Go Video VR3840 Combo DVD Recorder and Hi-Fi VCR
By: GoVideo Average Rating: 2.0 Total Reviews: 23
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 On: 2008-06-13
Yep, sure enough I have had this unit over 1 year and now
it rejects 3 out of 5 pre-recorded DVDs saying "Unknown
Disk."
Go Video has since gone out of business, and no longer supports
its products. The company that bought the name from them says
they do not support it but they have gotten many calls about the
VR3840. Its junk. If you get one that works, give it time.
On: 2008-05-19
We bought a Go Video Model VR 3840 from Costco a couple of years ago. It worked good for the first year or so, then started rejecting DVDs with an "unknown disc" message. I have tried cleaning the lens, etc., and it will work for a few DVDs, then starts doing the same thing again. After reading many similar reviews, I would definitely not recommend this product, and will never buy another Go Video product myself.
On: 2007-05-30
You will regret buying any product with the govideo brand. i have owned two different models of the govideo vcr-dvd combo players and both had fatal vcr head failures within a hours of use. i bought these new, not refurbished from frys electonics. they would be better known as NO-GOVIDEO.
On: 2007-01-07
I cannot even get through the Setup mode on the new unit. Their "Customer Service" number was disconnected and my e-mail bounced back. Calling the companys headquarter, the recorded voice told me to leave a message, but I always get terminated after that. Dont buy from this company!
On: 2006-12-15
I loved it to for about 4 months and then it wont play any dvds unknown disc it says!! I paid full price for mine. Called customer service they told me to buy a disc cleaner before they would help me, bought one and it didnt help. Called back and they had disconnected the number!! VERY BAD COMPANY!!! NEVER BUY FROM GO VIDEO!!!!
On: 2006-05-26
Tried to copy 1 tape to DVD after many (40+/-) played DVDs, it hung up, now wont play ANY dvd or CD! Unknown Disc! GoVideo computer (Customer support) hung up on me 3 times. Nothing in manual about "Unknown Disc" at all. Strange we ALL have the same problem and GoVideo has NOTHING on it any where! Methinks something stinks here! (But my air purifier is on and its obviously covering it up!)
On: 2006-05-18
At first I could burn DVDs OK. Then I started losing one in 5 (freeze on recording file, on finalization, etc.). Then 1 in 3. then it stopped recognizing DVDs altogether -- blank DVDs, recorded DVDs, commercial DVDs, whatever. Only CD and VCR functions still work. Since I bought it to transfer VHS to DVD, its useless to me. GoVideo Customer Service strung me along just long enough for the warranty to expire. BAD PRODUCT; BAD COMPANY.
On: 2006-05-05
I bought a "Refurbished" unit from U-Bid at a great price (I thought). It was $65 plus $20 shipping. Unfortunately the DVD recorder only worked one day so now I have an $85 VHS which is not a good price. After playing a couple of movies I started recording my first DVD. It hung up the recorder while trying to finish the recording. Had to unplug the unit after about an hour. Now it wont recognize any DVD, even movies I had played previously. Get an "unknown disk" message. It has a 90 day warranty and Im waiting to hear from U-Bid to see what my options are. Dont be fooled by a low price, this unit is not worth two cents!
On: 2006-04-10
I have had 3 Go Video DVD Combos in a little over a year. I paid for one and got 2 replacements free. None worked more than a few months. The first was a VR1940 and it lasted 2 months. It was replaced with one that lasted 5 months. The company then replaced the VR1940 with a VR3840 telling me it was a "upgrade." In fact that unit is a downgrade costing about $100 less. It lasted 5 months. I just threw it in the trash.
The products are great for the perspective of features but they wont last more than a few of months. The only positive review you will read is by someone who just bought the product and thats only if it worked initially which is a very big IF.
 On: 2006-03-03
After reading some of the negative reviews, I was getting a little concerned that I had made a mistake ordering this product. Im happy to report that (so far) its working just great. Were very pleased with the menu structure on the finished DVDs, and the video, while not fabulous, is still very good. Plus, it plays and copies VHS tapes!
On: 2006-02-26
I bought this machine for my mother so she could transfer all her VHS tapes to DVD and to get her an up to date VCR. It has been great so far. It was really easy to set up and easy to navigate from task to task. The dubbing function is so simple to learn and for my mom that is very, very helpful. I have read in other reviews that the machines seem to act up over time but for now it is working not just as good as I had hoped but performs even better. I am pleased enough with this machine to consider buying one for myself. I hope this review has been helpful in your decision. I say go for it, you wont be disappointed.
