Video Reviews

First off, I found that this VCR offers a very extensive array of features. The only things that it lacks are a clock on the front display and VCR+ programming. Other than that it is great. Good picture and sound, with a nicely arranged remote. Also provides great quality for recording. Overall, if you're looking for a good second VCR, this is it.

This was a very nice person,and a very fast respond

HOW MANY RECORDIG SPEEDS DOES THIS VCR HAVE? DOES IT HAVE TWO OR THREE RECORDING? DOES IT HAVE LP RECORDING CAPABILITY?

We bought 2 Beamers to use with my elderly in-laws. They were able to work it, the image is okay, and they enjoy seeing our kids. We also have webcams for our computer enabled family, and they work much better and there is no phone charges, but this would not work with my in-laws. The videophone is obviously a little choppy, but if you make sure to have a well lit room it shows a nice picture. My 2 year old son goes up to it and says "Pop-Pop, Pop-Pop" when he wants to see his grandfather. Even though they live 3000 miles away, it feels like you are much closer

Appearance: Lovely, unobstrusive, minimalist design with lightly tinted bluish beveled glass surrounding the palm-sized LCD and camera aperture. The rest of the unit is that type of matte finish hard plastic used in laptops. It resembles a picture frame or a small LCD monitor (which it is, in part). Three simple controls on the side of the unit, and three ports in the rear -- two for phone jacks and one for the power supply. With this unit, you supply your own phone, which may be more convenient in some cases and saves on space.
Function: You call into the other location and ask them to activate their video station, and the unit on your side activates automatically. There is a 20 second delay for the video to rev up, then both sides can see each other. The unit tilts about 30 degrees on the base.
Quality: Not bad, meaning, it's fair, but comparable to the standard line speed of 33K. The screen is big enough and bright enough for my parents to be able to view with their not so good eyesight. The unit doesn't respond well to movement like all videophones, but if the image shown is relatively constant, voice and video transmission is good and synchronized. The unit has a simple switch to decrease the resolution which prevents rebuffering delay. The unit also has a picture in picture feature so you can see what you look like. Activating this feature does not seem to slow transmission.
Ease of Use: So easy, my parents could hook it up with phone tech support. (Me.) Very easy to activate and non-threatening interface. Hook up time is about 2 minutes; installation instructions are good. Connection time for calls is really no more than 25 seconds. The unit provides good, clear responses to inform about delays in transmission or problems with connection.
Problems: The unit generates some slight heat when plugged into the adapter. I pull the power adapter out of the unit to rid this problem. It doesn't work with all phone lines, like PBX. It works with my run of the mill ten year old phone.
Overall: This is a solid, well-designed and engineered unit. It's been made to be usable, unlike some amalgams of technology I've seen. I remember the videophones of five years ago with prices in the fifteen-hundred dollar range with quality that wasn't half as good as what this unit. This unit is affordable enough to buy a few of them to distribute to the family. This unit is good for grandkids to see grandparents and closes the physical distance in an amazing way, because its like looking at grandma through a really small window in the house. It gives everyone the feeling of a noticeable tech advance. It's about half the price of the most competitive unit. I had serious doubts about this technology actually working, having not seen this unit prior to buying it, but based on the acceptable performance of this unit, the time for this technology has come.
Vendor: I ordered it from Amazon and J&R on Tuesday at 11 PM and the people I sent them to got them on Thursday afternoon via UPS Ground, as did I. Nice work, Amazon, J&R and UPS.

Easy to hook up. Very stylish. See family without having to fly. Thanks Vialta!

I always trust electronics of Japanese brands for they're usually with fine qualities in all espects. I tried this reciever at my friend's. I really enjoyed the digital effect and the convenience of this product.

My husband bought this product two years ago on a clearance shelf!!! It was well worth the money we spent on this item. The sound is wonderful!!!

If you are crazy about MP3 music this one is the best you can buy. Although you can also look pictures on it and even films this is not the reason why I bought it. Nice to have, but need to be??? No, I bought it for the music, the 40GB is great and in price absolute better than the Apple Ipod.... The extra feature using it as a extra harddisk is great. The sound setup is good en easy. All together great but It looses 1 star because the batterylife is not that great. Only to use with a AC adapter will cost 1 star. 7 hours???, I doubt it, it charges fast so that is a good thing but if there would be a possibility to use normal batteries it would be a winner forever... Still great too bad for the batterylife.............

