Entered CNET Catalog: 05/20/2004
SKU: DVR-520H
Manufacturer: Pioneer North America
Manufacturer description
Once you record TV shows or home movies to this unit's big 80GB hard drive, you've got great editing and playback options: Store programs and keep them indefinitely. Delete them after viewing to free up disc space. Edit your home movies and set up menus, wallpaper, and playlists. Or, you can burn content to DVD at high speed. Disc Backup even lets you make a direct file transfer of a home-movie DVD to the unit's hard drive, and from that make perfect copies of your original DVD for all of your family and friends - at blazing speed. The amazing Chase Play feature lets you watch your favorite TV show from the beginning after you've already begun recording it. The DVR-520-S also features full-motion thumbnails with sound and a built-in TV tuner, and plays DVDs, CDs, MP3s, and WMAs.Product summary
The good: Excellent recording quality; slim design; easy-to-use menus; good DVD and hard drive dubbing and backup features.
The bad: No electronic programming guide or IR blaster.
The bottom line: Although it lacks a programming guide like that of its TiVo-powered rivals, Pioneer's slim, beginner-friendly DVR-DVD combo boasts some thoughtful features.
Editors' review
- Editors' Choice: No
- Reviewed on: 02/07/2005
Editor's note: We have changed the rating in this review to reflect recent changes in our rating scale. Click here to find out more.
The first thing we noticed about the DVR-520H is that it's only 2 inches high (16.5 by 12 by 2 inches), a welcome change from the 3-inch-tall (or taller) DVD/HDD combos we've been testing. The slim, silver front of the deck boasts the usual array of controls, including DVD tray open/close, stop, play, one-touch record and copy, channel/input selector, and buttons that toggle the controls between the hard drive and the DVD recorder. There's also a small door on the left that opens to reveal a set of camcorder A/V inputs, including S-Video. A FireWire input is on the right, more than a foot away from the rest of the camcorder inputs--an odd setup, but workable.Pioneer's nonbacklit remote isn't the slickest wand we've ever seen, but it packs plenty of functionality into a logical layout. The large, five-way navigational keypad sits right in the middle, surrounded by the disc, hard drive, and system menu keys, while the playback and record controls lie just underneath. We liked the remote's one-touch access to the deck's recording speed settings, a design that's much more convenient than digging through a menu.
The DVR-520H's menus look more old-school-Nintendo than, say, state-of-the-art Xbox. That said, they're intuitively laid out: the setup process was a snap, and we had no trouble making our first hard drive and DVD recordings. We also appreciated the onscreen help, which should aid beginners in understanding this deck's many functions. Nicely done.
Despite its imbedded hard drive, the DVR-520H doesn't have the degree of DVR functionality you get with something like TiVo. It won't pause or rewind live TV (you have to manually engage recording, just like a VCR), and, as we mentioned, there's no interactive programming grid for easily setting up and labeling recordings. However, the deck does have a few tricks up its sleeve.First, the hard drive lets you chase playback--that is, watch an in-progress recording from the beginning. The DVR-520H also boasts a wide range of options for copying video to and from the DVD recorder. For example, you can select one or more chapters to copy from hard drive to DVD or vice versa, changing recording modes to fit as much as eight hours of material on a disc. Even better, you can copy an entire DVD to the hard drive and make as many copies as you like. Using high-speed mode, we copied a 2-hour movie in about 45 minutes--12 minutes to upload it to the hard drive, 30 minutes to copy onto a new DVD-RW. (You can also dub 2X and higher DVD-R discs at high speed.) The resulting disc looked as good as the original, complete with menus and the 5.1 Dolby Digital audio tracks. Don't even try to dub DVDs with Macrovision copy protection, however; the Pioneer won't let you.
The DVD recorder's menus and functionality mirror those of the hard drive; you just press the DVD button on the remote to switch modes. You can choose from four standard DVD recording modes (1, 2, 4, or 6 hours on a disc) and although the Pioneer lacks the custom recording speed option found on Panasonic's DMR-EH50, it has a Manual Recording mode that does the next-best thing. It offers 32 different speeds in 10-15 minute intervals from one to six hours, allowing you to fill a disc with just about any length of program without wasting space. The unit can record to DVD-R and DVD-RW, but not to any of the + formats, nor to DVD-RAM. It can also play back a wide variety of formats including MP3, WMA, and JPEG files.
Making recordings with either the hard drive or DVD recorder is a simple matter of hitting the record button. You can also manually set up to 32 timed recordings, but while the deck supports VCR Plus, there's no IR blaster to change the channel on your cable or satellite box. If you use such a box for unattended recordings, you'll have to remember to set the channel beforehand.
