Customer Reviews

Sylvania DVC860D DVD/VCR Combo

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

With this machine you can't go wrong, 100 bucks get's you a VHS and DVD player and tons of other features. I personally love the MP3 playback on this system, no longer do I have to go to the trouble of connecting my laptop to my home entertainment center to play MP3's on surround sound.

Video playback and sound quality are just typical in comparison to other machines, it's nothing fancy nothing shabby. For 100 bucks though you can't ask for more.

This is a must for the movie and music lover on a budget!

Well this is something new for me -- an electronics review -- but I just had to put in my two cents on this product. I ordered this DVD/VCR combo for the family for Christmas after our ten-year old VCR finally bit the dust. After reading a few glowing reviews and spending less money for this unit than I did ten years ago for the old VCR, I felt like I made a great buy. But shortly after placing the order, the negative reviews started popping up for this item, and I got nervous that I once again I let the penny-pincher in me make an unwise buying decision. Well now the holidays are over, the unit is set up and running and ... (drumroll please) ... it's great! Granted I don't play DVDs like I do CDs, but I have experienced no problems whatsoever. The picture quality is first-rate. It plays Disney and various other movies without problems, though I haven't tried DVD-Rs. The VCR provides high quality images on playback of taped TV-shows, and on our worn-out old kids-videos. It even will timer record on the VCR while the DVD is playing -- what a luxury! Sure it doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, but at this price what do you expect! My old clunker VCR was cheap and it didn't have a lot of features either, and it outlasted my friends and families fancier units by years. Here's to the Sylvania following in its hallowed footsteps!

The Sylvania DVC860D is a great product and a great value. I have used my DVC860D for 9 months with absolutely no problems. The VHS Deck records and plays back with great quality. The DVD plays all the DVD disc formats that it states it will play. The customer who stated that it would not play all his DVD discs must be attempting to play a DVD-ROM disc recorded on a Panasonic DVD Recorder (DVD-ROM works fine, but Panasonic is the only brand DVD Player that will play the DVD-ROM format discs).

My girlfriend and I purchased this product from a local electronics store in August, 2003 and the laser stopped tracking yesterday. The unit was not dropped or jarred in any way-- the thing just stopped working.
I wasn't terribly happy with it to begin with; the built-in interface isn't very good, so if the remote control gets broken or lost there's no way to access a lot of the machine's features, which is always a red flag to me. The DVD scanning features were also kind of lame. It fast forwards at various speeds, but there's no obvious way to skip chapters. And the layout of the buttons on the remote is counterintuitive.
We bought the unit because it seemed like a cheap way to satisfy our VCR/DVD needs. But once we had the thing out of the box it was obvious that it wasn't very well made. Frankly I was completely unsurprised when the laser started skipping all over and playing back random chapters and pieces of DVDs.
If you just want something that kind of works, go ahead and take your chances with one of these. If it doesn't just stop working, it's adequate for most purposes. But if you're actually excited about DVD technology and like the idea of having a good DVD player, buy something else.

First off, I feel horrible even giving this piece-of-crap product 1 STAR...it deserves a ZERO!

My girlfriend and I received this DVD/VCR player for Christmas this past year. We went out and bought all of our favorite DVD's because we were so excited to finally have a DVD player.

Little did we know that the thing would only work for a month or so before making a slow, painful death. Last evening alone, we spent 1.5 hrs just trying to get the stupid thing to read a DVD, which by the way, was BRAND SPANKING NEW! It makes the most god-awful sounds you've ever heard in your life and if you are lucky enough to have it identify your DVD, don't get too excited because I GUARANTEE it will stop in the middle of the movie and start over!

Buyer beware! Even if you see this thing on sale for $5.00, think again and spend wisely. You'd be better off buying a BIG MAC or a WHOPPER than putting countless hours of misery and frustration into this ridiculous, foreign-made, over-priced JUNK MACHINE!

Sylvania has definitely taught me one thing...to stay the heck away from their cheap line of products! I'm not worried - as there are other electronic consumer companies who will actually treat me with respect and provide me with a reliable, worthy product. ADIOS, Sylvania!

I got this for my 3 year old for Christmas mainly because I was tired of hearing all of his Disney vidoes a million times a day. Things went great for 3 months. Then the stupid thing ate Dumbo. Image a little 3 year old crying because 1. Dumbo (his favorite because we sing the songs together) is now all gone and 2. he can't watch ANY of his tapes in his room now. I really wish that I read the other reviews before getting excited about this purchase and disappointing my son. DO NOT BUY THIS UNIT! I would've been better off acting out the videos myself.

we have now owned this player for approx 98 days. We rarely used it for playing vcrs, and tried two in there yesterday, It chewed and destroyed both of them. Called Sylvania who were quite rude, and they said as we had owned it longer than 90 days, labor and parts were no longer guaranteed. I tried to point out that even though we ordered online via Amazon prior to Christmas, we didn't recieve the thing until the 24th and then didn't set it up immediately. They said it doesn't make a difference, we are the owners since the order date, even if it was on a UPS truck. So now we are stuck with a half functioning set. Learn from my lesson, pay up and get something with a better guarantee. 90 days from date of order is just unacceptable.

I bought this combo because I wanted to save space. But I've had this less than a year, and it's already eaten up a tape. Really hard to get the tape out of the slot too, once it got stuck in there. Even when I took the top off it was impossible until I plugged it back in. (Good thing I didn't get electrocuted.) Now, I've not always had a very good history with VCR's, but at least my other ones have lasted 2-3 years, and tapes were easy to get out if they got stuck inside. The DVD part is OK, I guess, so I'll probably keep it around for the DVD, and get a separate VCR.

I don't like the way this does timed recording. My other one you can just punch the time in. This one you have to scroll to the time and channel. Also, you can't eject with the remote. I know that may not seem like a big thing, but I guess I just don't like hunting for buttons on the machine itself. And the auto recording? You have to walk over to the machine to push a button on it too. Can't do that on the remote either.

I'm so jealous of these people who've kept their VCR for 10+ years!

This machine is a piece of junk! I will never purchase another Sylvania product again. We had the combo player for less than 6 months when the vcr stopped taping and started eating tapes. When I called the company they told me that the parts were covered, but not labor. It will cost $100 to repair the machine, and the repairman basically said that he sees a lot of them by this company.

I also bought the Sylvania DVC860D DVD & VCR combo as a replacement for a cheap "Monkey Wards" VCR I bought 8yrs. ago for a much greater price than this unit. What a great Christmas buy at $99.99! It works great in re-running VHS Tapes out of my library and has played all the DVD's I have burnt with my new Plextor 708A DVD Burner.Also, this unit even hooked up to my 14yr. old TV using RF cables: how about that! This product does it all that they say it will, and is a fantastic bargain. I truly recommend this product to all. Remember, just because it cost more doesn't mean its better!!