Customer Reviews

Panasonic PV-V4623S 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR, Silver

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I was deciding between the Panasonic 4623S and the Sony SLV-N700 and I bought both to do a side-by-side comparison. The Sony model is more expensive but it has more features such as VCR+, Quasi SVHS playback and a handy replay button. Rewinding speed is extremely fast, and I prefer Sony's on-screen display better. For example, after you press the rewind button, the Panasonic model doesn't display the time counter right away; it takes a few seconds for it to show up, making it difficult to search video just a few minutes prior. Programming is equally easy on both, but only Sony has VCR+. In terms of video quality, the Sony model records and plays with superior video quality in both SP and EP mode, but the difference is not huge. This is the only two recording mode available in the Sony model vs. Panasonic's SP, LP and SLP mode. Buttons on both remote controls are tiny; Panasonic's remote is illuminated but only on 4 navagation buttons. Sony's model has a glow in the dark remote on every buttons, but some markings are not directly printed on the buttons, rendering it meaningless to have blank buttons that glow at night. Panasonic features commercial advance (CA), which is different from commercial skip from other manufacturers. After recordings, Panasonic will rewind the tape to mark commercials. During play back, it'll automatically fast forward without having to touch the remote. It works almost all the time but sometimes it'll miss a commercial, depending on the program and signal. The down side of CA is that it takes 15 mins to mark a 2-hr recording. Sony's commercial skip only fast forward 30 sec per key press. Overall, Sony's quality and feature wins out, but I decide to return it and keep the Panasonic, mainly because of the commercial advance feature. For those who care, the Sony is made in China and the Panasonic is made in Indonesia.

My wife and I are up there in age, you might say, and we wanted to replace our 10-year old Sanyo Hi-Fi Stereo unit that gave us good service but kicked the bucket. This Panasonic VCR is terrific! Beautiful sound and picture, helped by running it through our separate floor speakers and a Dolby Pro Logic receiver into our Panasonic TV. Love the large remote that easily fits the hand--and you can aim it at the VCR from wide angles, instead of having to use it point-blank with many remotes. ALSO, tape rewind starts out fast but gradually slows to a crawl before it completes the rewind--saves tapes from pulling off spindle! We've got a lot movies on VHS as well as family films, and this does everything Panasonic says it does. I suppose later on we'll get a DVD player and add some more speakers for surround sound--but right now we couldn't be happier with our purchase of this VCR.

If you subscribe to premium channels cause you hate commercials, this product is for you. I don't know how they do it, but you can tape an hour show, and when you play it, it blasts by the annoying commercials.
It's made me start to watch TV again.
It also rewinds a full tape in less than a minute.
The machine is not the quietest I've ever heard, but it is the most convenient.

I needed something to replace our 10-year old Sanyo unit which served us faithfully. The new unit was hooked up in about five minutes to play through our Kenwood Dolby Pro Logic receiver and Advent speakers into our Panasonic 27" TV. The sound is (as expected) awesome and the picture is very, very good (not equal to a DVD, of course, but as good as a VCR can produce.) We went (again) with Panasonic's excellent repair history; everything we have bought in Panasonic products still function perfectly. One important feature is the good-sized Universal Remote that came with it that gives commands at wide angles to the VCR, as opposed to other Remotes that must be pointed point-blank at VCRs. There'll come a time when we'll add a DVD player, but for the time being this high quality Panasonic VCR is everything a person would want. An excellent choice.

I actually bought two versions of this by mistake - one was branded Quasar, and was very cheap but gave me problems, so I went and bought a brand name - and found it was the identical model (poor memory of what the Quasar looked like when I was in the store)! Even the instruction manual was identical - just the brand name changed.
The controls are all fine and when it records the quality is fine, but it refuses to play many commercial tapes - just ejects them, gets them stuck on loading and I've had to take the top off a couple of times. These are the same problems I had with the Quasar branded one. A real shame, as I believed Panasonic did high quality goods until now. I am shopping for another one and trying to guess the price that you have to pay to get something that works.

This VCR looks good on paper, but only lasted 4 months. It's 1 year warrantee is worthless because labor is only covered for 90 days. The labor to repair this VCR adds up to more than buying one new! DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!!!

The features and picture quality of this VCR are great. Commercial advance is lovely, but sometimes it gets confused and zaps through regular programming by mistake--but it's accurate 90% of the time. After all the recording is done, the VCR will re-wind and then re-play the shows you just taped, marking where commercials started and stopped. This is annoying if you want to use the machine, because you CAN'T while this is going on. VCR-plus made life easier too.

Unfortunately this unit died after only 18 months. I think that the commercial advance system put so much strain on the motor that it just wore out. We tape about 5 hours of network programming a week (Raymond, Frasier, West Wing, Friends, ER, The Practice) and then on the weekends we catch up on our favorite shows. I guess that was enough to kill it. Poor little thing. (I paid close to $180 for it--look how cheap it is now!)

Don't waste your time on this badly made product. I returned it the day after I got it. The commercial skip works 95% of the time and is great, but it is not worth having to put up with the noise this thing makes and the lousy picture quality. It's extermely loud in fast forward and rewind, but also make noises when in the play noise that are nowhere near acceptable. But worst is the picture quality. I played tapes in it recorded from 2 other VCR's, and ones I bought from the store, and they all had a gritty picture. Even tapes recorded with THIS unit played somewhat gritty. Save yourself the labor of mailing this thing back and look at better units. Paying so little for a VCR will only disappoint you in the long run.

I bought this on January 2004, and 11 months later, it already has a problem to record.
Very poor product quality.

I purchased this VCR after reading some of the postive reviews on this site. It worked for 1 day and then began a strange whirring noise when I turned the power on and would not recognize that it had a tape in it and then would just cut off. I am returning it tomorrow for my money back. I should have known it was crap when I took it out of the box and it weighed about a pound. My old Magnavox VCR was of a substantial weight and lasted 10 years of continuous use. I spent $95 on this Panasonic and would recommend spending your money on something else.