Anyone ever tried connective VHS player?

[Cantisque]

I was thinking of backing up some video tapes and wondered if I could use my HDPVR for it.
At the moment I don't have a working tape player though, so I thought I'd ask if anyone else has had any luck doing this before I went and bought a new one.
I don't know much about VHS players, except that I remember my old one didn't play nice with tapes from America. Anyone found one that plays any tape?

[falcon2081]

Am pretty sure they didn't play nice because of the signal conversions. NTSC 60hz and PAL 50hz. Unlike today's electronics which support both signal formats. Let me know how it goes as am interested in backing up some old VHS tapes as well.

[binchie]

Heyup. The later video recorders played both formats, both NTSC and PAL. This only is a problem if you have NTSC (US) tapes. I have tried it and it works. I used a compositite lead to the front of the HD PVR.
Don't do a 'school boy error' like me and forget to change the recording inputs on TME. While I changed the video signal to the front, I forgot to change the sound and it took me 10 mins of head scratching to figure this out.
Only thing extra I needed was a scart lead to composite. Note that these can come in mono directional signal, so our of the video via scart, into HD PVR with composite.
That is if you VHS player doesn't support component or S video in.

[Cantisque]

Would I be right in guessing that ones that play both PAL and NTSC vids with component output are going to be uber expensive?
I think I already have a two-way SCART to composite adapter, so that's a good start . To be honest I wouldnt know where to buy a VHS player now and what prices to expect.

[falcon2081]

You can still find them around. Ebay is your best bet though.

[Cantisque]

I picked one up on eBay for around £40 that plays both PAL and NTSC tapes and it works great!
Only issue I've found is that if you play with FF/RW, it can cause the PVR to stop working properly and requires it to be turned off and on again to return to normal, but besides that the recordings came out top notch!