Complaint Rating:

Before I purchased my DVD/VHS Recorder/Player I did a little research and Go Video seemed to come up as a company providing superior products an outstanding prices. I cannot express how disappointed I am. We have had the Model VR3845 since March 2005 and now find that I have a unit that is dead and unrepairable?

My problem is pretty straight forward I think. We used the DVD record feature perhaps 6 times in the year+ we have had the unit. On the last recording session it seemed to take forever for the write session to complete and eject the DVD (over 1 hour). I was concerned when I discovered that the DVD just created seemed to be empty. I took it to my PC and confirmed that in fact the Go Video device had taken that long to create a dead DVD. I didn't think much of it and of course assumed I must have done something wrong. The next day when my daughter tried to play an exercise DVD she found that the unit no longer would read. I tried several other DVD's from Netflix and it wouldn't read any of them either. Those same DVD's read and play just fine on our Toshiba unit downstairs. Now I was concerned.

I called Go Video's technical support and was asked to clean the unit. I did this with 2 different cleaners and the result didn't change. Any DVD inserted will return a message that the disk format is unknown, check media. I called tech support back and was again asked if I'd cleaned the unit. I had to assure the help desk tech several times that yes, I'd already done that. He told me to go to the website to find the firmware upgrade for my model. I did that and discovered that the online help only shows model 3845A. Mine doesn't have a letter. The website seemed to have clear warnings that the firmware upgrade was for the A version but do not use it on the B or C. There was no mention of the 3845 without a letternor could I find anyplace on the website that explained what the differences might be between the versions. Also nothing to indicate what I should do with my unit that had no letter designation. I called back and was told that I needed to go to the website. I challenged the help desk to show me the upgrade. I had the site open and was waiting. Finally he agreed that there wasn't anything there for my unit.

I accepted that I was out of warranty and was given a couple local business who were authorized to work on your units. I took mine into Ft Myer TV and Electronics in Vienna VA. They charge $35 to do an evaluation. After a few days I called them back and was told the distributor didn't carry the laser pickup assembly that was broken. They emailed Go Video and after a few days got a response that the part was no longer available.

I realize $200 or so that I paid for the unit isn't a fortune but I certainly expected more than this out of Go Video and out of any similar electronic device.

Again I want to express my deep dissatisfaction with Go Video and their products and their policy of obsoleting products that are less than 15 months old.

I sent an email to Go Video several days ago that is about 90% identical to this one and have received no response. I haven't even received an acknowledgement that they received the email and were developing a response.