See, I didn’t take April off. Just most of it.
I’ve been a busy Video Hunter this past month, and the sad fact of the matter is I’ve had neither the time nor, to be quite honest, the inclination to put together a ‘big’ article. The reasons for this are several, though I won’t bother to go in to them. Still, I wanted to get something up before April ended, lest y’all think I abandoned the site and, by extension, you. Never let it be said that I don’t care, because I do, I do care!
Anyway, this isn’t going to be a long post, and truth be told, you can consider it more of a stop-gap entry than anything. BUT, that doesn’t mean I don’t like the subject, because I most certainly do. Dig this: From early 1985 (February 26, as per the back), it’s one of Panasonic’s famous Omnivision VHS VCRs, and boy, is this one technologically advanced – well, it was 32 years ago, anyway. Behold the PV-1730! A slick, feature-packed Hi-Fi stereo deck that had the capability to blow your face off – well, it did 32 years ago, anyway.
The best way I can describe this VCR is “heavy duty.” It just feels like a real product, a high-tech, ostensibly end-all be-all addition to the home entertainment center. And that silver casing that flies in the face of the predominantly-black styles of so, so many other VCRs? Looks sharp, man. Is it wrong that I can see this machine being used as decoration in some episode of Miami Vice? Maybe it was.
However, this deck doesn’t quite work correctly, though it mostly does; it powers up, it registers whatever button I slam my paws against, it fast-forwards, it rewinds. The only problem is it doesn’t like to play. Not consistently, anyway. Sometimes I can get it to go and it will run for a period before stopping, but other times it will play for only a moment or two before it takes a powder. I have several ideas as to what the problem is, but it’s not like this is going to be my daily driver; honestly, I picked this machine up simply because of the supreme mid-1980s-ness it exudes. I didn’t even bother taking a screencaps of something playing on it, because it just doesn’t matter.
(So why even bring it home? I love the the era of electronics it so deftly defines, and besides, even if it doesn’t work 100% right now, I always grab these with an eye towards getting them repaired at some unknown point in the future. But really, it all comes to down to the looks and features – even if none of them really mean anything in this day and age. It’s this same mentality that got me my swanky Sylvania VCR.)
Luckily, I got the thing to play for most of my picture-taking session. The display is pretty nice and bright, and while I hate the old school “counter” system, this machine rectifies that with giving the exact minutes and seconds too, which makes it my friend.
You can barely see it, but there’s a sticker stating this was one of Panasonic’s “Tech 4” models, always a welcome sight to yours truly. Indeed, one of the best VCRs I ever found was a 1986 Omnivision “Tech 4” that works flawlessly and may have even more features than this deck. I keep that one on a figurative pedestal because I’m weird.
See that panel at the bottom? It opens up, and oh what it harbors just beneath the hood…
BOOM.
Here’s your station for “One-Touch Recording,” along with the ability to set the OTR timer, as you’d expect. Also, not one but two tracking-control knobs, nifty left and right audio controls, a switch for recording in all three speeds, and Dolby noise reduction.
Now see, I didn’t grow up with, or at least didn’t grow up using, VCRs with such a now-convoluted recording scheme; I came around, thankfully, when that set-up had been reduced to on-screen displays and programmed with the remote. As such, the thought of setting a timer with this system kinda makes my head swim. I could have mastered it, I could still master it, but luckily, I’ll never have to!
Hold on, there’s more to it!
On top of the unit there’s a flip-up panel with controls for picture sharpness, regular TV or cable TV, display options, and so on. Sorry this pic is alternately too bright and too dark; this was about as satisfactory a picture as I was going to get.
Also, V-Lock for SP and SLP? That’s a new one on me. They’re probably found on some of my other VCRs, but if so, I never paid much attention – what exactly is that? “Vertical Lock?” Is that like the “Vertical Hold” on old TVs?
You know what attracted me most to this unit when I first came across it? That “Hi-Fi Audio HD” declaration above. It may not mean anything anymore, but man does that just sound completely top-of-the-line for the time. For the time? Heck, to me that still sounds cool!
Besides the ‘normal’ controls for playing and recording, you’ve also got plenty of audio features, including audio dub, and needless to say, the audio levels meter I always love seeing on these old models.
Along the back are the expected microphone inputs and whatnot and the television hook-ups, but what I really get a kick out of is the “Pay TV” knob; I’m not even sure what it does, but it almost doesn’t matter, because it’s such a neat mid-1980s throwback. I said the same thing about the previously-linked Sylvania VCR, so anyone with the appropriate knowledge wanna fill me in? Hit the comments section!
More inputs/outputs, including handy ports for a camera. The “Editing” plug has me curious, though the declaration of “See Manual” feels like a diss; I don’t have the manual, VCR! Thrift store finds rarely include them, and as such I’m performing a lot of guesswork (such as it is) with some of these features. There’s probably a PDF of the manual online somewhere, but frankly, searching it out is too much work for a stop-gap post that approximately three people are going to read anyway.
So, just where did I get this beast? I honestly couldn’t remember until I dug the machine out and noticed the “$8.00 Y” price written in marker. “Y” stood for “Yellow,” which means I got this from some Village Thrift somewhere. Evidently I never did much with this machine upon getting it home, since I hadn’t even bothered to clean that off! Nope, it had just been sitting in my stack of VCRs, staring at me, day in, day out, wondering why I shun it so. Until today anyway, when I decided I should probably write a token post for April 2017.
So there it is, a Panasonic VHS VCR, loaded with options and still looking darn cool to boot. This was one of those finds I buy based solely on looks, features and “aura.” I grab things like this all the time, and even though I usually never do all that much with them, I love having them, simply because of the era in electronics that they represent.
There. Gap = Stopped!
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