Video editing on the DVR-520H is good for a deck in this class. For both hard drive and DVD recordings, you can add chapter stops, divide and combine chapters, and erase sections of a chapter--perfect for snipping out commercials. You can also create playlists on DVD-RWs in the VR mode. Just select the chapters you want in your playlist, juggle the order, and make cuts and edits, all without modifying the original chapters.
The DVR-520H sports a solid set of connections. You get a progressive-scan component-video output, three sets of A/V inputs, each with S-Video (two in back, one up front), two sets of A/V outputs, a FireWire camcorder input, optical and coaxial digital audio outs, and RF ins/outs. Not bad, but some videophiles might hope for a component-video input (as found on the Philips HDRW720).
The DVR-520H posted high grades in our performance testing. The deck captured more than 450 lines of horizontal resolution in the 1-hour HQ recording mode; the crystal-clear, rock-solid images matched those of any DVD recorder we've tested. Recording quality was almost as good in the 2-hour SP mode, although we detected some small MPEG artifacts around the edges of objects. Unsurprisingly, picture quality dropped to about 250 in the 4- and 6-hour LP and EP modes, making for much softer, VHS-quality images.In our test recordings of Star Trek: Insurrection, the fleeing peasants escaping the malevolent flying probes looked sharp and detailed in the HQ mode and just a tiny bit softer in SP mode, with minimal background blockiness. Switching to EP mode, the picture predictably started to jutter and become choppier. During the dark, smoky scenes in the damaged Enterprise bridge, we also noticed that colors seemed to float within the dark backgrounds.
In terms of playback quality, the Pioneer deck had no trouble with our 2:3 pull-down test. Using the component-video output and in progressive-scan mode, the player smoothly rendered the tricky haystacks, bridges, and rooftops in our Insurrection test.
User opinions
Select a User Opinion to view: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12out of 12 user reviews
Excellent machine for copying TV or video to hard drive, editing it and archiving it to DVD
Pros: You can edit out commercials before burning DVDs. 80 gig hard drive. Fast DVD burner.
Cons: Not as elegant an interface as a Tivo, no TV guide features, no support for DVD+
PROs: The 80 gig hard drive will hold up to 102 hours of programs at its slowest (i.e. lowest quality) speed, about half that at "standard" speed and quality, and 25 hours or so at its fastest/highest quality setting (near DVD quality). I'm happy with most broadcasts at standard speed. When you record to a DVD, standard speed will put two hours on a DVD, the slowest/lowest quality speed will put six hours on a DVD, and the fastest/highest quality speed will put an hour on a DVD. Recording is much like a VCR, and the unit even contains VCR+ and it can be set to record up to 32 programs up to a month in advance. You can record either to the hard drive or directly to a DVD-R or DVD-RW disk, but the principal reason for buying this machine is so that you can record to the hard drive, edit out all the commercials (a very easy task) and then burn a DVD-R or DVD-RW for more permanent storage. The manual is exhaustive (almost too long) and explains a plethora of features I'll probably never use. You can do "one touch" recording, record from a video camera through a firewire port on the front, make your own chapter marks, title videos, record either from the hard disk to a DVD or from a DVD to the hard drive (if the DVD isn't copy protected). The back has RF in and out jacks for cable, two sets of component-in jacks (and S-Video jacks), two sets of component-out jacks (and S-Video jacks), one set of composite-out jacks for progressive output of DVDs (but no composite-in jacks), and an optical digital audio out jack. One set of the component-in jacks is switched so that recordings (either to the hard drive or to DVD) are switched on and off whenever there is a signal on the line. I connect my cable TV directly to the RF input so that the internal analog tuner can record my unscrambled signals (those of channels 70 and below) and then I connect the output from my cable box to one of the sets of component-in jacks so that I can record the digital and scrambled channels. I can connect either a VCR or my TIVO to the other set of component-in jacks. Simple editing of shows (i.e. cutting out commercials or parts you don't like), and adding chapter marks is very easy. The remote has a lot of buttons, but they are well layed-out and marked. It can even control your TV.
