i agree, when you have a part of a combo go bad you toss the whole thing. or you can go pickup a 29.95 DVD player and plug it in teh AUX input. i had a JVC VCR a couple years ago would try to come on and then shut down. total cost of repair, including shipping was 100.00. i paid it the 1st time since this was a high end commercial grade unit that cost well over 500.00. the second time it did it i tossed it in teh garbage. if this had been and off the shelf unit, i would not even have thought about getting it fixed.

The closest thing I had to that happening was with my Panasonic VCR. We took it to the shop, and he said that the things that turn the tape were all gummed up......probably from using the same tape so many times. He cleaned it up as best he could and said it might not last much longer. It lasted about a year, and it's doing it again. Do you think this is what might be your problem? The main symptom I had back then was it would just shut down shortly after starting it.

I need help. I bought a new 42 inch screen Magnavox HD TV set. We are a member of the Direct TV Satellite Cable Network. The dish is outside of the house with a coaxil cable entering the home to a black box that sits beside the TV. A coaxil cable leaves the black box to a Power Surge Protector Electrical strip. Another coaxil cable leaves this connection to the TV back input area. The TV channels, volume, etc are controlled by the handheld Dish Remote Control. The Magnovox TV remote is not used. I have a Symphonic DVD Player and the red, white, yellow wire set and its own remote control. I have an Emerson VCR with a coaxil connector wire and its own remote controller. I do not know where to connect the VCR coaxil wire to the TV. The TV set has overall, 3 sites for the colored wire connection ports. (1) an area on the left side near the back of the screen for the yellow,red,white connection, and 2 separate areas called line 1 and line 2 connections (but a double set of plugs of red, white and yellow colored ports in this assembly)which is very confusing. Which row do I use? Goal: I want to know how to connect the VCR and the DVD. They are to be used separately. Do I hook up these 2 separately at the varied colored port areas, and they run independently with their remotes? Do I connect to the black box? Do I run the DVD through the back out hook-up of colored ports to the colored inports at the VCR front area and connect to the TV via a coaxil somehow?....Is the black box involved or bypassed? Please keep the insructions simple. The 3 sets of appliance directions are too confusing. I am having trouble with each appliance and the individual directions are not helpful to me with the currently used Direct TV Dish system. Thank you in advance.

Yes, I finally did that. I was without a computer for a while, and I see that this thread had no activity until yesterday. I ended up buying a Panasonic, for exactly that reason, and also based on our general good experiences with Panasonic products in the past. I got the "30" model (don't have the full model number with me) DVD recorder/VCR combo unit. I learned a lot about the confusing topic of DVD recording formats, and also about home theatre and video in general, during my research. Since our HDTV has only one set of component inputs, and we have no home theater receiver, I have to switch TV inputs to get the best picture, etc. However, it's easy to do with either of the remotes. I found that the DVD signal using the S-video input is very good. This is a 27" TV, so there's not a lot of difference between the HD picture and the normal picture from cable (depending on the channel); both are excellent. I haven't tried recording with this new unit yet, but I like it in general so far. For anyone else facing a similar situation, I would only say that all of the other brands seems to have at least a few people posting who have had problems (sometimes multiple problems) with the machines. So be careful. Steve