Wanted an HDMI upper for DVD's but also needed to be able to show legacy VHS. Price was same as Sony up converting player, (which I have for another TV) but has the the VCR. Sounded good. I am connecting to Samsung TV, so why not? First player was DOA. Wouldn't recognize a DVD. Amazon immediately shipped a replacement (They have really done right by me in customer service). Machine delivers a very nice image through HDMI output and the VCR transport seems to be fine. All's well that ends well.

9/5/07
Purchased the Samsung upconverting DVD/VCR in late Nov 2006. To date, Samsung has had the unit almost longer than I have. Worst product I have ever owned. Worst customer service organization at Samsung I've ever had to deal with! Seems more like "invincible incompetence!"

Unit did not work right out of the box. So much for Samsung's QC and testing of units prior to shipping them! The VCR ate the first two tapes we tried to play. I called Samsung and they had me send it back to them for repair, to an outfit called CVE. BEWARE!!!

My unit stayed weeks in their facility for "attempted" repair. CVE FINALLY shipped it back. Only one problem, STILL DID NOT WORK!!! Again, for the second time, no one at Samsung/CVE seemed to have bothered to test the unit to see if it worked after "repairing". Again, so much for Samsung QC & customer care!

Samsung now instructs me to send unit back to CVE, the SECOND time, since CVE failed to fix it the... Read more

Samsung DVD-V9700, DVD/VCR combo with upconversion, is GREAT...!

Pros
Excellent Upconversion & Progressive scan DVD pictures! VCR is great too!
TIP!- For Even Sharper DVD picture, and No upconversion distorsion filling scvreen!-
When playing a DVD keep pressing the HDMI button on front of player (not on remote), until you get highest 1080i... resolution (will have to be Manually set back down to play 480/780 with auto-upconversion).

BTW- I tried the Magnavox DVD/VHS combo, and I returned it due to DVD/VHS no/poor-play problems (no firmware fix per support!).
Magnavox MBP110V/F7 Blu-Ray/VHS Player Combo, Black

Cons
Sometimes VCR auto-tracking, takes a little manual tweaking. No biggee!

The Bottom Line
DVD- This is a great DVD/VCR combo!

VCR- I still prefer... Read more