Sony's Sapphire Tape Cleaner. Crappy?
 

I was shopping around for a new vcr recently and Sony has this bizarre feature called Sapphire Tape Cleaner. It claims to protect the video heads from abrasion from dirty tapes.

However, since this feature cannot be turned off (I think), the poor tape is subjected to more wear than normal. I cannot speak for you guys, but personally I value my tapes more than my vcr.

However, the R2 thingy seems interesting, provided it's not just another sharpness control with a fancy name. Anyway, the tape cleaning mechanism is a real turn off for me. I went for a Panasonic in the end.