Home > Consumer Reviews > LG LV880 Nicam VHS Video Recoder

If you're looking for a high-spec VCR at a reasonable price to make the most of your old tapes bfore investing in a DVD recorder or VCR/DVD recorder combo, this is a good choice.

It's feature-packed to make the most of your old tapes including Auto-tracking and Optimum Picture Response and the fast rewind is super fast.

The only negative on mine is that although you're supposed to be able to use Video Plus+ to set the timer, there's no button to enter this function on the remote they sent me. However on the plus side, although it's only supposed to have 4 heads, it says mine has 6 on the front of the machine! Go figure..

Overall, I'm very pleased with it, it looks good, is easy to set up and use - a great product for the price.

I have had this recorder now for 6 months and for the price it is a decent machine. However, as it has no search function, it can take you ages to find the beginning of a recording. This is extremely annoying and is a basic function I would expect to find on all machines.

This LG video recorder is a piece of junk. Considering this is a brand new 6-head Nicam VCR (it does say 4-head in the description, but it's 6), the picture & sound quality are appalling. If that wasn't bad enough, the motor inside makes a loud high pitched noise when a tape is playing or recording. I just wish I'd read the other reviews here before I bought it. I will never buy another LG product again.

This is the worst VCR I've ever had. It's just packed up after only 5 months and its death is unmourned.

The user interface is terrible - the worst I've ever seen. All the control menus are displayed against whatever is on the TV screen at the same time - not a blank screen. The control menus are icons, not words, which makes it doubly hard to find the one you want. Set up had me nearly in tears - and I'm used to installing new kit.

When it's in use for recording, you have to get down on your hands and knees to check that it's doing something because there is no counter display to show that the tape is going round.

It is useless with older videos - the picture drops out continuously and any music soundtrack is intolerably distorted.

The handbook leaves much to be desired too. OSD (on screen display) kept coming up and interrupting whatever we were watching.

Then it rejected the perfectly OK SCART cable and only a blue screen was visible. Tapes could not be played back, so I took it back to the shop and got a refund.

Avoid! Do not waste your time, energy and money on this junk.

I bought my LV880 last year, after one day I had to return it as it constantly switched itself off after a few seconds. I was given a replacement unit which has not had a lot of use but just recently ( have used only good quality tapes - Sony )the unit has started doing the same thing again !
I am now sceptical about getting another replacement, and after enquiring directly to LG about the problem they simply advised me to return the unit to the retailer !

I don't think that is good enough, I treat electrical goods well and do not abuse them, so I think it should be the responsibility of the manufacturer to address this kind of problem. Surely others must have had this problem unless I am just unlucky ?
Not only is it a pain to unplug and replug everything all over again but it also takes time money and effort to get it sorted out.

LG are trying to eke out a segment in the market but so far are not too keen on responding to problems.