Sony SLV-D300P DVD/VCR Player - Two in One! What a Space Saver!

Author's Rating:

Pros: DVD/VCR in one machine

Cons: None, other than the remote button are quite small

The Bottom Line: 
Nice unit for general family use. Plenty of features, fully programmable, convenience of one machine.

Author's Review
Several months ago we added on a guest room which included a TV. We decided to put our old VCR in the guest room, and take the leap (hey - better late than never!) and get a DVD player. Actually, it was sort of an impulse purchase, because we had family coming to stay right away and needed our VCR to go in the guest room. That left us with no way to watch movies.

We saw the Sony SLV-D300P DVD/VCR Player, and thought - all right, that's exactly what we need. We own many VHS tapes, and yet sometimes the movie we want to rent only comes in DVD, so at least this way we could play either format on the same machine. We snapped it up for $179, which I felt was reasonable.

~ Product Description and Features

This Sony combination DVD/VCR player boasts many features:

DVD
- Progressive Scan
- CD-R/RW and MP3 Playback
- DVD-RW/-R, DVD+RW/+R Playback
- JPEG Digital Image Playback (CD-R/RW)


VCR
- Hi-Fi Stereo Sound
- Commercial Skip
- Flash Rewind (120 min. tape rewinds in 60 seconds)
- 19 Micron Heads

Included with this player is:

- Multi-brand remote control
- two AA (R6) batteries
- 75-ohm coaxial cable with F-type connector
- Audio/video cord
- Instruction manual

There is a note that the supplied remote control is for the exclusive use of this DVD-VCR.

This Sony player comes with a one-year warranty.

The footprint for this player is 17" wide, by 11" deep, and 3 3/4" high. It looks very sleek, and is a brushed silver color.

The DVD player is on the left (as you are facing the machine), and the VCR player is on the right.

~ Other Features to Note

The Sony SLV-D300P DVD/VCR Player has AV inputs on the front panel, which makes it convenient to hook up, say, a video camera. I find this so much easier than fumbling around in the back. This unit is fully programmable for recording, and also has a zoom feature.

~ Our Experience

My husband had this baby hooked up pretty quickly, with a minimum of swear words. We're not terribly technical, and we are what you might consider to be low-end users. Many features of the Sony SLV-D300P DVD/VCR Player we have yet to use, and probably never will use several of them.

The remote is relatively basic. The buttons are VERY small though! Hard to see, and even harder to press, especially if you have larger hands. But overall, this isn't a huge issue.

We've watched lots of DVD's and VHS tapes with this machine over the approximate 3 months we've had it. No problems whatsoever. The picture on the DVD's is beautiful and clear. The VHS plays better and looks better than our old one, which was still working fine. We have a basic 27" TV, but this Sony player will work fine with HDTV as well. (A better TV will be our next purchase.)

The flash rewind on the VHS tapes works fantastic.

We most definitely enjoy having the convenience of one machine that is a VCR and DVD player, and feel it's just perfect for general family use. It has everything we need, and much more. Even though we are technically challenged, we have found this player easy to use and fairly intuitive to program.


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