Customer Reviews

SUPER-MULTI DVD RECORDER AND VCR

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(26)

 

 

I am sad to say my wife and I fell victim to the sales pitch at Best Buy and purchased this LG unit. For the first five to six months it worked well. The upconverting to near HD quality on standard DVDs is great.

However, after the unit was six months old it began to have problems reading DVDs....any DVDs: Brand new, movies, blanks, previously recorded discs, etc. Well, we called the Best Buy we purchased the unit from. Of course they were no help AT ALL. They said, "Sorry, it's been over 3 months since you guys bought it, we can't help you."

My next step was to call LG directly. The LG "customer no-service" tech said since the unit is more than six months from the purchase date they will only warranty parts, no labor. So now my situation is essentially that I paid appx $300 for a fancy VCR player!!

The worst part is that LG is making me mail it back to them (yes, I have to pick up the mailing charges), AND PAY A $69 "LABOR" FEE, just to see if they can even fix this unit.

Six months and it's dead.

When the "customer no-service" tech asked if he could help me in any other way than what I have described above, I simply said, "Well why don't you invent a time machine so that I can go back and prevent myself from dropping $300 on this load of @#!t."

So I'm taking my cause to the web, to prevent any more poor souls from buying this fancy looking terd.

I have had some success in recording things on Sony DVD-R disc, so no problem there. My main complaint with this device is with playing previously recorded titles. It simply won't load the disc up. All we get is an endless disc spinning in the upper left corner of the screen. To get it out of the machine, it has become necessary to unplug the machine, plug it back in, and then start hitting the eject button on the remote. It plays the discs that it has recorded, just not store bought movies. LG should stop advertising Life is Good. LG should stand for Lousy Garbage. Stay away from LG for the rest of your life. Don't make the same mistake we did.

We got about 9 months out of this unit before it started having playback problems. It rapidly got worse after that, and it finally refused to accept any DVDs or CDs, regardless of whether those were recordable or not. So the whole unit suddenly became completely useless.

Since not having extended warranty I figured it was too expensive to try to get it fixed.

What I did is the following. When you open up the unit, the disc drive is in fact a standard PC IDE interfaced CD/DVD drive. So I took the old one out, and replaced it with another PC IDE CD/DVDRW drive that I had available. This is a fairly straightforward thing to do, as I believe most IDE interface units are a good enough fit.

So now the DVD player works, and I'm even able to record to recordable DVDs in a similar manner as before. The only problem left is that for some reason I'm not able to play some commercial DVDs now. I haven't quite figured out what could be causing this, and it happens only with some latest DVD discs. Now I don't remember, and it is impossible to verify, if I already had the same problem before the DVD player went bad, i.e. if it came after the disc drive swap.

I bought one of these and was very pleased with it for about a year. Then, all of a sudden, inside a week, it stopped recognizing commercial dvds. Now it won't recognize anything. LG does not have a fix. From massive internet complaints, this is a common problem I have two LG internal DVD writers on my computers and have no problem with them. I cannnot figure out where the problem is. LG DOES NOT have firmware upgrades or anything useful on the web site. I have reached a dead end. I'm probably going to junk it. Don't waste your money.

I've never had this happen so quickly with a consumer electronic product but this dvd vhs combo unit stopped working altogether only 105 days into my ownership. The dvd portion is not able to read my Netflix disks and, adding insult to injury, it now won't eject it. Ouch! Time to get the sledge hammer. Seriously, I would consider another product based on my experience.

Same problem as everybody else - it stops recognizing any DVD. Mine manifested the problem one week after the warranty expired.

I'm a bit surprised at some of the venom directed towards this machine. I suspect it is due to not being experienced with the far worse models on the market like I am. I, too, might have hated this machine had I not tried about 4 other kinds first. I have purchased 3 of them. The first two were defective and had to be returned to Best Buy (no problems at all or any kind of hassle in that department, unlike other reviewers). When I finally got one that worked I was satisfied with it. The menus are easy to navigate (unlike the Philips), editing is easy (you can pause during recording and eliminate commercials unlike the Panasonic), the remote control is easy to use (unlike the Philips) etc. This is the best all-around DVD recorder on the market...except that it is no longer on the market. This particular model was discontinued this past month and the new one has already hit the shelves. For some reason Amazon does not seem to carry it so go to Best Buy or something. I have the new model as well and everything I've said in this review is applicable to it as well. Trust me, in the world of DVD recorders you can do much worse.

I purchased an LG RC199H to go with a new Samsung 2641 LCD TV. I could get the LG to communicate with the TV via component video cables or via coaxial cable, but not via HDMI. I spent many, many hours over 5 days, trying everything I could think of the get the HDMI connection to work. I called Samsung many times, had the HDMI cable and the LG tested at the store where I purchased them, even exchanged the TV, thinking it was the problem. I called Samsung technical service many times and, when I finally called LG, I found that Samsung TVs and HG recorders often cannot communicate via HDMI. The Samsung and LG technicians tried very hard to help me get my system set up for HDMI but nothing worked. I finally took the LG back where I purchased it and got a refund.

I've had this for a year and it has progressively had problems reading disks of all types - blank, commercial movies, disks burned by others, disks it burned only a few months before.

I hope someone organizes a class action lawsuit. I will never purchase another LG product again. They've been advertising that they make quality products but nothing could be further from the truth.

There is a serious design problem with these units. I had mine for about a year and only used it a couple of times, as it was in a vacation home. It will not read any DVD's. All I get is a spinning disc icon on the TV. This is a piece of junk! Do not waste your money. Oh, I forgot to mention that there are no LG authorized service dealers in the area and their central repair service center will not work on them if you do not have your original receipt. Again, I say -- this is a piece of junk and do not buy it!!