Sweet, Funny and Tender

Advantages: Fanatastic script, excellent cast, the soundtrack
Disadvantages: Hard to track down, might be a little too whimsical for some

...of the children and to stay on their side rather than the adults? is particularly appealing and the children?s performances are all very believable even if the story is almost whimsical in places. The film also features class snobbery ? this is done particularly well in a scene featuring a dinner party being hosted by Daniel?s parents. Lastly, the location filming is wonderful ? it was filmed in Lambeth, Hammersmith and the West End ? and it?s interesting to see how much things have changed since the film was made. ?Melody? is a hard film to track down on DVD ? it is currently only available on VHS in the UK but a DVD release is planned in the US in November 2009 so hopefully it will receive a UK release soon. It is also available from Amazon Japan on DVD. It does turn up on YouTube however, such is its cult following. If you remain young...

rosebud2001 01.10.2009 · Read review
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Review of Melody (VHS)

  VHS on a budget

Advantages: Nice quality at a low price
Disadvantages: Lacking some bells and whistles

.... How easy you find getting it to work with your telly depends, of course, on the telly in question. However, the video itself was easy to install. It automatically tunes in the normal TV channels in the right slots (1 = BBC1, 3 = ITV, etc?), and it was easy to make it recognise a digital Freeview box too. It seemed to me to receive channels very clearly and not mind my using a tiddly little set-top aerial, giving clear pictures on my local channels and finding several far-off channels too. A serious plus point was that it helpfully set its own clock too! PLAYING TAPES I was very impressed by the quality of playback. From a pre-recorded BBC video tape, the colours seemed good and steady, and the picture was sharp and as good as I would have expected from VHS. Stereo playback was excellent, with clear sound. Certainly, I?m noticing...

AlexWales 21.03.2003 (27.03.2003) · Read review
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Review of LG LV710

Makes DVD Look Like VHS

Advantages: Fantastic Image and Sound Quality, Great Price Point
Disadvantages: No HDMI Cable Included But Otherwise Nothing

...high price HDMI cables and a HDMI cable is digital and there for only transmits 1 and 0s unlike analogue equipment and cables which are effected by oxygen in the cable and other factors such as the copper. As long as the HDMI is of good build quality and will fall apart they will all produce the same image quality regardless. In conclusion this is a fantastic player which also looks great under any television system due to it fantastic small size and brilliant glass style display on the front of the unit. The start up time is brilliant and only takes me on average 10 seconds from putting the disk in till it actually playing which is phenomenal compared to other players on the market. The image quality is amazing and makes DVD look like VHS in comparison. I would highly recommend this to anyone interested in improving their home cinema...

lukeshaw 17.06.2009 · Read review
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Review of Sony BDP-S350

Bringing the worlds of VHS and DVD together...

Advantages: Loads of extra features, nice design
Disadvantages: Bit bulky

...When I took this out of the box, I instantly took note of the design, the black colouring looks quite good and the front panel isn't took complicated. It looks like something like a cross between an old fashioned video player and a modern DVD player, but the effect has been pulled off well and it is not unsightly. The only discontentment I had with it was how bulky it was, but then I supposed with all the features it has, including a VHS slot, this is unavoidable. This was very easy to set up but you have to make sure that you have connected the aerial lead first or it doesn't work, it took me quite a while to figure that out, so I have just saved you some time. As well as being a DVD player, it can also play VHS and also has some pretty cool features. It can convert VHS tapes to DVD (this is the main reason I bought it, I have...

anakha6 08.12.2008 · Read review
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Review of Toshiba RD-XV48DT

Laptop the size of a VHS cassette

Advantages: Small, cheap, small, fanclub, small, upgradeable. Oh and its very small
Disadvantages: Slow and old, 2nd hand only, reliability a factor with age

...The Toshiba Libretto is a fantastic mini laptop from the late 90s. The word 'Libretto' come from Italian and translates directly as 'small book'. The Libretto is about the size of a VHS video cassette, this very small size makes working on a plane actually possible even in 'economy' class! HISTORY There are many models of Libretto, most not officially imported by Toshiba into the UK. I believe the first was the 1995 20CT which had an old 486 processor, the 30CT followed in 1996, but the first one to come to the UK was the 50CT in 1997. It featured a Pentium 75 MHz processor and 16Mb of RAM (Oooh I hear you say. NOT). I owned one of these for a while, during which time I skipped the 70CT (P120MMX) model, finally upgrading to the one I have now, the 100CT (P166MMX). The 110CT (233MMX) was the last one to be officially imported to...

