Samsung DVD-V9700 Tunerless 1080i Upconverting DVD VHS Combo Player

This combination DVD/VCR that I purchased was just as I expected. It was very easy to install onto my TV. I am not a lady who installs all things and I had no problem hooking it to my TV and it is working great and was a super deal on Amazon.

Re Samsung DVD V9700/XAA DVD/VCR combo, purchased 2008 Feb., $99, at Circuit City:
We usually played DVDs and only rarely played VHS cassettes on this unit. After only six months it ate a tape. More precisely, suddenly the VHS cassette won't play, rewind, ff, or eject. At power on, it says "HI", and then the door partly opens and closes, then it says "L2". When I push eject, sometimes it tries to eject, and some of those times the door opens partly and closes again. I unplugged and waited but the processor did not reset. Samsung Technical Support representative said "It appears that something else inside the player is malfunctioning. Unfortunately this is not an issue to be resolved via Live Chat. The DVD player needs to be examined by a professional service technician to get it serviced to fix the issue." The thing is out of warranty for labor, and a VCR repairman told me it's at least $40 to get the cassette out and about $80 to repair - not worth it. So buy some other unit!

In August 2007, our old DVD/VCR combo quit about the same time I bought an HDTV. I looked into upconverting players and discovered this one. The first player would not work on the HDMI cable (deduct one star). The regular VHS output and component outputs worked fine. I called Amazon who immediately shipped another player. This player has worked great ever since then.

The upconverter with an HDMI cable is a noticeable improvement over the regular DVD player with component cables. I definitely recommend this player to anyone with a high-def TV.

James

I have a Samsung 1080 HDTV. I bought this player because I thought I could use the same remote and an HDMI cable to merge the movie-watching experience. Unfortunately, the DVD player does not support HDMI in DD 5.1. This means that in order to get sound with HDMI video and DD, you have to have an optical output to a DD receiver/speaker system. Even at that point, the HDMI sound will only play from the DVD player to DD speakers. Also, the DVD/VCR conversion is not the best on the TV because the VCR can't play on the HDMI channel and has to have the feed through the AVI cables on a different source channel. This means that you have to use the TV remote, switch the source and audio, then go to the DVD/VCR remote, switch to VCR on that remote and use it to play. Forget consolidating remotes. Better yet, if you've got a Samsung TV, the two remotes look the same with similar buttons that have very different functions. Overall, the HDMI video signal is good. It has some trouble playing movies with poor quality and movies with light scratching (such as Blockbuster/Netflix rentals), but I guess that is the trade-off for a better signal from an upconvert.

I don't understand the issues you're all having with this combo unit. It works perfectly for me. Records DVDs from VHS, from Cable and from TiVo HD. Plays DVDs, CDs, Mp3s and VHS. With an HDTV, a TiVo-HD and a Surround-Sound Receiver hook-up was FAR from simple. But when I untied myself, everything works great. A quick note to the reviewer who could not record: make sure you "finish" the DVD if you want to watch it on any other player. I guess if I had to complain, it's just that the on-screen interface is just plain ugly and non-intuitive; especially when playing a music CD.