These VTRs are 1990s vintage, and were the best industrial S-VHS editors at the time, in my opinion (having done side-by-side comparisons with all the models available, at the time, from JVC and Panasonic, comparing signal quality and speed of operation).
Having said that, there were some really stupid design flaws built into these machines by Panasonic, who really ought to have known better. I've had to put up with them for many years, and I'm quite pissed off about them:
They have built-in time base correctors, it wasn't an optional feature. As far as I'm aware, at least in Australia, they were never sold without the boards installed. So any TBC-less machines going second hand, have been gutted for parts. I do not know if they'll work properly without it (such as editing correctly), though I have tested that it can play without one installed.
The TBC compensates for mechanical playback errors, to some degree (minor tape speed irregularities, the surface of the tape bumping away from the heads microscopically, picture wriggles from bad syncs, and the video head switching just before the vertical sync period). Compensates for video signal dropouts (though see the modifications page to make this work properly). Should compensate for the colour signal being one-line behind the luminance signal (this is a VHS/S-VHS design flaw, in general, that looks hideous with each additional generation of edited video, as the colour signal moves further down the screen, and is no-longer on top of the luminance signal). And provides an adjustable proc-amp that lets you correct playback pedestal level, video gain, chroma gain, and chroma phase errors (though due to a stupid design flaw, changes the burst phasing, instead of the chroma phasing of the picture period of the signal, making it impossible to properly correct the chroma phase when running the output of the machine into any mixer that re-inserts house-sync).
The may have an optional timecode reader/generator installed, it handles VITC and LTC. You can tell if it's installed by viewing the front-panel-display, or on-screen-display, and flicking the front-panel counter switch between showing control track count, timecode, or user-bits. The display will only change away from showing control track frame counts if there's a timecode board installed. If you can't see a user-bits display, it's not installed. Alternatively, take off the top lid, and look for a circuit board mounted directly above the cooling fan, between the fan and the lid. That's where it's installed.
To be able to set the timecode to a preset value (it's one of the menu options), one of the timecode switches in the panel below the search dial needs putting on “preset.” Likewise, for being able to set user-bits. Now, when you go into the timecode or user-bits set-up menus (as below), you spin the jog dial to select which digit you want to change, then keep your finger on the stop button while you change that digit with the jog wheel, or press the reset key to zero all digits, and press the search key when finished. If you wanted to set user-bits and timecode, you'll have to go back into the menu for the other one. Once you've started recording timecode with your preset value, you can flip the preset/regen switch back to regen, and the machine will sensibly handle resuming timecode, with the logically consecutive values, as you stop, start, search back and forth, and go into recording/editing modes. With one exception—if you rewind back too far, the results are unpredictable. So, the simple solution for striping a tape with unbroken timecode, is to preset the counter, do your first recording test for a few seconds, play it back (to check the tape is threaded properly and recording well), then resume striping your tapes after a few seconds of pre-roll. Don't rewind to the start of the tape, and try striping your tape from the start, it may overwrite timecode with the same numbers, or start resuming at a higher count (from when it previously stopped writing timecode). Simply live with the fact of having a manual assemble a few seconds after the start of the tape, during your lead-in.
For mastering, I suggest that the first two or three minutes of tape is used as lead-in. It's the worst part of the tape for dropouts, and getting chewed. It's up to you as to whether you preset the counter for some timecode value before zero, and have it lead up to zero for your program start timecode. Or, if you zero at the start of the tape, and have your program start at two or three minutes in, on the timecode. But note that some automation systems, and editors, just cannot sensibly handle timecode when the machine rolls back past zero. Some people use 10 hours as their start time, so they can have an apparently before zero pre-roll, start on a zero-like figure, so they can easily work out timecodes in their head, and never have the negative midnight problems of rolling backwards past zero.
You can read the running hour meters from the front-panel-display, or the on-screen-display, by flicking the local/remote switch to “remote,” the search/menu switch to “menu,” and holding your finger down on the counter “reset” button. The display will toggle between showing the head drum rotation hour meter, and the capstan rotation hour meter, every couple of seconds. NB: The head meter will show how many hours the head has span, but not necessarily how long it's span with tape pressed against it (paused or playing), depending on how the user set the ready-off mode to work (tape unthreaded and motor off; tape threaded, but tension released, and motor off; or tape threaded, but tension released, and motor running).
Anything above 1000 hours should only be bought cheaply, as the heads may be very worn, and the machine is very old. Whether it'll survive thousands of hours well, or badly, really depends on how the machine was treated (tape quality, being cleaning, being cleaned gently or roughly, coming from a smoke-free environment). The ability to replay the FM Hi-Fi sound tracks, at all, will diminish with worn out heads, and how well it records video.
Most of the menu functions are self-explanatory, once you've worked out how to access the menu: Put the local/remote switch on “local,” put the search/menu switch on “menu,” then press the “ready” (menu) key. Now the menus are displayed on the front-panel-display, as numerical codes, and the on-screen-display in human readable language, on the video monitor output socket. Now the search wheel (in “jog” mode) is used to step between menu items; and you can change their settings by holding down the “stop” (data) key, when on the item you want to alter, spinning the jog wheel to change its value, and letting go of the stop key when done. The “rewind” and “fast-forward” keys allow you to rapidly jump through the menu pages. And press the “search” (set) key when finished.
The machines have FM Hi-Fi sound tracks recorded along with the video tracks, as well as two traditional linear tracks along the edge of the tape. The Hi-Fi sound tracks do have vastly better sound quality, but cannot be edited separately from the video. Bad quality tapes may not manage to play HiFi tracks very well, or at all. You may hear frame buzz sound effects, if it cannot track well, or complete drop-outs.
Do not mix playback of linear and HiFi tracks together, unless the tape was deliberately mastered to be played that way (such as three- or four-track masters, with different audio on each channel). Most edit-master tapes have the sound track recorded on only the linear tracks, as they're the only ones that can be worked with independently—their HiFi tracks tend to have random audio on them (random content and signal levels). Most playback tapes have the same audio recorded on the HiFi tracks as on the linear tracks, and mixing those tracks together causes strange phasing errors.
All the audio inputs have really horrible handling of over-driven input levels, with a very nasty distortion about 10 dB above zero. The audio limiter on the linear tracks may protect you from that, but you'll get nasty compression effects if you rely on the limiter to protect you from bad audio mixing. Get yourself a decent mixer with good meters, and learn how to use them properly. Trying to make everything pin the meter to the zero VU point, as many amateurs try to do, is just heading for disaster. Only heavily pre-compressed audio should do that, uncompressed sound should be always below zero.