DR MBARNUM did you try unplugging your player for awhile?
If you enter your brand name and the error code into GOOGLE, sometimes someone who had the same problem has posted a solution.
Ya, I tried the unplugging thing. I looked up the error and found all sorts of "suggestions," but the most likely one seems to be that a dvd-r is stuck in the machine, which may very well be the case.
Haven't decided if I will attempt to operate on it myself, take it to a repair shop, or just buy a plain old DVD recorder without the VHS part....unfortunately, I have a hand full of vhs tapes I haven't transferred over to DVD yet.