Year to resolve NEVER to buy anything Panasonic again.
