Yesterday I was given a 20" Zenith with built-in VCR. Guess the people were just going to toss it altho it looks and works fine, with the exception that the power button on the remote must be bad, because it works on the set. I ordered a new remote, so we shall see.
The set is model TVSC2040F. I see it has a Funai picture-tube. My question on it is, Is there anything "Zenith" designed in the set at all or is rebadged?
I know Zenith declared bankruptcy in 1999, so was wondering if anyone knew at what point Zenith didn't have anything to do with the sets that rolled off the line.

I'm 99% sure that the whole thing is a rebadged Funai. I know that the Zenith TV/VCR combinations of the '90's were rebadged. In fact, Funai made a great percentage of these units for other companies.

Yesterday I was given a 20" Zenith TVSC2040F.

Sorry to hear that.... Some people are just plain mean.

Seriously, to answer, it's a Funai re-badge.

Charles

Come to think of it, the only '90's and newer era TV/VCR combinations that I've seen that were not rebadged Funais were Panasonic/Quasar and the Thomson era RCA/GE models. The '90's era Funai models were not great; but, they were better than the post 2000 models.

BTW, it will also interest you to know that some 19" Zenith TV's of the late '90's were actually built by Daewoo.

Charles, LOL!
Actually I will use it for my treadmill tv, as it's bigger than the 13" I had down there.
If it's a Funai, I'm surprised it still works.
I saw a Panasonic 19" TV/VCR Combo that was a rebadged RCA.. Was kind of surprised on that.

Usually, it's the VCR section in these units that gives trouble and when the VCR messes up, the TV usually won't work. It will come on for a second and then shut off. If the VCR is messed up on the ones I get, I usually don't even try to repair them. I trick the TV into staying on and tell the owner/buyer to use it as a TV only.

Usually, it's the VCR section in these units that gives trouble and when the VCR messes up, the TV usually won't work.

Hmmm. :scratch2: I wonder why these combos are set up that way. It doesn't make sense to me to render the TV inoperative just because the VCR quits for any reason. That is one big reason I would never own one of these combination units, and why I use separate components in my video system -- if the VCR or DVD goes bad, I can still use the remaining device until I can replace the defective one.

With these TV/VCR combo sets, however, if the VCR goes, the entire unit is rendered utterly useless, as you noted. (I wonder if today's combo HDTV/DVD flat panels have the same problem.) I think it would have been much better had the designers of these sets made them so that if the VCR failed, the TV would still be usable. If the owner still wanted to use a VCR with the television, he or she still could do so, simply by connecting an external VCR to the TV's antenna terminals.

BTW, how did you get the TV in that combo to work after the VCR quit? My best guess is that you put a jumper across a switch inside the unit (or cut said switch completely out of the circuit), not unlike bypassing a defective power switch in a TV.

I have a Toshiba TV/VCR MV20FK3. Label says it was manufactured in October 2000. I have always wondered if this was a Toshiba or some other manufacturer. I remember JVC had a set that was identical. This has a flat tube and has always had a remarkable picture. Bought it at Costco almost 10 years ago.

In some cases, I was able to get the loading carriage back in the "up" position in order to fake it into staying on. Other times, I was able to play with the mode switch. And, in other cases, nothing I did would make it stay on.

BTW, it will also interest you to know that some 19" Zenith TV's of the late '90's were actually built by Daewoo.

I actually have Daewoo badged set. 20", 2002, almost flat screen, MTS stereo.
The remote is a hoot. To adjust the pictue you press the button labeled "Fuzzy". if you don't like that menu, two rows down is another "Fuzzy" button. Plus is has a "Q View' button. No clue what that one does. I can't believe they rebadged for Zenith and could not figure out how to label a remote. But, it lives in a bedroom and does have a good picture. Seems like SAMS was almost giving these away when I bought it.

My BIL has a 19" late '90's era Zenith rebadged Daewoo. He kept it about two years, when he bought a bigger set. I think I gave him $20 for the Zenith and sold it for $50. It did have a good picture; but, it was cheap built.

I recently had a Zenith 25" console from 2000 or 01 and it looked like a real Zenith chassis. I think the CRT was an LG-Philips. I think it was probably one of the last consoles that they built.

I actually have Daewoo badged set. 20", 2002, almost flat screen, MTS stereo.
The remote is a hoot. To adjust the pictue you press the button labeled "Fuzzy". if you don't like that menu, two rows down is another "Fuzzy" button. Plus is has a "Q View' button. No clue what that one does. I can't believe they rebadged for Zenith and could not figure out how to label a remote. But, it lives in a bedroom and does have a good picture. Seems like SAMS was almost giving these away when I bought it.
"Q View" should be short for Quick View, aka go back to the last channel you were on. My favorite name for this feature is Sony's, "Jump".

I'm surprised that they (mis)use the "fuzzy" term on a 2002-model year TV. It was trendy in the early 90s to include some type of fuzzy logic circuitry. For example I'm pretty sure Sanyo and/or Fisher used it for autofocus on their 8mm camcorders of that era. (You definitely want a camcorder that has a big "fuzzy" badge on it.) I would guess that Daewoo was referring to some type of auto picture correction using fuzzy logic, but who knows what they were thinking (or what they were smoking).

I worked on a few quote "Magnavox" TV/VCR/DVD combo's that were purchased at a walmart up here in 2004. There were orig 4 of them. They were in a group home I used to maintain for a friend. 2 of them are still going strong and are used heavily every day since new! One died a miserable death, flyback cooked, that one had a VCR that went nuts click, click, click until the set would shut off. It thought the loader was jammed. That killed the set. I forgot what I did but had something to do with wiring the photo sensors together and restored the set, but the VCR was useless. The other one did the same thing, but the owner of the home just decided to replace it, cause she thoughrt it was going to get worse like the one with the shorted fly did.

Both of these sets were 100% Funai built.