Rating: 
Summary: be afraid, be very afraid!
Review: what a piece of junk! every dvd played pauses for any length of time, 5 seconds to 1 minute! i've bought 3 machined from 3 different stores, and guess what? they all freeze! heres the best part, sony refuses to aknowledge ANY problem! when i call them, they all play stupid!I was even told by a customer service rep that the problem may be with my halogen lights 30 feet away in the kitchen. Like the other two before it, this ones going back. TRUST ME, go with the panasonic model, the remote is a little combersome, but it sure beats movies pausing EVERY TIME!.............shame on you, sony for failing (refusing) to do any thing about this HUGE problem!OPEN YOUR EYES,THIS MACHINE IS AWFULL!
Rating: 
Summary: Works Pretty Good
Review: Wow! Was I ever surprised that there are so many negative reviews of this unit. Of course, did I read the reviews before buying one at Circuit City yesterday? No. We bought a new dvd with the player to get an accurate evaluation. It worked just fine. Our only question is why doesn't the film show on the whole screen? Since we have a recorder in our satellite receiver, we probably won't record on the vcr except on very rare occaisions. We are new to dvd players and we bought the Sony because of the reputation. We knew that it didn't record dvd's so are unclear about the confusion one reviewer had over that. We rate ourselves as being techno-minus so if we can operate the stuff and get it to work right, we think that it must be user-friendly. So far no problems or complaints except for the limited screen display--that could be due to our older tv set?
Rating:
Summary: Patrick Walker's comments
Review: You are wrong Patrick Walker.
For this price (about $179) you should NOT expect it to record onto DVD. Your acting like you've been tricked by the manufacturer/retailer when you simply haven't done your homework. I believe DVD recorders are $300+.I just bought the unit and I've been happy so far.
Rating:
Summary: Watch What You Buy CLOSELY
Review: Watch What You Buy CLOSELY. We bought this in the store with the DVD-RW on the box. Turns out that it only plays DVD-RW. We wanted one that records. At this price, it should record. We will try to return without a sales reciept.
Rating:
Summary: THIS COMBO WORKS FOR ME
Review: We purchased this DVD/VCR combo with a little hesitation due to some negative reviews here and on other sites but have found that, for the money ($179) it is a very decent DVD player/VCR player-recorder. Setup was a breeze -- less than 5 minutes with only a glance at the instructions. Since buying this unit last week, I've played about 10 DVDs on it. All played flawlessly with a beautiful picture. Last night we watched a DVD from the library and near the end, the picture began to break up as some other have complained about the unit. When we examined the borrowed DVD, we saw that it contained several severe scratches near the end and this is why the picture was breaking up -- not the fault of the player. The VCR works flawlessly -- mostly we just record the news and Comedy Central and we use our tapes over and over. Even old tapes that had been recorded on many times played back beautifully on this player. (...) I can't quite give the unit a rating of 5 because the response time on some of the commands is a little slow. Also, I have had one incidence of having no response when I pressed the eject button the DVD player. I had to switch the power off and on and press the button a couple more times before it worked. That was the second time I used the DVD, but it has worked every time since then. We have not yet completely read the manual nor learned to use all of the controls on the remote, but we are quite satisfied with the performance of this unit.
Rating: 
Summary: SONY Still Makes a Good Combination Unit
Review: The Sony SLV-D300P Progressive-Scan Combination VCR and DVD Player is excellent. The DVD playback is very good. It is interesting that the DVD image can be output by means of Component Video Output, S-Video Output, Composite Video Output and even RF Output. The VCR component is good. It plays and records standard VHS and can playback S-VHS recordings with S-VHS Quasi Playback. Pre-recorded tapes and recordings made on my other Sony and JVC recorders look good on this unit. The VHS recordings made on the SLV-D300P are acceptable. It does have Tuner & Clock, a 1 Month/8 Event Recording Timer and Auto or manual Tracking. The Remote is small and takes some time to get used to. However, every function is described in detail in the manual. In all I am very pleased with the SLV-D300P. Besides being a space-saver I find its performance remarkable and exceeded my expectations. It not only performs well but contains so many extra features that I did not expect. This is a good unit. In find that the VCR component is better than the other stand alone VCRs from Sony.
Rating:
Summary: I've gotta say pass on this one.
