Panasonic PV-D4744S Progressive Scan DVD / VCR Combo (Silver)
Panasonic's silver, full-featured PV-D4744S integrates a high-quality, progressive-scan DVD player and four-head, hi-fi VCR. Whether your living room is currently home to an HDTV or you're merely thinking of "someday," the PV-D4744S stands ready to deliver the full potential of your DVDs. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts. Amazon.com Product Description

The VCR's four-head design ensures smooth slow-motion tape play (forward and reverse) and clear still-frame images, and with hi-fi sound the unit records and plays back stereo audio tracks. The unit even lets you record a TV show while watching a DVD at the same time. By receiving the Extended Data Service signal from your local PBS channel (where available), the PV-D4744S sets its own clock and date. Furthermore, a 24-hour back-up system saves the settings and, in the event of a power outage, resets them automatically when the power is restored.

Front audio/video inputs make it easy to hook up your camcorder or gaming device. A set of left/right analog-audio outputs channel audio to Dolby Pro Logic receivers and stereo televisions. Both Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1-channel surround-sound signals can be routed through the player's digital-audio output for direct connection to a full-featured AV receiver. The player simulates surround sound from DVD programs for a spacious effect from any two speakers.
Other features include auto VCR head cleaning and tape-position display, DVD repeat play, DVD high-speed smooth-motion scanning (up to 100x normal speed), DVD picture zoom, and a trilingual onscreen display (English, Spanish, French). The unit is Energy Star compliant and comes with a universal remote control.

Report

Great Buy for the Money / Report May 31, 2005
I've had this product for about a year and have really enjoyed it. I wasn't willing to part with all of my old VHS tapes and didn't want to spend the money to upgrade all of them to DVD (some still aren't available on DVD). I found the price and the look to be nice, so I made the purchase from Amazon.

The setup was fairly easy, although I did have to call Comcast to help me out with the cable connection (but I have it all rigged up to my stereo as well, which for me is somewhat complicated)! They were able to straighten it out and I began enjoying the player immediately.

The remote control is easy to use. The unit plays both VHS tapes and DVDs through my stereo with the simple touch of a button. I have used the VHS player to record programs with ease.

The only problem I've had with the unit is that with some Netflix DVDs it gives me a hard time about not being able to read them - due primarily to scratches on the discs (if you have Netflix, you know what I am talking about). But I haven't had any problems with DVDs of my own.

Overall, a great product for a great price.


Perhaps the Worst Product I've Ever Bought / Report
I bought and used this DVD player for fewer than two months before I just couldn't take it anymore. I found it routinely rejects DVDs (tells me I have to clean them or they may be scratched) that other DVD players play just fine. I clean them and usually that fixes them, but not always, and keep in mind, this means they always have to be perfectly clean or they just won't play at all in this machine, where they will in others. The OTHER problem this player seems to have is a basic design defect -- it has some kind of buffer that fills up and at that point it quits playing your DVD after about an hour or so. Eject the disc and restart from the same place and it plays fine again even at the same place it quit, so it's not a problem with the disc. (Apparently a buffer [memory buffer?] becomes filled up during normal play of a 2-hour disc and the machine then just quits, and the only way to get it to play again is to eject it and restart the disc from that chapter.) It also seems to hang up A LOT on the transition from when you click a menu item to going to the place the menu is supposed to take you. Note that all contact to Panasonic about this has, to date, been ignored, even though it's on warranty. This has truly been a hassle for me and I cannot recommend this machine to anyone in good conscience. (The VHS worked fine but the image quality is rather poor even for VHS.) Clearly there are majorly substandard parts used in this machine, coupled with defects in its very design in regard to the DVD player. After reading several reviews online I found a DVD player that reviewers said again and again worked reliably with DVD discs -- the Panasonic DVD-S27. I was reluctant to buy another Panasonic, but the DVD-S27 is superb and inexpensive and reliable.


vcr good, dvd horrible / Report July 16, 2005
i owned this unit for 6 months and everything worked fine. then the dvd player started to malfunction. no matter what disc was put into it, it would not read it. i called panasonic customer service, tried what they suggested (2 different calls each with a different service rep telling me to try different solutions), but it still would not read any discs and continues not to read any discs over a year after purchasing it. forget about getting it repaired. it costs half the price of the unit just to have someone look at it to see whats wrong. the vcr portion works great, just like all the previous panasonic vcr's i've owned. i guess panasonic just knows how to make good vcr's and can't handle manufacturing dvd players.

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