Toshiba SD-V394 DVD/VCR Combo

That's right I said it. Finally someone has the guts to tell you the truth about the remote. Toshiba must have a great laugh as they go to sleep every night knowing that they made the worst remote scheme ever.

1. The remote is too small. They've cram all of their remote function and it suck.

2. Buttons are too small. What is this remotes for, children?

3. Damn this thing. I hit the power button, I also hit the eject button and now I'm cleaning water off the floor.

DAMN YOU TOSHIBA. First Pearl Harbor and now America's carpet floors.

I was looking for a second VCR/DVD for an extra TV we have and chose this unit as it seemed to have good DivX support, which I was interested in playing with. Well, the DivX support has turned out to be rock-solid, playing everything I've thrown at it in countless formats burned on DVD-R, CD-RW and CD-R. Its never failed to decode a file. I've moved the unit to our video room and we've been enjoying it ever since. It is true the quality of playback of the VCR isn't great, but its good enough for my child's videos. In addition, the remote isn't too fancy, but the unit has excellent controls accessible from the remote for controlling things like picture size, jpeg playback, etc.

Title says it all. DVD just stopped working after 6 months. No matter what disc you put in, the machine said "no disc." This is too bad because the machine perfectly fit our needs.

I called Toshiba Customer Service, sent the old machine to them, and in two weeks had another machine. However, the machine they sent me was a DIFFERENT MODEL from the one I purchased and it lacked some of the features I needed.

So I called Toshiba again. This time they sent me a prepaid shipping label which I used to mail this machine back to them. In two weeks I received a check for the purchase price of my original machine!

We have been very pleased with our purchase. I found reading the previous reviews to be accurate and very helpful. Very easy to hook-up, will work on old television sets, DVD and VHS work well, VHS is more noisy when rewinding. We bought this for our children to watch movies and just use the most basic features, so it has suited our needs well. If looking for all bells and whistles would probably choose higher end model, but if looking to stay simple and basic I would choose this model.

This unit actually has nice DVD playback, but that's where the good news ends. The VHS playback is quite bad on this unit, even in SP mode. Also, the remote is way too small, with tiny little lettering that can only be deciphered in bright light. Would it really have cost Toshiba that much to increase the size of the remote by a couple of inches, with lettering we can actually see?

The user interface for taping programs has way too many button strokes. You must go through the VCR setup menu just to get to the programming screen and you need to press the ENTER key after each parameter entry such as date, channel, etc. It doesn't end there. Exiting the menu itself won't set your timed program. After you've backed out of the programming screen, you must then press the TIMER/REC button in order for the timed program to be registered. The unit doesn't remind you to do this after you've backed out of the programming screen. Now, once you've done all this, the unit will then, for some strange reason, switch automatically to DVD mode whether you like it or not. So if there's a DVD in the unit, it will begin to play. If you don't want this to happen (who would?), you must then go into the DVD screen and hit STOP. Whomever designed this user interface should have their head examined.

If you've owned a Panasonic in the past, you will not be happy with this unit.