The Samsung DVD-VR375 DVD VHS Player Recorder: Slow to Operate But Offers Good Picture Quality
Samsung offers a DVD VHS player recorder in this era when VHS Players and VCRs have pretty much vanished from the market. It plays both VHS and DVD discs allowing you to record the VHS content onto a DVD.
This Samsung DVD Recorder offers excellent picture quality through its HDMI up-scaling feature and has a one touch recording feature to make its operation easy.
This Samsung model offers users the flexibility of full multi format recording (RAM/R+/R-/RW+and RW-) and dual layer recording on +R and –R only DVD discs. The machine also comes with a chapter editor that makes thumbnail creation easy. You can convert your camcorder pictures into DVD by plugging the camera into the converter and the quality is reasonably good.
It allows copying from pay cable stations but you’ll need to follow the instructions in the manual because it’s not too intuitive. Always remember that with every DVD recorder you’ll need to finalize your video if you wish to play it on other DVD players.
There are reports from some users that the recording feature of this Samsung machine doesn’t always work properly. They say the VHS to DVD conversions sometimes has dubbing problems resulting in a delay with the VHS to DVD voice synchronization. This problem has been documented on the Samsung support pages and happily there is a firmware upgrade available for it.
You should know that there have been problems in finalizing and then un-finalizing the same disk to use it for another recording on this Samsung DVD VHS player recorder. It's not really a big deal. In fact I’ve never found the need to do this.
This DVD recorder is attractively designed. It’s 3.1 inches high, 17.0 inches wide and 13.0 inches deep. The model, like several Samsungs, comes without a built in fan and heats up quickly which will probably reduce the overall life of the machine and may lead to recording errors.
There have been a few user reports that the machine stops working after some time and refuses to accept any type of disks. Truthfully any and every electronic manufacturer has these types of reports so we wouldn’t be too concerned unless a significant pattern develops.
Limited inputs are a problem with this Samsung model. This DVD Recorder VHS Combo only has a composite video input (RCA Video and RCA audio). It does have HDMI Out and Component Out but no Component in or HDMI in or DVI in or S-video in. This is surprising because several other earlier models from Samsung had S video inputs.
The machine also lacks a RF input since there is no tuner. The machine comes with a remote that is poorly designed and has a lot of black buttons on a black background making it difficult to see in the dark.
Conclusion: On the whole, this DVD VHS player recorder is good for people wishing to view old VHS tapes and converting them into DVDs. The absence of a tuner is disappointing, the dubbing flaws cannot be ignored and there are a host of other warts on this machine. Keep an eye on user reviews to get a feel if this is truly a lemon or just disappointed videophiles wanting more features. If you buy this DVD recorder be sure to get that firmware update!