Video Editing Equipment Review: Mitsubishi HS-U795 S-VHS VCR (page 2)

Advanced Editing

You can use audio dub to lay music over your footage to make a music video, or to add narration. To add music, just cable the RCA audio outputs of your boom box to the audio inputs on the VCR. Adding narration is a bit more involved. Because the HS-U795 doesn't have a microphone input, you ll need to record your narration to your camcorder and then dub the audio from there, or use an audio mixer.
We pressed Play on the CD player and Audio Dub on the recorder and we were dubbing audio. We were disappointed to find that the deck has no manual audio level controls and no meters. This forced us to adjust all of our audio levels at the source end, and left us guessing as to whether our levels were too hot, too cold or just right.
We were excited to find video insert capabilities on this VCR. Video insert works much the same as the audio insert, only instead of recording audio, it inserts video over your original footage leaving your sound track untouched. This is a great feature to help cover up shaky or out of focus shots, and jump cuts. In our tests both the audio and video dub functions worked well.

Final Credits

The HS-U795 is an affordable S-VHS editing VCR that serves multiple purposes. You can perform linear edits. You can create both audio and video inserts over existing footage and you can use it as a dubbing solution for Mini DV, Hi8 or 8mm to S-VHS or VHS tapes, or use it to record the output of your computer-based editor. At this time in history, the best use for a VCR of this type may be to splice together a series of segments that are too large to store on your computer's hard drive.
If you're looking for a simple, no hassle linear editing solution, the Mitsubishi HS-U795 could be exactly what you ve been waiting for.

TECH SPECS

Format: S-VHS
Video Inputs: composite x2, S-video x2, RF
Video Outputs: composite, S-video, RF
Audio Inputs: RCA x2
Audio Outputs: RCA x2
Edit Control Protocol: proprietary A/V
network
Other Features: preroll, audio & video insert, edit search, jog shuttle
Dimensions: 3-5/8 (Height) x 16-3/4 (Width) x 12-1/4 (Depth) inches
Weight: 9.3 pounds (approx)

STRENGTHS

• audio & video insert
• jog shuttle
• accurate pause editing

WEAKNESSES

• no mike jack
• no audio monitor

SUMMARY

• The HS-U795 has a few editing features, but is better suited for the home entertainment system than the edit bay.

Mitsubishi
9351 Jeronimo Rd.
Irvine, CA 92618-1904
(800)-332-2119
$449
www.mitsubishi.com