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I'm thinking I would like a DVR so I could record onto DVDs instead of tapes, but the cost might be prohibitive for me. I was advised by Best Buy that I could bring it in to their Geek Squad for diagnosis and repair, but I think that might cost more than simply buying a new unit. I bought a new head cleaner tape and that too made no difference.
Unlike most of the reviews I've read here, I have no trouble playing DVDs. I called Samsung and the tech told me disconnect the machine and re-install it as if it were new. I have had my Samsung V3500 since Christmas 2005 and have never had any problems playing DVDs or VHS tapes, and the remote works fine for me with no inconvenience whatsoever.
I did but it made no difference in the VCR playback at all. I'm just so mad that after just 2-1/2 years the machine I loved so much has suddenly started acting up. I've never had that feature freeze up on me, and the sound quality has always been good both with DVDs and VHS tapes.
Recently, however, seemingly overnight, the VCR playback has been terrible - double images, rolling picture, distortion at the top of the screen, buzzing audio - terribly frustrating, since I do alot of recording of TV shows for viewing later.
I have discs that will play with minimal on-screen visible artifacts on other DVD players which cause the V3500 to hang-up so tightly that I've had to unplug the power cord to get it to come back to life. Maybe newer Samsung combo models are better. I bought this assuming that the DVD guts of all players would be pretty much the same, and wanted the convenience of having VCR and DVD in one component. You cannot use fast-forward or search to skip over these bad spots and if you fail to stop play back at the first sign of trouble the unit locks up so that all remote functions are inoperative and you need to cycle power -- using the power switch, or pulling the power cord in some cases. I am not happy with this one. I also assumed I could make video copies of DVDs, which seems like a pretty basic feature to have in a combo-unit --- but failed to check that the V3500 had this feature prior to my purchase (it does not). The DVD player is EXTREMELY poor at playing discs with any kind of defect or smudge marks, and when it hits a bad spot then you can forget it.
Do not buy it, it died soon after I bought it, gets stuck in loading, not worth at all
We started having problems about 6 months after we bought it, but thought it was because of scratched rental movies. I have to bounce the remote signal off the wall to get it to work. We will be replacing very soon. My husband and I have an older version of this combo, and the DVD problems have been getting progressively worse until now it hardly will play DVDs at all. My husband is ready to run over it in the driveway.
And that was absolutely true. Annoyance isn't the word. I had no problems whatsoever.
Ah well, I thought, I got at least two years out of it. Suffice to say that I will NEVER purchase another Samsung DVD product and I too am sorry that I didn't read reviews before I made the second purchase. Shortly thereafter however, the combo unit in my bedroom began encountering the same issues.
A few years ago I purchased an earlier model Samsung DVD/VCR combo unit. And the amazing thing was that the unit continued to play CDs. It won't happen again.
So, when I contemplated purchasing another unit for my bedroom, I decided to go with Samsung again because I figured that I wouldn't have a learning curve. However, all of a sudden, the older unit started acting up, with the skipping, loading, stalling problems.
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