Customer Reviews

Samsung DVD-V3650 Progressive Scan DVD/VCR Combo

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(10)

 

 

I received the Samsung V-3650 "One Unit Solution" two months ago as a gift after my old VCR was finally retired. I wanted to hold off on a review until I was able to use the unit for a while, to really know what it can do. I must say that overall, I am very impressed -- the V-3650 is a versatile, feature packed product. As far as the DVD player, it is very solid, with good picture quality and some great features, including a one-touch adjustment of the screen to match your current TV. The on-screen displays are also very good, and they are interactive (i.e. you can pull up a display that shows which track you are on and the time spent on the DVD, and can then highlight each item and manually adjust it).

The VCR is equally impressive. Picture quality is good, and the menus for it, along with some of the features (such as a tape position display) make it very complete.

Overall, I am very pleased with it. It has component and coaxial outputs, and is a progressive scan unit. Some little features make the difference, as well -- I was surprised to even see that it can detect the channel AND television program when using its tuner. My only disappointment is that the VCR only has a one-month timer, but this will be enough for most users. I would recommend the V-3650 to anyone that needs a nicely- designed, one-stop unit for all media needs (it also plays picture disks, CDs, and MP3 disks). Very well done.

I just bought this DVD/VCR player since it was onsale. I actually paid about the same price at Bestbuy. The first unit I bought I returned because the VCR made a little buzzing noise when playing a video. Then, I realized that my second unit made the same amount of noise. So, I had to put the DVD/VCR unit in my stand rather than on top of my tv. This reduced the amount of noise I hear from the VCR. Anyways, the DVD player is excellent and shows great pictures. If you use this product for recording at night in your bedroom, don't buy it. But if you use it to watch mostly DVDs and the occasional video, then it's not a bad deal for a decent product.

I'm glad I didn't listen to most of the reviews here. 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. 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. We had an old Phillips/Mag VCR which had its nasty quirks, too. It made sense to get one unit.

I don't care much for the Samsung DVD-V3650's color. But that's not the important thing. I digress. 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.

I like the fact that it has digital audio out jacks (optical and component). When I record a show, I like that I have a 30 second FFW button. I like that I can record and watch a DVD at the same time. Easy set up, yet pretty thorough.

We are very happy with this Samsung. My first with this company.

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 wanted to add DVD capability to my family room system, but didn't want to add another box. So this unit went in, and the VCR I was using went to the bedroom.

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. The picture on the DVD is as good as necessary for a 30" TV. The VCR picture with pre-recorded tapes is OK. I like the access to manual tracking adjustment on the remote. And I haven't had any functional problems with it (over 3 months).

But little things bug me. I use VHS index search a lot, since I make compilations of several kids films on one tape to reduce bulk on trips. On the Samsung, you have to go deep into the menus to get to index search, instead of it being directly on the remote. 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. Plus, it only searches at about 8x playback speed, so it's not much faster than just using scan during playback and searching manually. 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. 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. When the remote is in the VCR mode, the mute button becomes the VCR audio input select button. 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. And how often does the average person want to switch the audio input on a VCR anyway? Ever? 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. 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.

I purchased this machine because of the Consumer Reports opinion that it is easy to use. And it is. I plugged in the antenna and the power plug; without any further input from me, it automatically determined that I was plugged into cable and went on to find all the cable stations! Programming the VCR to record is intuitive and very easy and so is finding recorded programs. When I play back a recorded program, it automatically adjusts tracking to the optimum setting; I don't have to instruct it to adjust tracking. The DVD part is also working very well. I am very pleased with this product.

It didn't work. The remote did not respond, despite my changing the battery twice, and the controls on the front of the unit were not responsive. I did everything I was supposed to do, read the manual, hooked it up properly, etc., but it just didn't work! So, I returned it and bought a Sony. The Sony works fine.

I am disappointed in the unit. It was advertised to have VCD playback ability. It will not even recognize any VCD's at all. I give it 2 stars only because the progressive component output is a feature I was after too. 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. Big dissapointment for a Samsung product. Had counted on it playing back VCD's so now it is only good for a guest bedroom.

Unfortunately, someone very nice gave me this for Xmas. After an hour the picture started randomly stopping and starting herky-jerky on the DVD. Read the other reviews here as well. If you bought one, get rid of it before it wastes your time. I guess the moral of the story is; no matter where it's manufactured, buy Japanese, they have the quality management system for these products. I never have failures on Japanese brands; your time is too valuable to waste on junk like this.

This is one of the worst purchases I have ever made. From day one DVD's froze and skipped. I thought it was poor quality rentals so I started buying my own DVD's. Brand new DVD's would not play all the way through on the first viewing. Spend the extra money and buy a better product, this is a waste of money.

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. Some sort of interferance, I guess. Really nasty, noisy and unwatchable.

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. 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. I think. First time I've used it.