Deeply disappointing

Author's Rating:

Pros: Flying erase head, S-VHS

Cons: no insert edit on remote, wavy picture, tapes chewed, bad with power flickers and outages

The Bottom Line: 
I am looking for another brand with flying erase head.

Author's Review
I bought the HR-S5902U. For the flying erase head feature and used it to record on regular VHS tapes in SP mode. I did not use quasi S-VHS.

I have a slew of complaints. First, the remote does not have an insert edit button, so to use the flying erase head the VCR must be within reach.

Everything recorded on the HR-S5902U had slight waves on top of the picture when played back. The waves did not appear when monitoring another VCR's playback through the HR-S5902U, or when playing tapes on the HR-S5902U recorded on other VCRs.

Tapes get chewed up in rewind search mode, sometime only after a few seconds. This is common in many VCRs, in fact the only brands I've owned that didn't chew up tapes in rewind search were made in Japan Panasonics and an old Magnavox that responds to Panasonic remotes (no coincidence?).

Every time there is even a very brief power outage or flicker, the HR-S5902U lost all the settings including the clock. All my other VCRs retained their information during brief outages.

The reason I am writing in the past tense is there was a power outage last week. This one lasted a few minutes. All of the three other VCRs connected to the same surge protector power strip as the HR-S5902U came back on (although the outage was long enough they needed to be reset). The HR-S5902U remained dead when the power returned, nothing on the display. I took it to a JVC authorized service center. Damage due to power surges are not covered the warranty. Repair would be $200 .