RCA DRC8335 DVD Recorder / VCR Combo

I purchased the RCA model DRC8335 VCR/DVD unit on 12/21/2007 as a gift. It quit working in June of 2008 with both a cassette and a DVD stuck inside. We attempted the troubleshooting steps outlined in the user manual with no luck. This unit has a one year warranty, so the next step was to call the RCA/Thomson customer care number on 6/19/2008. I’m not sure what country I was talking to, but communication was a struggle. Everything needed to be repeated a number of times and often spelled-out before it was understood. After being put on hold several times, and overcoming the communication gap, I was given a service request number and instructed to mail the unit to El Paso Texas. A replacement unit would be shipped back within 7-10 days I was told. We shipped the unit out on 6/23/2008 and tracking confirmed arrival on 6/272008. Over three weeks later we still hadn’t seen or heard anything regarding our replacement, so I called RCA/Thomson customer care again. Of course we went through all of the communication and please-hold issues again, only this time I was told our case had been made inactive. No reason was known or given for this, they simply opened another case number and I was told a replacement unit would be shipped back within 7-10 days. Over two weeks later we still hadn’t seen or heard anything regarding our replacement, so I called RCA/Thomson customer care again on 8/7/2008. This time I was told they didn’t have any units in stock to ship and furthermore they had no idea when they would have a unit to ship. The customer care person told me to call back again in 10 days, maybe they would know something then. Incredible!
I have very little hope of ever seeing this unit again, and frankly, that would be just fine with me. I will never have another RCA/Thomson product in my home as long as I live. After this, that brand name just makes me cringe.
On the bright side, I have enjoyed many hours of re-telling the story of the rotten customer care provided by RCA/Thomson to friends and acquaintances. Priceless!

This unit model was a warranty replacement for the model drc8320n which was junk. It lasted for only 4 months before dying. It took 8 months for Tompson (now Venture Electronics) to replace it. The replacement model drc8335 lasted just over 3 months of occasional use before getting stuck in the Hello mode. Resetting did nothing to reset it. Warranty on it was only 90 days because it was a warranty replacement. Even though it was a new unit. Upon investigation of underlying problem, found blown capacitors in the power supply to be part of the problem (a very common problem in this poorly designed product). Further investigation found a fried IC chip in the dvd burner, so fixing the power supply would be of little help. RCA used to have a good product, I have owned many TVs, radios, and VCRs of theirs before. I will not be buying any of their products again. Also I will let everyone that I see looking at their products know my experience with their products and customer service (which is horrendous)

A piece of CRAP! RCA advised to trash it and buy new one! It worked for about 2 minutes at a time... and then shut off for about another half hour and the cycle continued.
NOT WORTH THE MONEY!!!

I purchased one of these from Walmart and it stopped working after a few months with a vhs stuck inside. RCA replaced it though it was a very difficult process. The replacement stopped working even sooner as well did an additional replacement soon after that. RCA will not refund your money for this worthless item . I would stay away from it as well as any other RCA product!!!!!

Unfortunately there's not a lower rating than poor. This was, by far, the worst purchase i have ever made!! This machine is a piece of crap!! Try and record something on to vhs and it eats the tape. Try and record something onto dvd and it WILL NOT format the disk no matter what kind of disk (brand of disk, dvd+r, dvd-r, ect). And don't get me started on they're "customer service". You would be better off going out an buying a dvd player from 10+ years ago than buying this thing. Save your money...seriously!! It may look nice on the outside, have all the options you are looking for in a dvd recorder & vcr combo, but as soon as you get it home an all set up, you will be sadly, sadly let down. Spend the extra money on a differant brand, and save yourself the headache.

This VCR/DVD recorder/player has a problem with playing back tapes recorded on it and other machines and recording DVD's. I haven't mastered all of the programing because it is more complicated to operate than I thought it would be. The chanel programming process is complicated and the chanel selection is too many numbers to enter. I like RCA products, but I would think twice about buying it if I knew what I know now.

