Yes, it's ONLY a VCR...

We wore out our ten year old Sharp VCR and needed a quick replacement VCR to keep the kids quiet. We already owned a Toshiba 50H71 HDTV and we loved the quality of it and hoped the VCR would be the same. Well, we haven't been let down.

Set up was a breeze. Auto time set is a handy feature if you're not using DSS (no channel to read from on Express Vu), the commercial skip is interesting having never had this feature before. It is also Star-Energy compliant.

Stereo out/in works as advertised. Auto-tracking, same story. Unfortunately, there is not much to separate this VCR from others on the market to make it stand out more. All we can say is it is a decent VCR with decent features. With the advent of DVD and Tivo players, VCR recommendations are a moot point. Slow motion frame advance works well. Less than a minute to rewind a full tape shortens wait time.

This is the first piece of electronic equipment I did zero research on before buying it and am impressed with it all the same.

--- Update --- 22 Aug 2003 ---

I keep wanting to take this unit to the home theatre in our basement, but the wife won't let me. She says the kids will have nothing to use for their movies, etc. I have many movies still on VHS I want to watch and after almost a year of owning this VCR, I can say I am quite pleased with the picture quality.

I have yet to run a head cleaner through it and the picture remains crisp and clear. The children use the VCR constantly for their tapes and being as impatient as they can be, the super quick rewind works as promised.

I personally rewound a tape (T-120) from its end to its beginning and it stopped in 56 seconds. Very impressive. You might think at this speed there is a noticeable sound when it finishes, but when it nears the end, it slows to a crawl and stops softly...for lack of a better term. The kid's videos are as clear as the day they were purchased.