 On: 2006-02-26
This recorder is really a bargain. The only problem we had was that we downloaded the instruction manual for it on Amazon and it showed that it had a direct digital input in the front...but what we didnt notice was that the manual was for the upgraded model and that this model does NOT have the input. The quality of the recording might be better with direct digital input but for our purposes it looks fine anyway. So make sure you know this before buying this one.
On: 2006-02-26
The Go Video VR3840 worked fine for a few months but now it plays some discs while not playing other discs (even ones that it played fine a couple of months ago). It seems the engineers have constructed it just to work well until the warranty is up.
On: 2006-02-24
At first, I was thrilled with this recorder. But, soon after I got it, the remote control quit working properly and recording became impossible. Personally, I feel DVD recorders are still too complicated and need to be made as easy to use as a VCR. There are simply too many details to remember when recording, which I am sure frustrates a lot of people into just avoiding the use of the DVD recording function.
On: 2006-02-21
For what it does, it does an outstanding job. All the functions
of higher priced units for a lot less cash. Some of the other reviews complain about the service. I say, "What service? The machine doesnt break down!. I called once on a technical issue & was answered promptly & without problems".
Amazon.com is a great site.
On: 2006-02-16
I bought a unit from GO Video and experienced horrors with their customer service as mentioned in other reviews.
My unit came without any of the accessories and after 6 weeks of talking to more than a half dozen people (with more runaround than you can even begin to imagine) at go video, I still have a unit that will not work.
avoid this manufacturer!!
On: 2006-01-19
I have had the misfortune of owning several go-video products.
I rue the day I bought them and you will too.
 On: 2006-01-12
I have been using GoVideo VR 3845 for the last four months recoding to both DVD and VHS just great. Started using DV-In connection to my Sony Camcorder worked OK the first time. Second time "Not connected message". I call GoVideo service and they suggested replacing new used-once cable. The camera side indicated `DV connection, must be the GoVideo problem. Called again wait 10 minutes and hung-up on. Call third time again message "no customer support today" (Monday 1/9/2006). I wrote an email to customer support with NO RESPONSE (except the automated received notice). THANK YOU Costco for cash back return (keep your receipt and box it came in). For just this single reason alone of non-service, do not buy GoVideo products!
On: 2005-10-03
Im the Faddle-Steven reviewer that gave this unit a bad
review. Now I only give customer service a bad review. I couldnt get any help from Go-Video on a bad unit. Fortunately, I bought the defective unit at Costco and they have a 6 month, no-questions-asked return policy on any electronic items they sell. I exchanged this item at Costco and the second unit works fine. The 1, 2 or 4 hour recordings come out great. If you record 6 hours of programs, expect a very grainy picture. It copies your old VHS tapes, your old camcorder tapes and records direct from TV, either on the fly or using the timer. All functions are extremely intuitive; you hardly need the manual. You can even record from DVD to VHS if you want, and Ive had to copy my wifes training DVDs to VHS a couple of times because the only players she had at a few of her training sites were VCRs. The only real complaints I have are these: Go-Video customer service is set up to stonewall you, not help you (get the unit from Costco; theyll refund your money or exchange the unit for a new one. Keep your receipt & all packed items handy). The other complaint I have is that this DVR should have a hard-drive so that you can store several shows on the drive before recording to DVD.
Update: 5/7/2006
Unit was working fine until recently. Im now getting some unknown disc messages from things Ive just recorded. My
media are good blanks. The problem is with the recorder. The best thing to do when this situation occurs is to unplug the unit, which seems to reset it. It will work fine again for a while, but I know that after 5 or so disks it is going to happen again. Resetting by unplugging seems to work OK; the only problem is that you have wasted a couple of hours making a dud disk & then you have to reset & start over, hoping it works the 2nd time. Dont forget to reset the clock when this happens.
Sometimes it hangs up when its recording to file and finalizing now, too. Unplugging for a few minutes seems
to work, but youre out time & disk again.