I can't believe the folks at Archos aren't getting more press - they are fantastic! I have the AV140 w/DVR100 and Camera module, and the interface is great, music quality is fantastic, and video quality is stellar. You have full control of the sound (treble, bass, loudness, bass boost, balance, etc). Transferring music from CDs or downloads is really easy, drag and drop. Plus, you can use the Archos AV140 as an external hard drive! And best yet, the Archos doesn't convert music into some proprietary format (ahh...like the iPod). Tech support is fantastic. I cannot say enough good things about this company or their products.

This is a good bag to hold your SLR body, a 28-80 lense and an assortment of filters (in their cases) and other small items. Front pouch easily holds up to 6 rolls of film and cleaning kit. This bag definitely will not hold more than one lense with the body on the inside. But it securely stores your gear and is lightweight and easy to carry around. A good buy for the money.

I'm am amateur photographer and basically needed a bag for my SLR camera, lens, and an extra slot for a future lens or flash. This bag was fine for my needs. However, I must point out that I was disappointed by the dividers inside the bag. The pictures here give the impression that the "walls" inside the bag are of a sturdy material, when in fact they are sponge-like and attach to the sides and bottom of the bag with very strong Velcro. I've had some trouble moving them around, in fact, because the Velcro on the sides catches before I get the bottom in and vice versa. Overall, if you only have a few pieces of equipment, this is a good bag. It's light, its made of a durable material, the dividers do adjust to accommodate the size of your camera/lens/flash, there are several pockets of various sizes, and there is both a small handle on the top of the bag and a wide shoulder strap.

I have long been a fan of Tamrac for my camera bag needs. About a year ago I bought a pair of Steiner 8x30 binoculars that did not come with a carry case/bag. The Tamrac 5401 did a great job to make a binocular case. Have enough pockets for cleaning supplies, etc. Good for outdoor and ballgame travel. I bought one for my brother and his digital camera. He likes to keep all the accessories in one place and this bag is big enough to do that and small enough not to be cumbersome. Quality and price of the Tamrac bags have been excellent.

I find this very easy to use and has plenty of rooms for wallet, extra films and etc. It has pockets, zippers, scrap shoulder, handler and belt but you have to wear a belt which is why I gave them four stars. I can use my digital camera and regular compact camera in it. This bag looks like a purse. You can take it with you anywhere you want to go. It's very light to carry on. I like it very much! One thing that I am disappoint was belt. The material is pretty good too.

I ordered this a while ago and find it very roomy for two camaras such as digital camara and other regular compact camara too. This bag looks like a purse and has plenty rooms for almost everything that you could fill in such as wallet, cigarette, extra films. It has alot of pocket holders there, handler, scrap shoulder and belt holder but you have to wear a belt to hold it up. That is one thing that I am disappoint. It was worth to use for boat, shore, concert and anywhere you go. I like it very much!

This bag is fantastic for my JVC digital vid cam and all of its accessories. I could also easily fit a small digital still camera with its own accessories in the same bag with room to spare. I highly recommend this bag for your small digicam needs.

Althought the price is right the picture could be alot better. It is fuzzy almost all the time. I would not suggest buying this product. It is a waste of money when there are so many other great televisions out there.

I recently purchased this item [...]. ...It has a 4 head vcr and includes picture in picture. These are nice options that are not listed in technical details. Many TV/VCR combos only have a two head vcr. I am please with my purchase.

Another reviewer of this product complained about a fuzzy tube picture. I would just like to say that I've used this product for a while now and I've not noticed any problems with it.

Perhaps the previous reviewer had a fluke, in which case I am sure he could send it to Toshiba and get a new tele, or have it fixed.

ND

Picture quality and sound are excellent, the rapid rewind feature is terrific, and the unit's full-size chassis makes it fit in nicely with standard A/V gear, if that's a concern. The remote is unusually well-designed and convenient. Whenever the unit is powered off, a loud "bump" sound comes through the speakers--this isn't the case with any other VCR I've tried, including an earlier Toshiba model. And when one is watching TV, the unit defaults to "Display" mode, showing time, channel, and program information superimposed over the TV image--one has to press the "Display" key twice to clear it, an extremely annoying inconvenience...

