Review on 📼 Powerful and Versatile Magnavox ZV457MG9 Dual Deck DVD/VCR Recorder: Record and Playback Functionality in Sleek Black Design by Steve Hauck

I was looking for an inexpensive combo that would be a good addition to the old combo I have now which only has a DVD player. This article more than lived up to the bill. It's fairly easy to set up and what I like about it is the VCR's tape control mechanism. this is what i have learned from experience works very well. I've had VCRs that "eat" the tape even when they're brand new. I don't really understand why this is happening, but it is happening. The hi-fi VCR on this combo was great from the start. It handled every VC I threw at it and even some of the VCs I had that got corrupted by other VCRs. (It plays them without adding damage, and many VCRs can't.) The controls are a bit slow, but not as slow as some systems I've seen. I noticed that the OSD for VCR mode only has an on or off mode, not just a tape counter mode. When you turn on the screen, it shows the tape counter, time, channel and speed, all without the tape counter-only mode. This is a small problem, but a small one. The DVD also has a fairly large screen area. And sometimes that gets in the way. I've noticed that the combo is a bit slow when executing commands given by the remote, but I haven't had one that doesn't complete. The remote takes a bit of getting used to as the change in speed is listed as a "mode" rather than a "speed". By the way, if you need an RF modulator, this device does not have one, so you need to adapt to it. It passes RF through the system to use the built in tuner but doesn't have a small selector switch to select the RF channel. (Since I'm using the video and audio outs, that wasn't a problem for me.) Since I live in a small town and am lucky enough to have a cable, everything works with it. In my case the analog cable worked great and the DVD and VCR recording was great. What you see is what you see in the picture which is great to me. The only things that made me give this system 4 stars instead of 5 are the less flexible on-screen display options and the slow response to remote commands. Otherwise I'm a good buy for the price!