peteshone 03.07.2005 (05.12.2005) · Read review
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Review of Toshiba Libretto Series

Super-VHS for a super picture

Advantages: Much better picture
Disadvantages: Higher initial and tape costs

...S-VHS is a system for enhancing the properties of the humble VHS tape. You might think that you have a 625 line TV, but in reality, you only get to see about 480 of them - the rest being used for other things like teletext. If you think that's bad, when playing a VHS tape, you’ll be lucky to see more than 280 visible lines! Somehow your eye can forgive a picture a lack of sharpness, as long as it's illuminated. S-VHS improves on the basic VHS to come up with about 400 lines, a considerable improvement, and not TOO far from the maximum viewable lines. Certainly a shortfall that the eye will more easily forgive. It therefore follows that S-VHS VCRs carry a price premium, both in the initial hardware and the price of the tapes. The JVC HR-S8700 gets round the second problem by allowing the use of ordinary tapes...

BNibbles 14.02.2001 (29.03.2001) · Read review
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Review of JVC HR-S8700EK

Surprisingly good VHS recorder

Advantages: simple, cheap, durable, 6 heads
Disadvantages: none at this price

...Who has video recorders these days? Well some of us still do for various reasons, one of which being to transfer video to DVD and i use this model. I bought it several years ago because it was cheap. and because i didn't want to spend a lot of money on technology that was rapidly going out of date. and i have been pleasantly surprised. i didn't expect a lot from it but it's recording and playback quality is surprisingly good. My previous model was a much more expensive Sony VHS that had 4 heads. This one has 6 (despite what the product information says. Definitely 6. It has 1 scart on the back and standard AV in/out on the front and i can use either of these to connect to either a DV camcorder or DVD recorder, thereby transferring old VHS recordings to Digital media DVD's for straight transfer and Camcorder for later transferring...

GriffMedia 09.02.2008 · Read review
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Review of Daewoo ST862P

quality VHS

Advantages: small
Disadvantages: remote

...I was looking for a reasonable quality VHS recorder, so that the kids could wach their existing videos, and for us to record TV. Lets face it, with the cost of DVD players and all their benefits you are not buying a VHS as your only method of watching new films any more. Instead, you will be buying your last VHS player to watch existing media as it gradually deteriorates and to record your favourite TV shows to watch later. The JVC does exactly what is required. One of the selling points of the JVC is its B.E.S.T. system for improving the quality of recording and playback. This process takes 7 seconds before recording or playback, but does give a good quality picture. Given a compatable TV, the remote control can also be used for basic TV functions. The fast forward and rewind functions can be used with the On Screen...

jan-y2k4 08.11.2004 · Read review
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Review of JVC HRV 605

DVD RECORDING COMPARED TO VHS!!!

Advantages: See Review
Disadvantages: See Review

...Background: Like any other new product on the market, it takes time for the price to drop to an affordable rate which will draw in the customers. With the high rate of development and technology advancement in this category, DVD recorders have almost halved in price in just the space of a year. More and more companies are entering the market to make and distribute this type of product in order to capitalise on a potential gold mine, more competition equals a drop in price as companies reluctantly fight it out between each other. It?s no surprise in this new and fresh segment of the market that we find possibly the most respectable and trustworthy brand names in electronic hardware ?Philips? trying to lead the way over other leading brand names such as Toshiba and Sony. Product Comparison to VHS: A DVD Recorder is the convenient...

mcarocks2004 21.03.2004 · Read review
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Review of Philips DVDR70

First Beta-max, then VHS now DVD recorders... whatever next?

Advantages: user friendly, multiple functions, great picture and sound quality plus much more
Disadvantages: No hard drive built in so do stock up on recordable DVDs

...With technology racing along with the speed of a three legged donkey with piles it won?t be long before the humble ?VHS Video Cassette recorder? will become as obsolete as Beta-max, taking its place in the history books. So, with a quick and easy replacement needed, the boffins soon realised that the next stage to recording your favourite programmes, (apart from these really modern ?Hard drive? systems from sky and the like), is to use a DVD recorder. Anyway, a few years back I decided to join the anti-VCR revolution and went on the hunt for one of those modern, (at the time), DVD recorders which would be simple to use for a simple soul like myself. Unfortunately, during my hunt through the concrete jungle which is the high street I came across a several different types of DVD recorders which promised to do exactly what I needed...

blissman70 27.08.2009 · Read review
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Review of Panasonic DMRES10