CONs: The interface is not as simple, elegant and powerful as a TIVO, but then most TIVOs can't record to a DVD and even TIVOs that can record to a DVD don't have the wonderful editing features this machine has. It doesn't do "wishlists", "suggestions", "season's passes" or follow your program when it is moved from one time slot to another the way TIVO does. Nor can you program it over the internet. But I also don't have to pay a monthly subscription fee. It is a different device, for different purposes. It is way better than a VCR or regular DVD player. Minor complaints, it only records to DVD-R and DVD-RW, I wish it recorded to DVD+R and DVD+RW as well (not to mention dual layer DVDs). You always want a larger hard drive (although 80 gigs seems adequate) and I wish it had the ability to record in HD. My biggest complaint is that the interface for naming DVDs or individual programs on a DVD is awkward (you have to scroll through lists of characters till you find the right ones and there are no dedicated buttons for deleting characters or adding spaces or switching from upper to lower case), and the nine choices it offers you for background menus for your DVDs are weak at best. It would also be nice if you were allowed to select the frame of video you want to use to represent a video on the main menu, rather than having the program default to the very first frame of the video. But all-in-all, these are minor problems and I'm sure successor machines will be better at all of these features.
BOTTOM LINE: If all you want to do is record programs, watch them, and then delete them, buy a TIVO. If your primary goal is to archive your old video tapes, buy a machine that has both a DVD recorder and a VCR in it (this machine has no VCR in it, but you can plug a VCR into it and record off it). If you want to record things, edit them, and then preserve them on a DVD, this is the machine for you.
out of 12 user reviews
excellent machine
Pros: great picture and sound,enough editing feature
Cons: last frame freezes at the end of each title
out of 12 user reviews
Overall is good, but....
Pros: It produces good quality of picture & sound. Easy to edit .
Cons: TV tuner is so poor, which should not appear in such a high grade product.
out of 12 user reviews
A Really Slick Little Package!
Pros: Record direct to HDD or DVD, or any conbination thereof.
Cons: None. I love this machine.
1. Very user friendly, but enough advanced editing options to satisfy even the most hardcore "gadget geeks." Read the 120-page pdf owner's manual at Pioneer's web site if you're still in doubt.
2. Has 32 manual speed settings in addition to the standard 2, 4, and 6 hr settings. (Cnet didn't do their homework on this one!).
3. No EPG? Who cares. VCR Plus works great on this machine.
4. Excellent connectivity options; Hook-up your VCR or camcorder and record your tapes to DVD.
5. Excellent tuner and audio. Supports DTS. Optical connections.
6. Add your own chapters and titles, edit commercials, not a problem.
7. Manually or automatically erase unwanted programs on the HDD.
8. DVD's you record will play on other DVD players. Supports DVD-RW's.
9. Plays slideshows of your photo CD's.
out of 12 user reviews
99% pleasure
Pros: great overall performance, easy to use
Cons: weak tuner, programming could be easier
The picture quality is great, although some claim it to be a little "soft". The tune is a little weak. If have seen much better one in old VHS-DVRs, but this flaw is partially compensated by digital picture improvement in the recordings. The handling is superb (just rivaled by Panasonic). All in all the 520 is easy to operate, very reliable and just fun to use every day.
out of 12 user reviews
Great maching
Pros: Wonderful record quality, nice interface
Cons: Nothing to speak of
out of 12 user reviews
I own 4 different machines this one is the best
Pros: user friendly. you don't have to be a rocket scientist to be able to operate it.
Cons: no program guide
out of 12 user reviews
BEST Recorder from people who own it
Pros: So many times on this site, reviews are left by people who do not own the product or have never used it. They are sellers of inferior competing products, such as SONY, who simply want to drive down the rating of the competition. A big deal is made of no
Cons: I wish it would record to DVD+R and allow the user to select full screen menu images. I would also like to see component inputs. It is my opinion that the unit has no "CONs" other than things it needs. Everything it does is done well.
out of 12 user reviews
Versatile, easy-to-use DVR
Pros: Easy to use, responsive user interface. Great video quality easily beats my VCR. Editing videos and removing commercials from recordings is a cinch. Fairly quiet in my living room, except for the occasional noise from the hard disk seeking. High speed ar
Cons: No IR blaster, no program guide. But not an issue for me, since no other DVR box with "TV Guide" directly supports timed records from digital cable channels --- I have to set a timer on both my digital cable box and the Pioneer to record premium channel
out of 12 user reviews
GREAT BUT....
Pros: EASY TO USE DV INPUT GIVES GOOD QUALITY RESULTS
Cons: FINALISING DVD-RS FORCES YOU TO USE UGLY MENUS
out of 12 user reviews
tip top
Pros: Superb picture and sound quality, very easy to operate, good price. Harddrive can store up till 103 hours of video. It can read DVD+R discs, even though it is not mentioned in the manual.
Cons: None
out of 12 user reviews
Very good and reliable
Pros: PQ Highspeed copy HDD <-> DVD DV in-out Disk backup
Cons: Can't copy jpeg and mp3 to hdd
