Peter, thats worth knowing, wont bother to fix the thing. Will try to get a Hi8 player or cheap Hi8 secondhand camcorder from CashConverters or similar, where I can try it out.
You also say
>There was a modification for colour shift on this 1990 model, but it wouldn't be worth applying the mod
How does one apply this mod, where is it, a switch ?
Vanhosen, more to learn, this is never ending, thanks for the gen.
I now also wonder, though this is a vcr topic about to spout forth here

,...I am taking vhs and s-vhs footage via s-video and stereo audio onto my Panny EH50 dvd/hdd and using the hdd for initial recording in LP mode. Should I be using an external timebase corrector for this, images seem fine enough, or have the nice Panny peeps foreseen us users doing this and included an internal one. I set the JVC S-VHS vcr (a HR-S6800EK) to tape Dub mode, does that select the tbc ?
Furthermore I have Betamax to transfer, bought a Toshiba V31, now wonder if thats ok for tbc, if panny has tbc internal, then all is well ...?
Merlin