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GROUP TEST
NICAM VCR ROUNDUP
INTRO
Hot off the production line, Rick Maybury puts four NICAM
newcomers through their paces
COPY
If you’ve been in a TV and video dealers showroom lately you
might be forgiven for thinking there’s been some new EC Directive, that
requires all new video recorders sold in the UK to look the same. Fortunately,
what VCR stylists lack in imagination, manufacturers make up for with so-called
‘added-value’ features. Each year there’s a few new widgets, others migrate
down from top-end and mid-range machines to budget models.
One feature we’re particularly pleased to see on several of
this year’s new models is hi-fi stereo replay on NTSC recordings. Video Plus+
has tamed the timer and it’s now almost universal, but PDC (programme delivery
control), which has been hovering around in the background, has taken on a new
relevance. The BBC have finally joined Channel 4 and some ITV companies in
broadcasting PDC data codes, that automatically correct timer settings for
over-runs and late schedule changes. The text data decoding systems used on
VCRs with PDC has helped improve auto set-up systems; they’re getting even
easier to use with channel identification and sorting plus, increasingly, daily
and sometimes hourly clock-checking as well. There’s a few more machines with
satellite control this year, more VCRs now have front AV sockets, and prices
continue to drift downwards. It’s a
good time to buy, here’s four new arrivals to think whet your appetite!
VCRS ON TEST
AKAI VS G745EK,
£299.99
To be honest we’ve been a little wary of sub £350 NICAM VCRs
but following the success of the Aiwa FX1500 early last year it’s clear
machines in this price bracket can be considered for home cinema applications.
Akai convincingly re-enforce the point with the new VS-G745EK which is based on
the F735, but with several important changes. The most significant one is the
price, it’s down from £380 to just £300, but rather than strip-out features
they’ve upgraded what was already quite a well-specified machine. It now has
twin SCART AV sockets, an improved auto set-up system that stores stations in a
logical order, auto clock-set which checks the time twice a day and NTSC replay
with stereo hi-fi sound on SP and EP speed recordings.
Akai VCRs have always been good value but they’ve really
gone to town with this one. It has their S-IHQ tape tuning system, which works
best on LP recordings using higher grade tapes. There’s a set of AV inputs
sockets on the front panel, index search and intro scan, blank scan and skip,
record-search (playback in record-pause mode) plus a most impressive set of
multi-speed replay features (X7, X5, X3, still and X1/10th normal speed, in
both directions).
The on-screen menu display system -- an Akai speciality --
is easy to use and there’s a next-mode facility, that allows transport commands
to be sequenced; for example, it can be
programmed to play a tape, rewind when it has finished, eject the tape and
switch itself off. Time-shifting using the PDC-backed Video Plus+ timer
couldn’t be easier, the time and date information is shown on the remote
handset’s LCD display, so it can be checked, before being sent to the VCR. The
first few times it has to be told which channel the programme is on but the
information is stored and only has to be entered once.
Resolution on our sample was just under 240-lines on SP
recordings, this fell by half a dozen or so lines on LP material (with S-IHQ
engaged) but there was only a barely perceptible increase in noise levels,
which in any case are respectably low. Trick-play stability is very good at all
speeds. There was a small amount of hiss on the otherwise crisp stereo hi-fi
tracks -- on both PAL and NTSC recordings -- but it’s not enough to be
concerned about.
Verdict
Akai are clearly determined to make an impression at the
budget end of the NICAM VCR market with the GS745. Picture quality is fair to
middling and it sounds reasonably good (especially with stereo NTSC tapes) but
combine that with the £300 price tag and impressive list of features and it
looks like the bargain of the year!
Features NICAM,
Video Plus+, PDC, auto set-up, Super I-HQ tape optimisation, NTSC replay
(stereo), multi-speed replay, multi-lingual on-screen display, LCD remote,
blank skip play, blank skip, edit search, auto power off, index search/intro
scan
Sockets 2 x
SCART AV, stereo line-audio out (phono), front AV in (phono)
Akai UK, telephone 0181-897 6388
Picture quality ***
Sound quality ***
Build quality ****
Features ****
Ease of use ****
Overall value *****
MITSUBISHI HS-551, £379.99
Mitsubishi are now well and truly back into their stride,
following a couple of years worth of rather bland machines. The HS-551 is a
reminder of the old days, lots of useful features, good AV performance and a
very competitive price. There is a small sting in the tail though, which we’re
just about to come to.
