Pioneer DVR-520H-S DVD recorder + 80GB digital video recorder

Rating:
Summary: I really like this product.
Review: For many years, I have VCR taped all of our favorite television programs for later viewing. As juggling the different tapes is cumbersome and viewing quality ranges from acceptable to poor, I have been closely watching the DVD/HD recorders for some time as a replacement for VCR taping and to put all our family VHS tapes onto long-lasting DVD.

I liked the features and generally good reviews of the Panasonic models, but was hesitant to buy into the DVD-RAM technology as it seems very limited and likely to become more so as the DVD standards continue to evolve.

I chose the Pioneer DVR-520 because I liked the unit's features and have had great success with Pioneer products in the past.

While only using it for about two weeks... I really like it. Very easy to set up and simple to tape from TV to either the HD or DVD-R/DVD-RW. I have done all my recording on SP which allows approximately 40 hrs of HD programming and 2 hrs per DVD.

Picture quality has been terrific and the "easy record" feature makes it a snap to record television programs.

The manual is a bit tedious, so I generally just review the section headings in the table of contents and then dive into the onscreen menus. These are easy to navigate and each feature that is highlighted includes a thorough descrition of what it does.

Overall, I find the Pioneer DVR 520-H, quiet, simple to operate, produces excellent recorded picture quality, and so far, does everything it claims to - and quite well at that!

Rating:
Summary: Not perfect -- but lots to be happy about
Review: I've had the unit for about two weeks now, so am still exploring, but am happy with it so far, especially after the saga of purchase. Originally bought a Hitachi, discovered it wouldn't work without activating TIVO, then went through TWO Panasonic EH-85s without either one ever working right (tech support finally hypothesized that the factory got a bad batch of chips, installed them in consecutive units, and shipped a bad batch to the retailer).

I bought this primarily to archive home movies -- some going back 25 years to when my Navy son was taking his first toddling steps. The VHS tapes are deteriorating, so I wanted to get the footage digitized, and it's now cost-effective to do so. And though the editing functions are tedious, I've been happy with the results so far. The machine also really shines at time-shifting broadcast TV for later viewing and if that were the only purpose for the purchase it would have still probably been worthwhile.

Good points: very easy to use for timed recordings and it will record over 100 hours at the lowest quality (which is fine for us for time-shifting; it's about the same as 6-hour mode VHS recording on a good machine). The "fine" and SP modes (1 hour and 2 hours per DVD, respectively) offer less recording time but much higher resolution and less graininess -- the SP mode is virtually indistinguishable from a commercial DVD. Editing of video is straightforward, moderately intuitive, and easy to learn as it's menu-driven. The machine has a couple of neat features I didn't expect -- if the TV channel provides the info, the 520 will automatically title what it records off the air with the name of the show, making it very easy to find the shows we want to watch a day or two or ten after broadcast. It also plays back JPEG CDs made on a home computer, so we can show friends our digital photos on the TV instead of on the computer.

Less-than-good points: I haven't yet been successful in getting the VCR+ to work despite help from tech support, but we've got another couple of things to try and the lack of VCR+ is trivial, since it's so easy to set the manual timer. The editing functions are EXTREMELY tedious -- it uses hierarchical menus which require the user to go to all the up to the top level and back down several other levels to change functions. Editing out a commercial, choosing a frame to use as a title thumbnail, and then titling the segment require about 15 thumb presses instead of 3 or 4, due to the multiple trips up and down the menu hierarchy (plus many more thumb presses to actually input a name using the "arrow key cursor" with the on-screen virtual keyboard). It made me long for keyboard and mouse inputs on the recorder! Lastly -- the disks it makes in SP (2-hour) mode have played on all the machines with which I've tried them. The disks made in slower modes only play on about half of the other players, so I guess I'll just buy a few extra blank disks and use SP mode when I make copies of home movies to share with family.

Overall -- I'm glad I bought it and like it so far. For heavy-duty editing, I'd probably be happier doing it on computer. For light-duty editing, such as archiving old broadcast tapes or digitizing home movies, it's tedious but works just fine. For time-shifting broadcast TV to view later, it's a HUGE leap forward from a VCR with 6 hours of capacity requiring linear searching to find the desired program. I'm pleased with unit, feel I got my money's worth, and recommend it.