Boring but still needed: which VHS VCR?

I would look for a recordable DVD player with a hard drive and a VCR. This way you can transfer all your VCR tapes you still like to DVDs, watch your VCRs, watch DVDs and even edit it. I think I have a Panasonic, and beside the remote, love it.

Have always been very happy with the better Mitsubishi decks - the ones with S-Video etc. Have one hanging around that I've had for 12 years - admittedly its been very lightly used but as Sugarbrie says, they don't build 'em like they used to. I was in video production for many years and assuming it hasn't been beat to death the semi-pro stuff is what you want to find.

Sugarbrie, Hodie, Jameswei, Drive: Thanks for your comments. I realize that in the last few years VCR's have cheapened considerably, in price as well as quality. My dilemma is what's best I can do now.

Buying an older mint unit is an obvious thought, but I don't know how to go about that in a reliable way, if you can trust what people say on eBay about their used machines. Once I bought a few children's clothes on eBay and realized that anything that wasn't shredded got described as "mint". So I am nervous about used on eBay.

I'll see if I can find an old *unused* unit, however. Please suggest a few more well-made models from the past.

If I can't find them, I am still open to ideas on what will make most sense among today's models.

I've always been a fan of JVC VCRs. If you look around you can find a JVC DVHS 3000U or DVHS 4000U inexpensively. These decks do VHS and SVHS as well as digital VHS (480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i). They are built like the older recorders and are probably the last of the breed - DVHS is already dead with blu-ray and HD-DVD on the horizon. Both are superb VHS/SVHS decks with the DVHS as an extra. They feature built in VHF/UHF/Cable tuners and support VCR+.

You can check Agon's sister site Videogon. Sometimes good things show up there.

While brooding over what to buy to replace our dead VHS VCR, I became aware of one more consideration.

Presently we have one of the older analog TV's. Within 1-2 years we will probably buy an LCD HDTV. Given the uqality of broadcasts and our cable company, we are likely to continue watching off-air with antenna.

Question: what to I have to look for in the new VCR so it would work with my present TV as well as the future one?