Rating: 
Summary: bad conversion quality--not worth the price!
Review: I have been very disappointed in this product. I bought it to make VHS copies of videos that I have made with my digital video camera and edited. Converting from NTSC gives a low quality product in general. There is a vibration or pulsation in all white or light colored areas which is VERY distracting. But worse than this, when I input from the NTSC video camera and make a copy on VHS (whether converting or not), there is a real problem with the audio. A buzz that intermittantly accompanies the sound--and it was this way straight out of the box. It makes for a very poor quality video and I paid over $500 for it 3 years ago. Unfortunately, I did nothing about it until after the warranty had expired. So I took it to a Samsung repair shop in Rome expecting to pay for the repairs myself. Unfortunately, that wasn't even an option. They told me that it was badly made from the start and there was nothing to be done about it. I feel burned!
Rating: 
Summary: Does not Convert NTSC edited video tapes to PAL successfully
Review: I have had no help from Samsung regarding my SV-5000W Worldwide VCR. I have been trying to get an explanation from Samsung for three years! Here is the problem:After editing my Hi8 tapes from my Sony TRV 82 Handycam Camcorder onto an NTSC tape, I try to convert the NTSC tape to PAL on my Samsung multi-system SV- 5000W Worldwide VCR. The PAL tape is poor with light and dark areas with a reddish hue at times. When beginning the converting on the Samsung, I notice a Copy Guard Signal message on my TV screen. What I think is happening is that a copyright code is being activated (Macrovision?) when I try to copy my own tapes. I bought the unit to send my NTSC videos in PAL standard to my brother in England. Ramon Best
Rating: 
Summary: Less Than Sterling Audio Performance
Review: I noted with interest that of 34 reviews of this product as of 19 Sep 04, 15 were negative, 12 were positive, and 6 were neutral or just providing information. I wish I had read them before making my purchase. I have had this product for less than 3 months, and am fairly content with the video conversion features and quality. That's about what I expected. I am, after a day of serious experimenting, quite disappointed in the quality of the hifi stereo recording. In an A/B listening comparison, recording an old laser disc music video to the same tape with both the Samsung and an alternate machine, the Samsung stereo soundtrack is decidely noisy....pops, crackles, rice krispies. Some results are so bad you just have to switch to mono audio to make it listenable. However, it is a complicated machine, so I am hoping that there is just a bit of "operator error" here, and I've got a peculiar audio setting not quite right. For example, if you are getting no sound at all, or no dialogue at all in a recording, make sure your source isn't a DTS/Dolby Digital machine that is routing just the left/right channels in surround mode. You may have to go to stereo mode to get the sound "mixed". Operator errors aside, I still have a firm example that, using the same audito source, on the same audio tape, on another hifi stereo machine...that result was flawless. Don't buy this machine if you are into opera, music videos, or FM simulcast.
Rating:
Summary: This deck ceased to work within 2 years.
Review: I read this review on the internet. Mine did the same thing. "This basically gives good video and conversion quality (I used to play PAL tapes on a NTSC system), but the problem is its poor durability. This deck ceased to work within 2 years, the LED of the ON switch being the only part still working. Opening the deck up revealed a darkened area on the board around a few components, which were apparently heated up so much during normal operation that they burned down. I have concluded that this is a design mistake. It seems Samsung did not get their basic circuitry right. If you buy this VCR, you had better have some repair experience and get your hands on a service manual."
Rating:
Summary: This deck ceased to work within 2 years.
Review: I read this review on the internet. Mine did the same thing. "This basically gives good video and conversion quality (I used to play PAL tapes on a NTSC system), but the problem is its poor durability. This deck ceased to work within 2 years, the LED of the ON switch being the only part still working. Opening the deck up revealed a darkened area on the board around a few components, which were apparently heated up so much during normal operation that they burned down. I have concluded that this is a design mistake. It seems Samsung did not get their basic circuitry right. If you buy this VCR, you had better have some repair experience and get your hands on a service manual."
