I had two Siemens (Grundig license) machines in a row and both died rather quickly (though the second one probably had the head fried by a bad tape) and never came up to my expectations. Now I have an Ingelen 20VR22 (Philips VR 2022 license, Austrian made) and it's built like a tank! The picture was much smoother right from the beginning.
I also have a Sony three-format (NTSC, PAL, SECAM) Betamax machine, probably with mechanical failure. Switching it on just results in a high-pitched howl of a motor starting up and idling without any load.
