big e

A few days ago, I went to play a VHS tape in my Magnavox DVD recorder/VCR combo and ran into an odd problem. The tape went in fine, it started playing, but then, after six or seven seconds, it stopped playing and the whole unit shut down. I tried it a few more times, but met the same results. A little digging online didn’t reveal much, but I did find a thread on some other site that described a problem similar to mine. That site said the problem may be a manufacture defect, which means I’d be out of luck on getting it fixed. Has anyone else run into something similar or have an idea of what the problem might be?

jjcool

This is going way back, but I seem to remember having a similar problem with a VCR many years ago. The tape would go in fine, play for a little bit then stop and the recorder would shut down. Tried a different tape, and didnt get the problem. Put the original tape back in, and got the same problem. Turns out the tape I was trying to play had not been stored properly and the actual tape inside had become stuck to the layer underneath. I manually advanced the tape a bit, then manually rewound the tape a bit, popped it back in, and it played fine. The player apparently was trying to play it, hit resistance, and went into some sort of overload protection kind of thing and shut itself down.
May not be your problem, but worth a look. Did you try playing another tape?

big e

I have tried other tapes, recently, and had the same result. I bought this DVD/VCR combo around 2009 from Big Lots, and thought the VCR portion worked then. However, I never used the VCR much because I had another one hooked up in my bedroom, although that is long gone at this point. I remember encountering this problem a couple years ago, but thought the tape might have been bad and never investigated it. Maybe the VCR never worked?

jjcool

That is possible. Have you tried putting a tape in and try fast forwarding all the way through? I would use a tape you dont care about.

CrazyMat

If you have the same result with other tapes, than it could be a problem with one of the sensors, possibly a bad connection maybe even a flaky mode switch, It is also possibly a mechanical problem such as a bad idler gear, lubrication problem or something else.

This is a good faq to read if you want to learn something about vcrs
http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/vcrfaq.htm#vcrabortspr

Since this is a newish combo unit it would have no idler tire, but a idler gear instead. Also a lot of the vcrs in combo units were no were near as good as the standalones

big e

I tried that last night. The VCR would fast forward about two minutes, then stop and shut down. It doesn't appear as though the tape is being damages or anything.

rw2516

Were you FF in play mode or with tape not engaged? If the tape is not engaged I'd bet on the belt drive mechanism. Try rewinding a tape from complete end to beginning see if it makes it all the way.

Alan Smithee

Most VCRs made after 1990 or so are junk. They REALLY blew it with the DVD/VCR units as they made both parts of them junk.

jjcool

Rule of thumb is anytime they combine 2 or more electronic items, and charge about the same for the one item that they would charge for each item individually, the quality is diminished.

rw2516

It's been my experience that an electronic dedicated to a single function performs that function better.
Exception being BD players seem to upconvert DVDs better than upconverting DVD player.

jjcool

I agree with the first statement. Never really thought about the second, or had a chance to test the two, as I have never had a dvd player and a blu ray player hooked up to the same monitor simultaneously. But on the face of it, it makes sense.

big e

When I tested FF, the tape was not playing. I can test FF with the tape playing when I get home tonight.

The weird thing is, the DVD player on this works fine. It's just the VCR that's crapping out.

rw2516

I willing to bet it's mechanical then, not electronic. Most probably the drive belt is slipping. The shut down probably a protective measure to prevent damage to tapes.

CrazyMat

The VCR and DVD are both separate chassis connected to one board. Often the power supply is on the same board, but sometimes there are separate boards for the power supplies. The vcr part of combo units is usually what gives problems first.

TG8830

I don't know when you posted this problem, but I have a Magnavox ZVD450MWB DVD/VCR duplicator and it has this exact problem. Did you ever find a solution?

big e

No, I ended up getting rid of the combo and bought a normal VCR off eBay a couple weeks later.

TG8830

Thanks,
I've got the unit torn down and believe that the problem is the take-up reel sensor. Either the diode or so much dirt that the sensor doesn't sense the reel moving and stops after 18 seconds. If I'm lucky, i'll finish the tear-down and clean everything on the undercarriage. What a mess. Magnavox did NOT design their VCR section with maintenance in mind. If this fixes the problem, I'll post it here - otherwise I'll do what you did and can the unit. I have a Samsung that works perfectly, so I do have a unit that allows conversion from VHS to DVD.

Linconanna

Mine did the same thing but it was with the DVD recorder portion. I have a lot of DVD's that I was copying clips from my video camera to a DVD. I just hadn't finalized any of them yet and then the whole thing just died. I have no idea how to finalize the disks now? Any thoughts?