Those old consumer VHS VCRs breaking was a good thing. It would have been a mistake to use those. 99% of combo decks are garbage, and old VCRs have horrid stability and image quality. Panasonic decks are mostly good at tracking. But if you have SP only tapes, which most PAL users ...
After successfully playing a video, I try to rewind, which doesn't seem to complete, and I can't eject the cassette. Even the power switch just toggles between two modes, but not 'on' and 'off', then when I press and hold 'eject', there is some rewinding sound for a few seconds...