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Brand new DVD's would not play all the way through on the first viewing. I thought it was poor quality rentals so I started buying my own DVD's. Spend the extra money and buy a better product, this is a waste of money. This is one of the worst purchases I have ever made. From day one DVD's froze and skipped.
I'm glad I didn't listen to most of the reviews here. But that's not the important thing. It got so bad, in fact, that we needed to buy a new DVD player because the Panasonic would only recognize ANY DVD about 25% of the time.Enter the Samsung DVD-V3650. It made sense to get one unit.
I like that I can record and watch a DVD at the same time. I digress. I like the fact that it has digital audio out jacks (optical and component). Easy set up, yet pretty thorough.We are very happy with this Samsung. When I record a show, I like that I have a 30 second FFW button. If you are just a normal person who isn't expecting to get a $600 Combo Unit for this price, you'll love it.I purchased a Panasonic Home Theatre system 3 years ago and have had nothing but problems with it.
We thought our TV was giving us "Wavy refresh rate things" going up and down our screen, but found with the new Samsung DVD-V3650 we no longer had them. My first with this company. We had an old Phillips/Mag VCR which had its nasty quirks, too. I don't care much for the Samsung DVD-V3650's color.
Big dissapointment for a Samsung product. It is a very quirky unit though. When using the progressive DVD output you are only able to program or view the VCR menu from the DVD component output even though the VCR is only output on composite or RF modulated outputs. I am disappointed in the unit. Had counted on it playing back VCD's so now it is only good for a guest bedroom. It will not even recognize any VCD's at all. It was advertised to have VCD playback ability. I give it 2 stars only because the progressive component output is a feature I was after too.
When the remote is in the VCR mode, the mute button becomes the VCR audio input select button. At first, I liked the unit overall; I'm fine with the remote; the buttons aren't too small for me, and I have big hands. Its a totally lame implementation of what should be a standard feature.Other minor quibbles; two vertical ribs on the VCR tape door that are apparently for aesthetics make it HARDER to insert a tape correctly. So this unit went in, and the VCR I was using went to the bedroom.
The VCR picture with pre-recorded tapes is OK. THAT is something that should be in a menu.Also, not a problem for me, but could be for many purchasers are the very limited number of TV brands controllable via the remote, far fewer than most other multibrand remotes I've seen. It would be a good idea to download the manual from the Samsung site to make sure your TV is listed before purchasing if you want to use this feature.More significantly, I've recently discovered the VCR seems to be abnormally sensitive to anti-copy schemes; tapes I made from a DVD on another VCR using a Sima video stabilizer that play perfectly on that and every other VCR I own, have horizontal purple stripes on the Samsung. All in all, if it played copied tapes properly, I'd be willing to put up with its other weaknesses. It took me a while to make up my mind about this unit. In general, I've had good luck with Samsung products (printer, cell phone) so I thought I'd give the DVD-3650 a try. I like the access to manual tracking adjustment on the remote. Plus, it only searches at about 8x playback speed, so it's not much faster than just using scan during playback and searching manually.
When you finally do get to it via the menu, it is only available as introscan fwd or rev; you can't set it to search, for example, two indexes forward and start playing. Since I use the VCR tuner for watching TV on a regular basis, this is a pain; I have to switch the remote back to TV function, press mute; press it again when the commercial is over, then press VCR again if I want to channel surf. But as it is, even though I'm now stuck with it (didn't discover that problem until after Amazon's return time limit expired), I regret this purchase. Ever. And I haven't had any functional problems with it (over 3 months).But little things bug me. And how often does the average person want to switch the audio input on a VCR anyway.
I wanted to add DVD capability to my family room system, but didn't want to add another box. Not a big deal for an adult, perhaps, but a major frustration for a 4 year old, and there is NO good reason for them to be there. On the Samsung, you have to go deep into the menus to get to index search, instead of it being directly on the remote. The picture on the DVD is as good as necessary for a 30" TV. I use VHS index search a lot, since I make compilations of several kids films on one tape to reduce bulk on trips.
I think. Also, the audio flutctuates in volume from word to word. Also seems to be a short of some kind in the "video in" connection in the vcr (no, it ain't my cable, i checked)because moving the unit no matter how slightly can go from signal to no signal and back again.I put one star because there is no minus star rating.Samsung does answer thier phones after the usual voicemail jail, and two customer service reps told me it sounded like I had a defective unit, then passed me over to a tech who tried to convince me there was no problem, blaming it on my other vcr's (they play other tapes fine, including prerecorded, why not from this vcr ).to my cable connection (hmm, works fine with my other vcr's and tvs)to everything he could possibly think of and then finally admitted he couldn't figure out what was wrong.The only bright spot in this whole experience is Amazon's return policy. tuner works fine, but will not pass through a useable signal to tv when the unit is on (ie, recording one show on vcr tuner, watching another on tv), though the signal is fine if the unit is turned off. First time I've used it. Really nasty, noisy and unwatchable. Some sort of interferance, I guess. Can't play tapes taped on this unit on other vcr's (two high end Hitachi's)even though they play prerecorded video fine - well, ok, the tapes will play but the picture is very bad with a line of sparkles six inches wide through it, and you have to double the sound volume from normal tv listening to hear it, and then it hisses.
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