Rating:
Summary: Don't buy it, Cheap & Nasty, Poor Quality, Terrible Heads
Review: I really don't recommend this. I bought it a year ago and had to repair it many times. After only 3 months, with regular cleaning, the heads shows wear and the picture quality was poor. Also, the displays on the VCR are absolutely useless. You don't know whether it's playing or rewinding. It doesn't tell you. The machine itself is cheaply made.... This is the worst product I've ever bought. Now with its short life, it keeps ejecting my tapes and I can't play anything. I bought this machine because we moved from Australia to USA and had plenty of Aussie PAL tapes, mainly for my kids. We also have 2 other VCRs, it's not like we overused it. Learn from our mistakes, never Samsung again.... I'm really mad. I could have bought a really nice top-of-the-range VCR that plays PAL & NTSC from Australia for half the price. All I had to do was buy a power converter from 240V to 110V. My next trip I will be doing that.... Hope this helps, I hate for anyone else to waste their money. I'm so dissapointed.
Rating: 
Summary: Works perfectly
Review: I wanted to do just one thing: watch PAL tapes from England
on my American NTSC TV. The price of this Samsung was low
enough to take the risk -- and I'm happy to say it works as
perfectly as any U.S. VCR I've ever had. It took less than a
minute to hook up (the video/audio cable was all I needed, since
I attached the player to a TV I only use as a monitor; I'm not
using this machine to record off-air TV/cable programming).
Picture quality, tracking, fast-forwarding, etc. -- nothing presents any problem at all. Tapes from the UK play completely
as normal. Couldn't be more pleased.
Rating:
Summary: Very easy to hook up and use.
Review: I wanted to view tapes made in Europe (PAL format) on my tv (NTSC format). This tape player does convert from several input formats to several output formats. I'm no electronics genius, but in less than 15 minutes I had the player unpacked and hooked up to my tv and had all user-determined items (language preference, time, etc) entered. I put a tape in the player and with minimal reference to the manual adjusted the input and output menus so that I could view the tape. Converted picture and sound quality are comparable to picture and sound quality on my regular tape player set-up without conversion.
The manual is well-organized. This tape player will do a bunch of things, and the manual is organized by what the user wants to do. So it's easy to just get going on what you want to do. By the way all necessary cables are included.
Rating:
Summary: excellent Player; Superb in its simplicity.
Review: I was very impressed with this tape converter. It truly is a world tape converter. Easy to set up, and easy to play. There is very little that the manual does not cover. I basically just want a tape player, and then maybe a device that would allow me to put PAL tapes to DVD.
I think that what most people failt to take into account , is that this machine treats tapes the same way the players of the country of origin treat the tape ... basically, bad tape, bad playback.
The only converter I have seen that does better is a DVD converter.
The only way to get a better playback is to get a VHS player of the tape used by the original tape, and then use a Rack mount converter that are used in large studies ( priced from 2,000 to 7,000).
This item does great for what it is, and what it is priced.
Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: What a disappointment!
Review: Samsung has long been one of my favorite brands of electronics. I purchased this product expecting decent (albeit not professional level) format conversion and excellent performance as a mainstream VCR (given the high price). Unfortunately, the feature set has proven irrelevant, due to the machine's inexcusably poor build quality.
Almost immediately, I began to notice an intermittent band of green/purple (depending upon the backdrop) distortion within every recording. This problem ceased to be an issue, however, when persistent snow took over the entire frame.
Okay, so I got a dud. No big deal. I returned the item for an exchange, and began using the replacement. Well, my jaw just about hit the floor when the same green/purple band appeared! This time, I didn't wait for the snow to manifest; it was back to the store for a full refund.
Obviously, a major flaw must exist in the manufacturing process for me to end up with two units with an identical, peculiar defect. I've had better experiences with no-name VCRs costing literally 1/7 the price of this model, and that's a very sad fact. I'll think twice before buying another product from Samsung, a name that I had come to trust.
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