This recorder is very hard to use and I have to get out the instructions every time I use it. I would not recommend it to anyone.

I am unable to get off this review as it requires 100 characters. This item was never received. Seller never had the item to sell.

it was easy to set up and use. i liked that it has an HD tuner in it. it was important that it was made by an American company (though probably assembled elsewhere). i saved about 25 dollars off regular retail which amounts to about 20 percent.

I just received the unit today, attached all the wires per recommendation. Pluged the unit in and it won't turn on. I'm not going to send it back, I'll give it one more day and then I'll break it up and throw it in the garbage. I should have read the reviews before I spent $ 104.00 on this piece of junk.

Sucker

should have learned my lesson after two dead tvs and a dead vcr. now this combo recorder piece of *&^%$ stopped working and an RCA mp3 player i gave my kid for christmas is dead too. never again. say no to RCA

This item was purchased as a Christmas gift for my daughter. I researched several different types of dvd recorder/vcr's and was very pleased that this one had the different features I wanted. She's used it to record some tv shows and says it works like a charm! She did say that getting it "hooked up" was challenging because the directions weren't real clear as to where the sattelite should come into the recorder and where the recorder should go into the tv. After a few attempts and switching of the cables, she was able to figure it out.

it will not play vhs tapes correctly the tape skips,pops,jumps up and down.i wanted to record vhs tapes to dvd's.i've cleaned even it had a home technician to come and look at the problem and he could'nt fix the problem.i'm not happy about my purchase.

It was what I thought was unit that would transfer vhs tapes to DVD.
My error was that I didn't read all the prior buyers' remarks and
experiences. Nearly all these became my problem. I won't try to resell it
to anyone else. Can't understand how RCA doesn't react to the comments and
compliants.

i got it pretty fast and im very happy with it so far it seems to work great im putting all of my vhs tapes on dvds thanks

Bought a digital converter box and got what I thought was good picture Quality.
Plugged this unit in in and found out I was wrong. This is much better.

Missing the remote. I opened the box and found all the cables except the remote control. I have made payment as asked and now sending a reasonable request for the remote control. could please work with me on this matter? Look forward to hearing back about you decision about the remote control for this RCA DRC8335 DVD RECORDER AND VCR COMBINATION.

JON MOORE

It never worked correctly after using only three times.
It just says "hello"...
It made me decide that I will never buy any products of this manufacturer.

i bought this item in good faith that the item was worth owning.right out of the box the vhs would not work,skips just would'nt play.dvd player would stop and start no good either.sent to the company that was to repair the problem at a coat of $23.00 shipping. after 2 weeks recieved back and now it plays all green tint that cannot be adjusted. now seller won't stand behind their bad product. i'll just have to live with this mistake and bad experience and chalk it up.sorry i can't be more positive about this sale except that the sales transaction went smoothly and i gave the seller a positive feedback for that. we live and we learn.end result of this transaction is sad.

I Love the fact that I can copy my family VHS and other Tapes to DVD. It also plays the dvd's on the tv for me. I can edit as I copy them, and therefore can leave out anything that I don't want shown again :).

i decided to buy the recorder because i have some old vhs tapes i want to put on dvd, first, i found the instructions to be very hard to understand, even after reading them over and over again. second, the thing would not play vhs tapes so you could hear them, there would be a loud hummm! third, it heated up and made the dvd's skip. and forth, it would not recored vhs to dvd. in all it was a complete piece of junk, a waste of my time. from now on i will not buy any electronics from ebay, or any other on line store. i bought a dvd recorder from walmart for a little more and it works just fine, the store is close if i need to bring it back, no hassel with the mail, no waiting!

I like that it does so many things, but I bought a factory refurbished unit it came broken( will not burn DVDs ).

item received DOA! seller shipped promptly, good communication, and they helped me get the warranty process started. shipped out today and will have to see what happens. i think the seller should have paid to have it shipped to warranty place since it arrived DOA, but that's just my thought.