Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing for Panasonic
Review: ...I own many Panasonic products (answering machines, portaphones, cellphone) and have been pleased with the consistently high quality, design and longetivity of their products. However, I am disappointed with this product -- some minor annoyances like no tape/DVD counter/timer, complex 50+ button remote, BUT the darn thing doesn't accept all the VCR tapes -- it just rejects some (which play fine in other VCRs), not others. DVD works fine; good quality. EASY set-up; finished in less than 5 minutes. Display is skimpy on info.
Rating:
Summary: Disappointing for Panasonic
Review: ...I own many Panasonic products (answering machines, portaphones, cellphone) and have been pleased with the consistently high quality, design and longetivity of their products. However, I am disappointed with this product -- some minor annoyances like no tape/DVD counter/timer, complex 50+ button remote, BUT the darn thing doesn't accept all the VCR tapes -- it just rejects some (which play fine in other VCRs), not others. DVD works fine; good quality. EASY set-up; finished in less than 5 minutes. Display is skimpy on info.
Rating: 
Summary: Buy something else!
Review: DAYS after the three month labor warranty expired the VHS stopped working. It won't accept ANY tape and starts to eat them. We always had trouble having it accept VHS tapes - but now it won't accept any. I sure wish we had read some of these reviews BEFORE buying this. Not sure if its even worth taking it in for service, as I'm sure that it'll be cheaper to buy a new one. I would NOT recommend this product.
Rating: 
Summary: Great machine
Review: Easy set up and really good video quality. Haven't tried all the features but so far I am impressed.
Does more then advertised.
Would make a great gift.
Rating:
Summary: Panasonic PV-D4742 DVD/VCR Combo Deck
Review: EXCELLENT UNIT! Like most people who buy a DVD/VCR combo, I didn't want to give up my VHS tape collection, but needed to save space. I wasn't able to find too many reviews to read on this particular unit, but I decided to take a chance and I wasn't disappointed. I connected my unit from a cable box using the VHF/UHF connector. I used the Video & Audio output connectors from the VCR/TV side to connect to the TV. I also bought an S-Video cable with the unit to connect the DVD output to the TV. The improved picture quality is worth the money. The VCR played both purchased videotapes as well as tapes I had recorded on my old Mitsubishi VCR. It even detected the index marks written by the old machine. I haven't recorded a great deal on this new unit, but what little I did, gave excellent video and audio results. It plays DVD's flawlessly. The picture quality is superb with the S-Video cable. I have also played a few music CD's just to make sure the unit would read them properly and it did. The sound was great (I have the 2nd audio output jacks connected to my stereo system). The remote control is relatively easy to understand and the operator's manual is pretty well written. I did have a small problem when I first connected the unit getting it into the initial program setup. But, I called the toll free Customer Call Center and the technician helped me correct the problem in short order. I would highly recommend this model to anyone looking for a combo unit.
Rating:
Summary: I agree with the concensus of reviews on this one: don't buy
Review: I got one of these units because I needed a machine that something beyond auto tracking control. It had tracking adjustment, so, I got it to replace my old unit. Within 2 weeks, I wanted something else. The store wouldn't accept it back (Not an Amazon.com store, though.) so, I sold it to someone else.The unit has several problems, most of them related to the digital drive. The VCR portion I didn't have as many problems with as others report, no ejected tapes, etc. but it has its own irks. First, the RF In. Was very staticy, peppered with little colored dash marks. Other units did not display this static when the cable was connected. Plus, its search function is an abysmal failure. You can't search to a predefined position on the tape, you can only search to a position in X hours/minutes, not a precise time into the tape. While this works fine when the counter is at 0:00 at the start of the tape, but, when it's not the start of the tape anymore, searching becomes an absolute mess, especially when you want to go backwards. The digital unit, though, is where this dog starts to bark. For DVD's, the way it manuevers through chapters, etc. is not exactly the most user friendly method. There's no easily programmable A to B function. Plus, a real annoyance with CD's. The programmer's apparently decided to code the CD player to automatically skip 2 seconds at the end of each track. Which is fine for music CD's; most people who burn their own discs tend to remove the 2 second gap anyway... I don't. I like the 2 seconds, and, automatically skipping the gaps, WITHOUT giving the user the option to turn this off, makes playing audio CD's impossible, as the last 2 seconds of a track's lines and the first 2 seconds of lines in the next track get swallowed up by the skipping! Poor, poor design. While the digital drive does accept writable and rewritable CD and DVD formats, except for DVD-RAM, this is very little consolation compared to how much is left out and what doesn't work right. PASS on this model.
Rating:
Summary: I agree with the concensus of reviews on this one: don't buy
Review: I got one of these units because I needed a machine that something beyond auto tracking control. It had tracking adjustment, so, I got it to replace my old unit. Within 2 weeks, I wanted something else. The store wouldn't accept it back (Not an Amazon.com store, though.) so, I sold it to someone else. The unit has several problems, most of them related to the digital drive. The VCR portion I didn't have as many problems with as others report, no ejected tapes, etc. but it has its own irks. First, the RF In. Was very staticy, peppered with little colored dash marks. Other units did not display this static when the cable was connected. Plus, its search function is an abysmal failure. You can't search to a predefined position on the tape, you can only search to a position in X hours/minutes, not a precise time into the tape. While this works fine when the counter is at 0:00 at the start of the tape, but, when it's not the start of the tape anymore, searching becomes an absolute mess, especially when you want to go backwards. The digital unit, though, is where this dog starts to bark. For DVD's, the way it manuevers through chapters, etc. is not exactly the most user friendly method. There's no easily programmable A to B function. Plus, a real annoyance with CD's. The programmer's apparently decided to code the CD player to automatically skip 2 seconds at the end of each track. Which is fine for music CD's; most people who burn their own discs tend to remove the 2 second gap anyway... I don't. I like the 2 seconds, and, automatically skipping the gaps, WITHOUT giving the user the option to turn this off, makes playing audio CD's impossible, as the last 2 seconds of a track's lines and the first 2 seconds of lines in the next track get swallowed up by the skipping! Poor, poor design. While the digital drive does accept writable and rewritable CD and DVD formats, except for DVD-RAM, this is very little consolation compared to how much is left out and what doesn't work right. PASS on this model.
Rating:
Summary: Less than a year old and already broken
Review: I got this last December and in August, the DVD started messing up. An hour into every DVD we watch, the screen starts skipping then hangs up altogether! We can't turn it off when that happens, either - we have to unplug it. I'm really not liking anything Panasonic anymore... I also have one of their digital video cameras (yuck!)
Rating:
Summary: Audio out is TOO loud
Review: I had hoped to replace a Samsung V1000 with this and found that I can't hook up my externally amplified speakers to it without blowing out the house. In comparison, the Samsung has a volume control and output levels that are reasonable. The remote was confusing, as was the options for using the different features. It would be easier to have two separate components. Although not perfect, the Samsung does a better job of integrating the DVD and VCR functions and includes a tv tuner.
Rating:
Summary: VCR Has Problems
Review: I had the unit just over a year and only used the VCR ten times or so. It started rejecting and eating tapes. I called Panasonic, described the problem, and told them of the many people on-line who reported problems with the unit. Since it is out of warranty, Panasonic was unsympathic. They do not seem to care that they manufactured a faulty device, and are not going to do more than their warranty obligates them. When I had problems with a Sharp Camcorder that was out of warranty, and Sharp knew that they were at fault, they sent me a new model free. Panasonic knows this is a faulty unit, and is hoping that customers won't use it enough to discover the problem within the warranty period.
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