The headline feature is satellite control, tied into the
Video Plus+ timer, it also has NTSC
replay with stereo sound, but there’s a problem! NTSC replay is an unadvertised facility, that’s because the
factory have only recently begun fitting it. Early models can still replay NTSC
tapes -- with stereo sound -- but they’re in black and white. Mitsubishi tell
us there’s no easy way of tell which machines have it in colour, apart from
actually trying one out in the shop. You have been warned. The rest is all good
news, the 551 has automatic tape optimisation, a full-function auto-install
system, a clock that checks the time against teletext time signals every day at
8 am, a fine set of multi-speed replay function, several bonus features, like
rental playback, edit control (with other Mitsubishi VCRs) and a set of control
functions on the remote handset for Mitsubishi TVs. There’s actually loads more
widgets, and one of the quickest deck mechanisms in the business but we’d be
here all day.
Auto install is engaged by pressing a small recessed button
on the front panel, it takes just a couple of minutes to sort out all the local
TV broadcasts, and it also checks for the presence of a satellite receiver, if
it finds one it then asks the user for a 2-digit code, corresponding to the
make of their satellite receiver. The remote handset is a bit of an oddity, it
has colour co-ordinated buttons, green ones for menu functions, blue for Video
Plus+, purple for the one-touch timer, and so on. The on-screen displays are
very clear and the tape-usage indicator -- a kind of meter that shows how far
the tape has been wound -- is an old Mitsubishi favourite.
Picture quality is good, with resolution just under 250
lines it’s comparable with mid-market VCRs costing a £100 or so more. Colour
accuracy is spot on and there’s hardly any picture noise. No complaints about
sound quality, either, lower than average levels of background hiss, pin-sharp
with lots of detail.
Verdict
Assuming you don’t end up with one of the early models, with
black and white NTSC replay, the 551 is a real stonker. AV performance is very
good, the price is very fair indeed and the list of convenience features just
goes on and on.
Features NICAM,
Video Plus+, PDC, auto set-up, multi-speed replay, satellite control, one-key
programming, on-screen display, auto recording speed selection, index search,
blank search, tape tuning, ‘rental’ tape playback, parental lock, edit control
(compatible with other Mitsubishi VCRs), encore replay (replays last 5
seconds), NTSC replay (B&W, stereo...)
Sockets 2 x
SCART AV, stereo line-audio output (phono), satellite control (minijack)
Mitsubishi Electric, telephone (01707) 276100
Picture quality ****
Sound quality ****
Build quality ****
Features ****
Ease of use ****
Overall value ****
SANYO VHR-776 £349.99
Sanyo mid-range NICAM VCRs have received a fair amount of
attention during the past couple of years, mostly on the strength of one
feature -- digital view scan -- which allows the soundtrack to be heard at
normal speed, whatever direction or speed the tape is moving at. However, take
away DVS and you’re left with some fairly bland machines, a bit like the
VHR-776 in fact. To be fair there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with the 776,
but it’s a tough old world out there and this machine is now up against some
very stiff competition. The highlights of the feature list, once you get past
basic fare like Video Plus+, PDC and NICAM, are confined to fairly mundane
things like NTSC playback (with mono sound), an on-screen display, repeat play,
a child lock and something called record history, that recalls details of the
last five time-shift recordings, Sanyo suggest it might come in handy for
quickly programming daily or weekly events...
What it has got works well enough. Take auto-install for
instance. The tuner seeks out all locally available stations, stores them in
the correct order (BBC1, BBC2, ITV, C4), sets the time and date, which it
checks on a regular basic, and it only takes a minute or so to do it. The
menu-driven on-screen display is a model of simplicity, it’s the sort of
machine you can take out of the box and use right away without having to read
the instruction book. It does what its told, the front panel layout is simple
and unthreatening, even the remote is easy to use (though some of the buttons
are on the small side). The point is the 776 is virtually a gadget-free zone --
unless you count the record history facility -- nothing wrong with that of
course, indeed for some it might even count as a selling point, but you can’t
help feeling it could do with just a little more sparkle.
Video performance on our test machine -- an early production
sample -- was fairly average. Horizontal resolution was just under 240-lines,
there was some picture noise, but it was by no means excessive, merely average.
The same goes for colour fidelity, and picture stability, neither good nor bad,
just ordinary. The hi-fi stereo system sounded quite good though, background
noise levels are very low, and it sounds very clean.
Verdict
The problem with the 776 is not that there’s anything wrong
with it, there isn’t, it works well and the price isn’t unrealistic, but it has
to exist in a world where £350 buys VCRs dripping with widgets and gizmos.
Admittedly many convenience features are of questionable value, but given an
equality in AV performance it’s the extras that get a VCR noticed.