Before I offer my evaluation of the Toshiba W-607, I would like to express a general observation of the majority of the VCRs available on the market at this time. Due to the competition to offer lower priced units, I feel that this has been detrimental to picture quality, especially when viewing tapes recorded from network TV. In the past year and a half I have had to replace two VCRs that were purchased approximately five years ago and fell in the $400 price range. None of the half dozen makes or models I brought home came close to duplicating the older units picture quality.

The Toshiba W-607 was purchased to replace a 5-year-old Toshiba model M-660, an excellent machine that I used as my criteria when judging all other VCRs. Although the picture quality of taped programming, including digital cable, falls short of the M-660, it comes quite close. Overall I am pleased with the W-607's performance and features. It's mechanical functions are smooth and quiet. All of the new Toshiba's offer the one minute rewind capability with T-120 tapes. Although this feature may seem convenient, it is a generally known fact that the fastest way to damage the VCRs mechanism, is to rewind tapes in the VCR. It is far better to invest in a separate tape rewinder for $10 or $15.

Programming and set up is straightforward. The addition of auto channel scan and automatic clock setting, are probably the greatest improvements in new VCR technology.

The 607 lacks the "index" feature available on the older unit. This feature placed an electronic "tag" or "flag" on the tape to indicate and allowed easy return to a chosen location on the recording or the start of a recording and remained on the tape until it was taped over. The 607 does have a "counter reset" that allows the user to rewind or fast forward to that zero point. This can only be used once during recording and leaves no electronic "tag", meaning that once the tape is removed, the zero point is lost. My other complaint is that whenever a tape is inserted and viewed, the on-screen display automatically shows the counter setting, speed etc. this information can be removed by pressing the remote's display button. I must say that this feature is useful when flipping through channels in that it displays the program title and channel being viewed.

The newer remote has larger main function buttons for play, pause, rewind etc. but retains the record and timer buttons of the older remote, which I feel have always been too small for easy activation.

Despite the fact that I have pointed out a number of negative features of Toshiba's Model W-607, my primary concern for high quality recording/playback, ranks this VCR number 1 among all the "newer" units I have tried. Taking into consideration that the W-607's price is approximately one-third the price of a unit purchased five years ago, I guess a few concessions must be made.

This is a great product ! Definately value for money. The picture and sound quality are very satisfying. In all very satisfied costomer.

If you are just looking to improve your graphics a bit over integrated video then this card is pretty good. It will play most new games that don't have a maximum 3d demand. I will say that its 2d scores blew away a lot of higher dollar cards. Overclocking really doesn't enhance performance that much and in some cases actually degrades it. Installation is fairly easy, although I highly recommend that if you have difficulty due to onboard video that you boot into VGA mode in xp and check your irq settings. Lots of good troubleshooting info on the web. All in all a good card for the money and much better than the comparable prices gForce chip.

I upgraded from an ATI Radeon 7000 64MB to this one. I must say that the graphics processor does a very nice job. Everything in my layouts, digital photography, and games, seem to come alive. The only drawback that I can find with this card is that it doesn't overclock very well. ATI and Sapphire Technologies are the best AGP manufacturers out there. Forget the nVidia nForce. Ive had one of those also, and can truly say that the graphics are not as good as this card. I recommend this card to anyone that does not intend to overclock or play serious games that call for overclocking. And last, but not least, buy it@amazon for the best price and service.
Ps also they have here with 256 Mb edition for $30 more

I have been waiting for about 2 years now to get a video card, I was planning to buy a 32MB or a 64MB, but little did I expect that I would buy a 128MB, such one as good as this video card.

I am a big Star Wars fan and I play Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy as well as BioWare's Knights of the Old Republic and I must say, the video and graphics quality are TOP NOTCH! I was astounded because I was finally able to upgrade from my old nVIDIA 16MB video chipset to a VisionTek Xtasy ATI Radeon 9200 SE 128MB video chipset and the graphics that it was processing.

I am very pleased with my new piece of hardware and am very happy. If you are looking for a video card and don't want to spend a whole lot on one, I suggest this one!