Review: After debating, I must say to others to pass on this unit. While not enough for me to return my item to the store, if I knew what I know now, I'd pass on getting it. I've not had most of the problems posted in previous reviews. No problems with the VHS deck, no blue lines, no physical damage done to tapes. My only real VCR concern was an odd entry in the options setup where you tell the tape size, 120, 160, etc. Why? Shouldn't the unit ONLY care about the tape size when it detects the clear leader tape at the beginning and the ending? If not, then, it appears to me this option is for some kind of fast rewind, which I've always hated in VCR's. They did nothing but tear up my tapes because they never recognized the leader tape. Main points that stick out that potential buyers should know. First is the included remote. Unfortunately, should you need a replacement, you probably won't be able to ever control the unit again. The buttons on the console itself are few. The remote commands are too numerous, meaning a universal remote probably will be useless on this, though I've not tested this. The remote buttons are fairly small, and, you will need a full light source to see what buttons are where and what they do. Next, the manual is surprisingly lacking. Several set up options weren't covered anywhere in the manual I could see and key areas that should have been included in the Index at the back were not listed. Finally, the main reason I believe people should not buy this unit. It does accept DVD writable discs, however, it is WAY too picky! Within the manual itself, it warns the unit may not be able to play discs that have label stickers on the label surface. While it is not recommended to use labels as they may peel off in the drive, to have the drive somehow detect labels or the drive bay have so little space for a margin of error that it physically prevents the disc from playing is simply outrageous to accept! The manual also warns that scratches on a disc may prevent playback. While this is certainly acceptible, IF scratches are what were causing my discs not to playback, then, this unit is too sensitive to them. When I read here of the DVD being picky, I loaded all of my library, disc by disc, to see the results. 11 discs simply refused to play with the drive's "THIS DISC CANNOT BE PLAYED! CHECK THE DISC!" error. No other explanation. Just a generic error that blames you for it. Were there more detailed error messages, it might be tolerable. No, the laser within the disc reader is simply too picky. Using rewritable DVD discs, I was able to rebuild these 11 discs into a format the drive liked. However, all 11 of these discs played before, and I tested them again, STILL played fine in four other test players that they had passed in before! A Panasonic DVR, 2 PC drives (One of the the Sony DRU-500, amazingly!) and the Playstation 2. (Another Sony reader!) Bottom line, 2 other Sony drives played them fine, but, this unit didn't even want to read them. The DVD drive is just too picky here. Not enough for me to return it because it has yet to fail on any DVD pressed discs, just writable ones. Granted, there are a lot of miracles involved, more than people realized, in getting a writable DVD disc to work. But, for discs that worked before in drives that still work, including 2 from the same manufacturer as this combo unit, that's simply something a buyer shouldn't have to accept. A few annoyances that can be lived with, but, were I someone else knowing what I know now, I'd pass on the drive. Again, not enough for me to return it yet, but, I also cannot recommend anyone else getting it.
Rating:
Summary: good - if you dont use it
Review: I bought this combo for my brother-in-laws birthday. He now thinks I know nothing about electronics. When we played a dvd I was shocked--SHOCKED to see one of the worst dvd pictures I have ever seen. Sony is a leader in dvd players. Thier players are always recommended but, they must have threw this together at the last minute with thier two cheapest units cause both were bad. I really dont know what to say.. I just dont...
Rating:
Summary: Great but lousy remote
Review: As a DVD player it plays great. As a VCR player it also plays great, and plays videos better than two other VCRs I owned. Worn tapes play almost as new on this Sony, and I have been very pleased with the overall performance. I also like the nice touch of the machine automatically switching to the front inputs when you plug something in (in my case a camcorder). BUT: The remote is absolutely awful, and the deck doesn't automatically set itself to play on the TV. The remote is awful becuase the button groupings are not intuitive, the buttons are small, the labels are small, and they are not lit. So it is impossible to use in the dark. Further, unless you own a Sony TV, you can only use limited buttons to control the TV (no direct channel change buttons, for example, only channel up, channel down and volume). The deck doesn't set itself to play through when you switch it on as did every other VCR I have ever owned, and there is no way to do it from the front panel. Additionally, you cannot control the DVD without the remote (OK, play only but no start menus)... So if you want to watch a DVD without the remote ... you can't. Simple things that SHOULD have been done in the original design. Typical Sony, I suppose. But they should have done better.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent combo
Review: I don't know a lot about VCR-DVD combo's, but this one does exactly what I want. It plays an excellent picture, both with DVD and VHS. The rewind time is great. You can switch to VHS to DVD to TV with one push of the button on the remote or on the combo itself. It was extremely easy to hookup and start, and I am a woman who does little of this. The instructions and booklet tell you exactly what to do. It even tells you what to do if you have an older TV (which requires a separate cord). I couldn't ask for anything that works better. I like it much better than my Phillips VHS player and the DVD is also much better. I would highly recommend it. My TV is Sony and it has been wonderful, so I trust the Sony name completely and they haven't disappointed me. Great unit.
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