Samsung DVD-V9700 Tunerless 1080i Upconverting DVD VHS Combo Player

In August 2007, our old DVD/VCR combo quit about the same time I bought an HDTV. I looked into upconverting players and discovered this one. The first player would not work on the HDMI cable (deduct one star). The regular VHS output and component outputs worked fine. I called Amazon who immediately shipped another player. This player has worked great ever since then.

The upconverter with an HDMI cable is a noticeable improvement over the regular DVD player with component cables. I definitely recommend this player to anyone with a high-def TV.

James

I have a Samsung 1080 HDTV. I bought this player because I thought I could use the same remote and an HDMI cable to merge the movie-watching experience. Unfortunately, the DVD player does not support HDMI in DD 5.1. This means that in order to get sound with HDMI video and DD, you have to have an optical output to a DD receiver/speaker system. Even at that point, the HDMI sound will only play from the DVD player to DD speakers. Also, the DVD/VCR conversion is not the best on the TV because the VCR can't play on the HDMI channel and has to have the feed through the AVI cables on a different source channel. This means that you have to use the TV remote, switch the source and audio, then go to the DVD/VCR remote, switch to VCR on that remote and use it to play. Forget consolidating remotes. Better yet, if you've got a Samsung TV, the two remotes look the same with similar buttons that have very different functions. Overall, the HDMI video signal is good. It has some trouble playing movies with poor quality and movies with light scratching (such as Blockbuster/Netflix rentals), but I guess that is the trade-off for a better signal from an upconvert.

I don't understand the issues you're all having with this combo unit. It works perfectly for me. Records DVDs from VHS, from Cable and from TiVo HD. Plays DVDs, CDs, Mp3s and VHS. With an HDTV, a TiVo-HD and a Surround-Sound Receiver hook-up was FAR from simple. But when I untied myself, everything works great. A quick note to the reviewer who could not record: make sure you "finish" the DVD if you want to watch it on any other player. I guess if I had to complain, it's just that the on-screen interface is just plain ugly and non-intuitive; especially when playing a music CD.

This is the first of this type device that didn't last but just over a year. Very poor return on investment. The DVD would usually kick it out with message "cannot play disc, please remove." So I bought this to give the Playstation 2 a rest from playing DVDs but at least that always played them. I would not recommend this to anyone if you want one that lasts and plays DVDs for you. It now has completely stopped working, I think I bought this in January of 2007. Wow bummer.

Maybe I happened to get a "lemon", folks, but my unit was JUNK! Brand-new unit --- right outta the box as it was shipped to me from Sears --- yet it damaged (scratched and creased) the one tape I loaded into it, it balked (ground and squealed, scratched and creased the tape) wherever there was a slightly worn/damaged section of tape, whereas other VCRs sailed right on through those spots, no problem. And it didn't automatically reverse at the end of the tape, either --- it just sat there and ground and ground till it finally shut off, and then it wouldn't do a thing (rewind, fast-forward, play, etc.) till I actually ejected the cassette (and I saw that the end of the tape had been scratched and creased by the machine while it was sitting there grinding instead of automatically reversing and rewinding as it was supposed to) and then re-inserted it. I was actually afraid to try any more tapes in it for fear it would damage them, too! I took the unit back to Sears the next day.