Boring but still needed: which VHS VCR?

I got a Sony SLV-R1000 VHS VCR a few years ago, top of the line then -- semi-pro. There is a pro version called the SVO 2000. I don't use all the bells and whistles, but I expect they should employ Sony's best build quality, with better longevity. There's lots for sale on eBay, but they may be out of your budget range. Good luck.

I have a Samsung VR8807 purchased in 1998 that still gets used a few times a week but it saw over 1k hrs during its first 5 yrs, as I only bought a DVD 3 yrs ago.

Most of the hrs were put on by my kids.

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.