Customer Reviews

Zenith XBV442 Progressive-Scan DVD/VCR Combo

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

During late November 2004,I looked at all the major brands for a combo.I looked at Panasonic,Sony,Toshiba,JVC,Samsung and Magnavox to name a few.The horror stories I read on Amazon.com were not kind.At that point,I decided to take a chance on this model by Zenith.I knew Zenith made great TV's so I gave them a try.Glad I did.As long as it did what the company said it could do I was happy.It has ALL of the latest features and a really good picture.

On the vcr side,after dealing with "high speed rewind/fast forward" for three years,it was refreshing to see things slowed back down to normal.

Altogether I would highly recommend this one.It's well built,setting it up is exactly like hooking up a VCR.

Not bad.Not bad at all Zenith...

I bought this DVD/VCR after painful 3 weeks of exhaustive research on Amazon, Circuitcity.com and Epinions.com. It seemed like there is no perfect candidate as far as combos are concerned, but this model was the highest rated among the alternatives.

Don't fool yourself, though. Keep in mind that you are buying a piece of high-tech video equipment for under $100. The first one I bought had defective sound performance, whereas one channel made a cracking noise. I wasn't shocked or awfully upset for reasons above. I took it back to the store and got it exchanged. So far, I am happy with its performance and quality of both DVD and VCR components. Sony's and Hitachi's are twice as expensive, but based on the reviews I read they are not worth even half of their prices.

Pros:

- Reasoanable features, some hot-buttons available on the remote

- Nothing super-fancy that always confuses housewifes and teenagers (I am pretty tech-savvy, but I get frustrated with too many options and buttons)

- Quality of playback and recording

- Price

Cons:

- Fast-forward and rewind are slower on VCR than I would desire.

- The most upsetting drawback: the "universal" remote only works with certain models of TV's (LG, Goldstar, Zenith and two or three others). You would think, for the 21st century technology, it will at least be compatible with Panasonic or Sony. Now I have to have a second remote (my TV remote) to adjust volume and other TV options, something I hate and don't use anywhere else in the house.

Still, I would give it an "A", or 5 stars, for the value.

I spent a good few days doing research on DVD/VCR combos on amazon.com since so many people seem to have problems with Sony and Panasonic models. I found the Zenith model seemed to have the least number of bad reviews so I went to Circuit City and bought it (for the same price as Amazon had it, but this way I could forgo shipping costs)

That being said, I got home and hoooked it all up... and had the SAME exact problem as Kolbasik wrote abought a few entries below. The one sound channel made a horrible crackling noise. Obviously this a fault in production. Yes, it played the audio, but theres was high pitched static throughout it. So, it was another trip to Circuit City and I exchanged it.

What I did notice, however, is the model I had with the audio problem was manufactured in August of 2004. The working model I was given as an exchange was manfuactured in Spetember of 2004, so maybe whatever flaw in the audio was fixed? You can't find out when it was made unless you open up the box and look at the back of the unit itself, but it's something to think about.

As for the working DVD/VCR player itself, it works great! The only qualm I have is that it does not automatically format DVDs at times. If you are watching a 16:9 widescreen format, it will sometimes leave it at full screen or at the wrong format of 2.35:1 which will either make everything squished or everything stretched out looking. Not a huge issue since you can easily go into the menu and change the screen format, but I just find it a little odd it doesn't do it automatically from time to time like my old DVD player did.

The video quality is excellent, and the same goes for the audio. The DVD side had extremely fast forwarding and rewinding, and I like that when you forward to the next chapter, it tells you it's 2/16 of 5/25 (handy to know when your skipping through scenes of TV shows on DVD) There are front AV jacks, and seperate ones for the DVD player and the VCR, and theres also one for the VCR DVD combo so you don't have to switch.

In any event, once I got past the exchange process, it's pretty much worth every penny of the price. Just watch out for models manufactured in August of 2004! Keep your reciept until you get home to try it out!

