- Average user rating: 3.0 stars out of 51 reviews Back to product review
- My rating: 0 stars
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22 out of 22 people found this review helpful
4.5 stars
"Outstanding product at the right price"
Pros: Very high quality picture, versatile recording options, easy editing, low price
Cons: TV Guide function doesn't work for me.
Summary: This DVR does everything I bought it for and does it very well.
Of course, it plays DVDs, records TV and burns DVDs. Picture quality is excellent, whether from DVD, the TV receiver or the analog inputs. One surprising feature is that it can record to the hard drive while either playing a DVD or watching something else from the hard drive. Unlike a VCR that has to be in standby mode in order to record, the Pioneer just starts dumping the information to the hard drive while the kids watch whatever they are watching. One key feature I was looking for is the ability to take home video, organize it and burn it to DVD easily. Once again the Pioneer shines. Picture quality using the front AV jacks is outstanding. Editing is a snap using the remote control. You can split scenes, add chapter breaks, assign labels and choose thumbnails from your easy chair. Two minutes with the manual and another two playing around and I had it all figured out. It would be nice if I could attach a keyboard for faster label entry. You can either navigate around a list of letters looking for what you want or use the remote like a phone pad (2 for A, 22 for B, etc) to put in what you want. It's pretty clever for a remote driven system, but slow compared to typing. Burning is very straight-forward. I have had it bomb a couple of times using the high speed mode. Each time, I have been able to use the other modes successfully without losing the disk I'd started. You do have to remember to have it finalize if you want to view it on other machines. There is an option you can set on the burn screen to handle it automatically, but the default is "no".
The TV guide feature has never worked for me. It's not a problem since it has a manual timing option much like a VCR that allows you to set up a one time recording or repeat recordings. One irritation is on turning the machine on, it tries to update the programming guide resulting in a 10 second delay before it is ready.
The remote is fairly straight-forward with controls at the bottom for the TV. No mute button or controls for anything but the TV and the DVR.
I'd been watching the DVR market for six months waiting for prices to drop, but most of the quality machines are still in the >$400 range. I bought a 531H at a Super WalMart for a little over $300 and I don't think I am missing any features that the more expensive machines offer. There is no DV port on the 531H, but as mentioned above, the AV ports work fine. I highly recommend this machine. Don't have great expectations concerning the TV guide, but you don't need it anyway.Updated
After playing around with it, I realized that there were four options for cable setups. When I tested them all, the last one worked for my TV Guide setup.
- 1 reply to this review
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I cannot get my EPG to download. What different funtions are you talking about?
