Bought this VCR. Is it any good? Don't know. Tried to hook it up to my PC like I did with my older VCR, but to no avail with this one. Called JVC customer service and as usual got ZERO help from them. Had the same experience with previous JVC products. You'll probably get more answers from the store you buy their products at then from the very people who made them.

Forget comments about magnets on this unit. They're too weak to cause harm; they just hold the smoked-plastic front door in place. I'm no big fan of JVC or SVHS. JVC's picture always struck me as lacking a certain eye-catching punch. But my pricey 1990's Sony died, and after seeing the junky toys mislabeled as VCRs for $200 and less, and after trying other units at $280 to $750 (and returning them to the store), it seems the HR-S9911U is a quality compromise. Amazon's ad doesn't mention the smooth playback you get from aging VHS/SVHS tapes. My collection of commercial VHS movies is known for color bleeding, video noise, ghosting, frame-by-frame chroma flicker, etc. Using this JVC for VHS to DVD captures has been an eye-opener. This JVC isn't the very best I've seen, but it's darn nice. The TBC and noise reduction are very good (but I still need my old $250 Panasonic for EP, something JVC never mastered, and you need an external full-frame TBC for a/v synch on captures). For VHS to DVD transfer you really need a clean playback source. It won't happen with the $60 WalMart or $129 BestBuy special. $500 today won't get what it did 10 years ago, but I picked it up at Amazon/J&R for $359. The JVC on-screen status display isn't that great (except for the setup screens, you're stuck mostly with a smaller LED window). JVC gives you cables, but they're measley and don't do the product justice -- I used GE- and RCA-branded wire, plus some Beldens from http://store.A2Zcable.com (avoid using Monster products with your a/v gear. The impedance mismatch, artifacts, and chromatic damage thru Monster products is really annoying). Use JVC's Picture Control on "Edit", ignore the other settings. If you want clean output for VHS to DVD transfers, JVC has no competition in this price range. The audio ain't bad, either. You can try Panasonic Pro, but they're half-hearted JVCs in disguise. So bite the bullet and try this model, or bite harder and spend $1500 to get more.

I just opened my new JVC HR-S9911U VCR. On the front there's an acrylic panel that flips down to expose the tape slot. Incredibly, this panel is held up by MAGNETS mounted right next to the tape slot.

A VCR plays MAGNETIC tape. If there's anything you don't want on a tape player, it's MAGNETS. Not only does JVC put magnets on the outside of this device, they put them less than a centimeter from the tape slot. Will they erase your tape? Not entirely, I'm sure. Will they degrade your tape? You'll never know, because once you load your tape, it's too late.

It gets worse. JVC could have put the magnets on the acrylic part that flips down away from the tape, and just put pieces of metal next to the tape slot. They did just the opposite. The pieces on the flip-down panel are the non-magnetized ones. I put a picture of this blunder at http://getambitious.com/probs/stupidJVC.htm

Monumental stupidity from the company that invented VHS.

Sure, people are transferring everything to digital or to DVD-R's but how are you getting that footage to the computer or DVD recorder? Remember - garbage in-garbage out.

Sure, it, costs more than a VCR you can pick up at the drugstore but then you get what you pay for.

Excluding multi format VCR's (mini DV, DVD combo, etc ...) this is the BEST VALUE VCR you can get. If you're like me and have a lot of tapes taped on different machines and you need something that can do real video calibration to make everything look nice - this is the VCR to get. The JVC Time-Base-Corrector (TBC) is the best of all the prosumer models. Tapes that play horribly on my Sharp & Sony play back perfectly on this.

Now, I only got this a couple days but if it's like my last JVC - 10 years later, that one is still running.

If you need stable playback across multi-branded tapes taped from multi-branded machines - this is the best value machine (there are more expensive JVC's) - don't even bother with spending any less. This is an excellent machine for prosumers and serious videophiles.

BTW, the front panel opens to reveal the tape and the remote has a scroll wheel.