1984 Panasonic Hi-fi 4 head VCR I might possibly pick up
 

Hello everyone I went to a local flea market and saw there a 1984 vintage Panasonic 4 head Hi-Fi VCR there for $20 which I might possibly pick up today if the flea market is open today.
Anyways I was wondering what your thoughts were on this unit. Its a front loading unit with a see though window into the VCR on top. I'm assuming it will need the usual belts but other than that would this be a good reliable unit?

Sorry about there being no pictures and I didn't see the model number on it.

Well I got the VCR, Its a Panasonic PV-1530 from May of 1984 according to the date of Manufacture Stamp on the back of the unit, its a 4-Head Hi-Fi VCR thats a Front Loader, it also has a 14 Position Veractor Tuner (push-button style) so its a mono tuner but it looks to be in pretty decent shape yet with some dirt and scuff marks on the cabinet which makes it look worse condition wise than it really is. I'l post a few pictures.

Sorry Levi! I think, it's priced too high. Offer $5.00 for it and that's being very generous, especially if it needs repair.
There's still a lot of those things around.
Regarding the reliability of it after repair, It depends on how much hard use it got. It was from the era, when a VCR was a novelty and the owners recorded anything and everything and used a lot of rental tapes. :thumbsdn:

Well I bought it anyways but either way I did have to replace one of the drive belts in it, and I even noticed that the idler tire in it was cracked but the VCR is still playing fine even with the cracked idler tire surprisingly enough although the VCR doesn't seem to want to load the tape back into the cassette when the stop button is pushed so maybe it has something to do with the idler tire being cracked and somewhat dry rotted? What I mean by VCR not wanting to load the tape back into the cassette is that the mechanism will go to load the tape back into the mechanism properly but the tape doesn't follow suit, the tape just stays sprawled out in the VCR.

That 1530 isn't Hi Fi. It's linear stereo with Dolby noise reduction.

Only used VCR I ever paid $20 for was a Sony SLV-R1000 S-VHS deck....A friend has one (and paid the better part of a C-note for a parts deck when the PS module burned up), and it is one of the best S-VHS decks ever made. Feeding a flatscreen with it's noise reduction/video stabliizers on it makes a decent VHS tape look like a good uncompressed HD digital source. I ended up letting my friend have it for what I paid since it needed repair....we repaired it together and once working he wanted it (his had another breakdown at the time).

I can't fathom why you like early front load VHS VCRs like that....I doubt I'd take what you just bought if it was free (I will buy S-VHS decks though)....The VHS top-loaders, and separate camera portables (and one or two other odd configurations) have rarity going for them, but little else. Early top loaders only have some ease of service and increased resistance to damage from mechanical shock....You pay for that in poorer picture and audio quality, lack of important features (like cable tuner, OSD, easy/better clock and timer settings that actually work, etc, etc.), most units being broken or failing as found, etc.

Watch the thrifts for a good $3-10 S-VHS (or if you record S-VHS-ET) deck and make that your last VHS format VCR. ....Certain JVC models are so common here that I stopped buying them (4 is more than enough for me). I could grab the next one of those I find and pass it along to you for what it costs me.

Well either way I liked that it was an early Panasonic VCR as I like that they are easy to repair if they ever break down that's why I got it, although I do have a mid 1980s (about 1985 or 1986 vintage) JVC Made Zenith VCR that I paid about $6 for at the Goodwill that's a 4-head mono unit that works pretty well yet (but I wanted a good stereo unit for my bedroom TV which I did have an old Sony SLV-575UC (which was also a goodwill find for $6) hooked up to for a while but then moved that down to my LCD Projector that's in my basement.
Anyways I'm sorry you don't find early front loader VCRs as fascinating as I do. Although I find most any early VCR fascinating but this one being an early Stereo VCR was what made me find it most interesting.

With as bad of luck as I've had with trying to locate and repair older top loader units I think front loaders are where my niche is because I have a lot better luck repairing and locating front loader VCRs than I do top loaders, the past two Top loaders I've tried to fix (one a Panasonic PV-1100 that was given to me by someone I used to go to church with had an issue with not wanting to play back in color and this was before I knew about this website and I couldn't fix it so I junked it out, and then my most recent venture with my Hitachi VCR which was also not a very successful repair as one problem after another would just crop up when I fixed one issue another issue would crop up and so on and so forth.)
As interesting as top loaders are and as much as I would love to have one in my collection I don't think it would be practical considering that most top loaders are well over 35+ years old and have sat in some unsavory conditions for probably close to 20+ years I'm guessing that they're going to have more problems than is worth my time or money fixing compared to a front loader of the same time period.

I'll take a mid 80's VCR any day. Built like a tank, easy to service, lots of buttons, lights and huge VFDs make them pretty awesome.

I couldn't agree with you more, that's why I like to have a small stash of 1980s vintage VCRs laying around so that if one ever fails I can have an extra one as a backup to throw in place while I troubleshoot and repair the one that failed. Like Electronic M said they are quite common yet but that doesn't matter to me because that only means that I can just locate another unit somewhere else if I need to as either a parts unit or as a backup unit.

Nice! I have this same Panny with a darker-colored face and fake woodgrain case.

Nice, I haven't seen too many Panasonics with a woodgrain cabinet except for the PV-1100 I was given to monkey with several years ago but that was a 1978 model I believe with the knob tuner and everything.

OK, but its still stereo audio either way.

I was able to steal the idler tire from the old Hitachi Top Loader VCR I had tried to get going with no success (I'm just going to scrap it out beause its too far gone electronically to do anything with) and stuck it on this Panasonic (interestingly enough the Hitachi and this Panasonic used the same exact idler tire) and now this Panasonic works perfectly now including retracting the tape into the cassette like its supposed to now. Even though it isn't "Hi-Fi Stereo" it still has really good sound for what it is, in fact I had to turn down the volume on my TV by almost half of what I had it at previously (I had it at about 16 before and I had to turn it down to about 8 because the audio was so loud.)

If that's all that was wrong with it, it seems to be an OK deal. It definately is a higher end model. :thmbsp:

I thought so to because its a pretty solid unit and it was working 90% already besides the idler tire and the one belt I had to replace. It definitely gives off that "1980's movie vibe" when you play a movie on it, but of course I'm using it with a flatpanel TV so the picture isn't going to look the greatest on it being that you're playing an analog video source on a digital TV.