On: 2005-08-29
Well, right from the get-go I started having a little problem with the DVD recorder. A few disks did not record properly. I called Support. Support told me they had some issues with the quality of the DVD media made by a certain corporation. I changed DVD media to M....... About 60% of the disks came out well. Thats 4 out of 10 that are coasters. I still believed support, thinking that in every batch the DVD manufacturer is going to have some bad disks that sneaked through quality control. I cleaned the unit using a canister of compressed air, like Electronic Technicians use. My wife got me 200 disks from Costco made by TDK (Costco is where I bought the VR3845). The first 5 disks came out OK, I thought. I decided to check them all the way through, so I skipped ahead at 5m intervals. At 15m on one, a freeze in the video. At 40m on the next, freezes and skips & lost audio. Now I wonder how many of my successful burns had skips? A friend gave me 6 hours of his pianist son on VHS to copy for him. I thought the burn was successful since I didnt watch the whole thing. A father does watch the whole thing. He reported skips and freezes (mostly freezes). I had him log the times. I checked the parts of the DVD he said froze and the same thing happened on the VR3845. I tried DVDing some old TV shows from the TV feed. Several freezes and its getting worse. To top it off, my warranty just ran out. Just over three months and I have another piece of electronic junk in the cabinet and Im out $240. Dont buy this. Support will try to convince you that you bought bad media blanks. You buy into that and the warranty will run out on you before you realize that its the machine.
Recommended
No
Amount Paid (US$): 240
On: 2005-08-29
This is my first DVD recorder unit, and I was expecting it to be complicated and difficult to use, but set up was a breeze, and in the first day I was happily converting my VHS collection of movies that Id taped over the years onto DVD. Id read enough reviews to suggest that the prudent way to do it would be to use the included dvd RW to dub the movie from the VHS tape to the DVD RW, then take it in to my computer for reauthoring with an editing program, that way I could remove commercials easily, and get rid of the menu. Before I figured this out (it took a day or so) I was unhappy because I didnt like the automatic menuing feature. My objective was always to put one movie on each DVD, so menus seemed a waste of space.
Now that I have my process refined I am just happily taking my videos and transferring them.
One thing that impresses me about this unit is that it appears to correct the image and remove some of the noise in the conversion process. Id read about this on the company web site, but seeing it in action impressed me. The quality of a DVD taken from a video is quite good, even better on those movies where Id put one movie on a video by itself. If youve got six hours of video on your tape, you can expect a little less quality.
On a few occasions, Ive captured directly from the tuner onto the DVD. In these, the quality is magnificent.
All things considered, I think this is a well thought out and enjoyable unit.
On: 2005-08-28
This is my first DVD recorder unit, and I was expecting it to be complicated and difficult to use, but set up was a breeze, and in the first day I was happily converting my VHS collection of movies that Id taped over the years onto DVD. Id read enough reviews to suggest that the prudent way to do it would be to use the included dvd RW to dub the movie from the VHS tape to the DVD RW, then take it in to my computer for reauthoring with an editing program, that way I could remove commercials easily, and get rid of the menu. Before I figured this out (it took a day or so) I was unhappy because I didnt like the automatic menuing feature. My objective was always to put one movie on each DVD, so menus seemed a waste of space.
Now that I have my process refined I am just happily taking my videos and transferring them.
One thing that impresses me about this unit is that it appears to correct the image and remove some of the noise in the conversion process. Id read about this on the company web site, but seeing it in action impressed me. The quality of a DVD taken from a video is quite good, even better on those movies where Id put one movie on a video by itself. If youve got six hours of video on your tape, you can expect a little less quality.
On a few occasions, Ive captured directly from the tuner onto the DVD. In these, the quality is magnificent.
All things considered, I think this is a well thought out and enjoyable unit.
On: 2005-08-27
I just purchased this unit at Costco last week (on sale for $189 with coupon). It is very easy to use and the quality seems top notch. The playback on this DVD is great.
I have a problem with one of the DVDs we created from several older VHS tapes. This burned DVD (R+) was formatted for 4 hours and has 7 titles, each with multiple chapters. My other two DVD players and computer will only play two of the seven titles and you cannot forward to the other chapters within the two titles that play. I had the DVD set to the default to create chapters every 5 minutes for each title. We then combined the chapters (since we cannot delete them) and made our own chapters for each title at logical breaking points.
My theory is that other players cannot "translate" or "get through" the titles that we combined chapters with along with making our own chapters. The two titles that play in other players had only one chapter, or we did not do that much combining. I turned off the automatic chapter making setting and I burned a DVD last night with one title and no chapters and it plays fine in all players.
My test for this weekend is to burn this DVD again, and make my own chapters to see if other players can play the burned DVD. Then, I will try again with multiple titles and chapters.
I will report back with the results. In the meantime, if you have similar problems, turn off the automatic chapter creation and / or do not combine chapters. Other DVD players may not know how to read that title effectively if you do. I will let you know when I burn more.
On: 2005-06-17
This is a solid unit, not cheaply built. I have tested recording to DVD from VHS, Cable, Video In. Excellent image, except in the lowest quality setting, where you start to see pixelation. Very intuitive, i hardly used the manual.
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