Customer Reviews

Magnavox MRV700R DVD Player/Recorder and VCR Combo

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

Hi! I am reading these reviews and laughing at how frustrated everyone is. READ the manual, yes. PUSH a button, yes. This deck has been a god-sent for me as I am transferring all of my undergraduate work to digital media. The extra fun features are neat if you're a couch potato. Initial setup was nothing at all, Pro Scan automatically scanned every catv channel and pretty much did everything on its own. If you KNOW what you WANT, the challenges of learning new electronics give great benefits. :-)

xx~

I found the setup to be the most difficult part of the entire process. Playing DVD's was easy.

This is the SECOND time I'm packing this thing back up to return in the last 30 days. When we initally bought this, we came home & after about 2 hours of trying to figure out the hookup and installation, I contacted Magnaxox only to find out I had a "defective" player. The VHS wasn't working (I could hear sound, but picture was only black & white wavy lines) and the DVD would not play at all (No disc message). It also made a very loud noise when a DVD was inserted. SO... we drive back down to the store we purchased it, which is 45 minutes away (we live in a rural area), and exchanged it for another one. I get home, hook it up (quicker this time), try a VHS tape. It was working, so I was optimistic...tried the DVD player... YES, it works. I was very relieved and put away the box and paperwork, feeling very happy that it was just a defective player the first time. Well.... that feeling was pretty short lived. Three weeks after use, I went to put a DVD in & started getting the message "No Disc". Uh-oh... I tried several others, just in case it was the DVD. Nope-same message. I put a VHS tape in to see if that was working alright. It began playing but within 3-4 minutes, it stopped. When I tried to eject the tape, it would not eject. When I tried to open the DVD player to remove the DVD, it would not open. Oh joy.. I unplugged it, and was going to try again, but at that point the player would not even turn on. At all. So... I unplugged it for the evening with intentions of returning it immediately. My husband plugged it in the next day and it came on & he was able to remove our movies (thankfully). The DVD is still not working, the VHS works but now there is this mysterious "snow" on the television whenever we turn this on. Hmmmm..... I believe this player is a dud. I am returning it this weekend and am buying another brand. This DVD/VCR Recorder combo has created a good deal of stress for me and probably raised my blood pressure as well:) Seriously though, I would not recommend this one. I would give it zero stars, if that were an option :)

Simply put, this DVD/VCR combo is very difficult to use even for a fairly savy person like myself. Without the manual you are lost, and the most annoying thing about this model is the very noisy fan that runs incessantly even when the machine is off! I had to put it on a AC socket on/off switch.

I have 3 complaints about this machine: No fast forward feature for the DVD player, takes too long to start up, the clock always runs fast.

Our biggest complaint is that there is no fast forward feature for the DVD player. You are allowed to skip chapters, but once in a chapter you can not fast forward or rewind. This is very annoying.

Our second complaint is that it takes forever to initially start up. It is so slow! You can't just turn it on and record, you have to let the maching boot itself up first. And it is noisy.

Our last complaint is that regardless of how many times you reset the clock, it will always run fast. We've given up on it at this point.

I agree with the other review that says the machine is somewhat difficult to run. You definately have to read the manual through to figure it out.

This machine will play both DVD's and Tapes, but it is more hassel then it it worth. I wish I would have researched this before I bought it, it was an impulse buy.

I'm astonished at how loud the fan noise is in our model. It emits a high pitched wining sound. It's tolerable during the day but at night I find myself turning off the power strip. Operating the DVD wasn't too bad after reading the manual. It took some patience since the manual or menu features aren't entirely user friendly. Another annoying quirk is when we turn on the unit to use the VCR, the VCR will come on and then immediately switch over to the DVD. We have to hit the VCR button to put it back in VCR mode. We've had this model for a few years and decided to keep it since we got it for a terrific sale price.

I used ours to record occasional shows and play DVDs. All told, we probably used it about 4-5 times a week -- very little for a DVD/VCR. Once we installed it, we never moved the thing, so it was virtually undisturbed. Yet the VCR playback heads went kaput after only 6 months of use.

Learn from our experience -- find another brand!!

I bought this product 2 days ago and am getting ready to pack it back up and return it. I haven't even tried recording with it, but trying to play a DVD is a huge ordeal.

To begin with, there isn't an auto-play feature. I'm used to slipping a disc in for my toddler and having the main menu come up automatically. Doesn't happen here. You have to push the "play" button (or the "disc menu" button or the "system menu" button, depending on the disc).

Do any of your DVDs have layers of menus? Trivia games? Anything of the sort? Forget about it. I can't even get a cursor to come up on the secondary menus most of the time, rendering the content thereof useless. A couple of my daughter's favorite movies won't even play unless I figure out by trial and error which track number corresponds to the movie and manually select it.

Playing a movie should not involve this level of frustration. I'm going to try a different brand, and if it can't play a simple DVD either, I'll wait for DVD recorder technology to mature. I'll spend a lot more time watching DVDs than recording them.