Features NICAM,
Video Plus+, PDC, NTSC replay (mono), on-screen display, index search,
multi-speed replay, repeat play, child lock,
Sockets 2 x
SCART AV, stereo line output (phono)
Sanyo UK, telephone (01923) 246363
Picture quality ***
Sound quality ***
Build quality ****
Features ***
Ease of use ***
Overall value ****
TOSHIBA V-726B, £399.99
Earlier this year we gave the £400 Toshiba V-705 a fairly
lukewarm reception. It worked well enough but it was very basic and not
particularly good value for money. Faster than you can say ‘dump the turkey’,
up pops the V-726B, another £400 machine, but this time the feature line-up is
a lot more interesting. Externally they look almost identical -- the neatly
contoured case makes a pleasant change from the usual boring black boxes -- but
apart from them both being midi-sized NICAM VCRs with Video Plus+ timers, PDC
and NTSC replay, they’re completely different machines.
To begin with the 726 has proper auto-install, that kicks in
as soon as the machine is plugged in for the first time. It’s quite unlike the
crude manual tuning and clock-setting systems on the 705. It has a Video Plus+
based satellite control system, to simplify time-shifting satellite channels;
the NTSC replay feature has stereo hi-fi sound and the on-screen display system
has been uprated, to cope with all the extra facilities. Not that the 705 was
entirely without merit, a few of the more useful features remain unchanged:
there’s the same fine selection of replay speeds, it has index search and the
front-mounted AV terminal stays put.
There’s no need to worry about the initial set-up on the
726, however, it’s still worth reading the instructions, especially if the VCR
is going to be used with a satellite receiver. There’s a few points to watch
out for, including sighting the machine so that it can control the satellite
receiver -- infra-red control remote emitter windows are on the front and top
of the case -- the correct control codes for different makes of receiver have
to be assigned, and the satellite receiver’s channel order might need
re-arranging. The VCR’s IR command library is pretty comprehensive, covering
all of the major brands, and quite a few obscure ones as well. Once configured
it’s also possible to use the VCR’s remote to change channel on the satellite
receiver.
On-screen performance is very slightly better than the 705;
resolution at SP recording speeds was just a little over 240-lines, picture
noise is below average and colour fidelity is good. The stereo soundtracks are
very clean, there’s hardly any background noise, moreover the response is
largely flat and uncoloured. There’s a small increase in the noise levels on
NTSC stereo soundtracks but it’s not intrusive.
Verdict
This is the machine the 705 should have been; hopefully it
will now quickly and quietly disappear. The 726 puts Toshiba firmly back in the
running in the key £350 to £400 price sector. It’s has all the right
credentials for home cinema use and it might well tempt a few VCR buyers to
trade up.
Features NICAM,
Video Plus+, PDC, auto set-up, satellite control, on-screen display, NTSC
replay (stereo), multi-speed replay, index search, skip search
Sockets 2 x
SCART AV, stereo line audio out (phono), front AV input (phono)
Toshiba UK, telephone (01276) 62222
Picture quality ****
Sound quality ****
Build quality ****
Features ****
Ease of use ****
Overall value ****
CONCLUSION
Sadly the Sanyo VHR-776 ends up at the bottom of this
particular pile. We have to repeat there’s nothing actually wrong with it -- it
works well -- but equally there’s just nothing to make it stand out from the
crowd. Toshiba have got the mixture just about right, the V-726 is a splendid
machine that deserves to do well, though we suspect a lot of people seeking
this particular blend of features will be tempted by the slightly cheaper
Mitsubishi HS-551. This has a very similar specification, plus a few extra
frills, though do bear in mind what we’ve said and check with the dealer first,
if NTSC replay in colour is important to you. The star of the show, though, has
to be the amazing Akai VS-G745. Okay, it’s not going to win any prizes for picture
and sound quality, average to good is about the best you can say for it, though
it still manages to put several dearer machines to shame. However, what finally
won us over was the low price and unusually generous assortment of features,
that includes multi-speed replay, tape tuning and best of all, NTSC replay with
stereo sound. This could be the budget machine to beat in 1996!
BOX COPY 1
TOP FIVE FEATURES
* Stereo sound on NTSC replay. This is the feature home
cinema enthusiasts have been waiting for. Previously it’s only been available
on a couple of top-end machines, now it’s turning up on mid-market VCRs and one
or two budget machines. (Incidentally this only works when the VCR is connected
to a stereo TV by a SCART AV lead)
* Satellite control. The VCR timers fitted to the
overwhelming majority of satellite tuners are like something out of the dark
ages. They’re crude and difficult to use, anything that simplifies satellite
timeshifting gets our vote.
* Auto-install and clock-check. Banish the instruction book
forever, well almost... Auto install systems have revolutionised VCR set-up, no
more scrabbling around on the floor, trying to find tiny buttons or follow
complicated procedures, and no more fiddling around, every time the clocks go
back or forwards
* Front-mounted AV input sockets. Just in case one day you
get around to buying a camcorder...
* Sockets, and plenty of them. You can get away with one
SCART AV socket and a set of stereo line outputs but two SCARTs are better,
especially if your system is likely to expand in the near future.
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R. Maybury 1996 1705
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