The first one I bought had a static noise on the dvd player, So I brought it back to bestbuy, and changed a new one. After a month, the VHS part is broken --- not exactly broken, but blurred badly, on every tape, even brand new one -- Then the picture disappeared on the dvd player, I can only hear the voice ( the voice is great), but no picture anymore. I tried to call Zenith ( bestbuy won't take care of it anymore, because I bought it over a month) 2 times, everytime after 20 minutes waiting, I was asked to leave telephone number and expecting them to call back, of course, no one called back. I decided just throw it away and buy a no-Zenith brand.

The VCR function broke after two times of use. I went to BEST BUY to get a price of how much it would be to fix and it turned out to be more than the price of the product itself! All you folks considering buying it should reconsider.

Just as both Kolbasik and Wimberly reported in their reviews, I also have a unit where the DVD audio produces a scratchy static with any disk I use. It also was manufactured in August 2004. Apparently there was a large number of these defective units manufactured then. In my case, it happened when we first got the unit but went away quickly. Last week, it came back.

The unit was bought in Jan 05 and thus is now outside the"labor" warranty. Even though Zenith is going to replace the unit, ( to me that is only parts), they charge a $45 labor charge. However, they pay shipping both ways. Just be aware that the "real" warranty is only 90 days. Since so many of these units from other the manufacturers also have problems, I decided to do the swap.

A nice feature of the exchange is that they will ship me a unit first and then take the return. They take a credit card number and will charge you for the new unit if you do not return the old one in ten days, but at least we have a VCR until the new one arrives.

Otherwise, the unit has satisfied our needs in a cheap and compact device.

Someone was kind enough to add a note under a similar product (the XBV443) that if you use the remote control (instead of the front panel) to do the on/off and play, the audio static disappears. This turned out to be completely correct, and fixed the loud static I was getting on the left channel.

That said, while this is a "satisfactory" solution, having this problem at all on a new player seems rather ridiculous. Anyway, I mainly wanted to post about the fix, since I'm sure any of you with audio problems are as frustrated as I was. (And we're not talking subtle here... it's as loud as the signal.)

Bought this in late 2004.

I experience the static problem about every third time I use it. My fix is to turn the unit off and on, and the machine operates normally. Annoying, but better than nothing.

I also wish the unit automatically knows whether the source disc is widescreen or 4:3. You have to change the aspect ratio in the onscreen menu.

Video quality is excellent. I love that it plays just about any disc you can throw at it, including home movies on DVD (DVD+-R/RW). Also plays audio MP3 files.

No rewind problems yet, but I rarely use the VCR.

For $70, I guess I got what I paid for. I will eventialy replace it with a DVD recorder with hard drive.

The VCR on mine broke after I used it once (it now chews up tapes). I was past the meager warranty period and it would cost almost more than I paid for the thing to have it repaired. So I'm not a fan.

This VCR/DVD really is a bad one. I read mixed reviews on Circuit City's website, but still went ahead and bought it b/c the price was low and it was for my kids' playroom. I wasn't going to get an expensive one with a five-year-old and two-year-old running around...and I wanted one I could teach them to work.

Well, I shot myself in the foot - try telling two impatient little ones why you're spending ten minutes trying to get the darn thing to work! Within a month or two the VCR stopped rewinding halfway through the rewind process, which was a big warning noted in the reviews. I have to manually hold the button down and it rewinds with the movie ONSCREEN. Imagine how long that takes. I went out and bought a rewinder (another 12 bucks) and THAT broke within two weeks! It's kind of comical - I have to run all the way across the house to another VCR to rewind tapes whenever the kids want to watch them.

I also have the audio static problem here and there. My husband and I have finally figured out that if you turn the TV to Channel 4 and then back to 3, the static goes away. However, my kids can't really understand that concept so they get frustrated and I come running...

Overall, this was NOT worth the cheap price. It's more trouble than it's worth. DON'T BUY IT!