Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive

Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive

Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive

Product Description
Product Description:
TV Guide EPG; Disc Title; Record on Hard Drive While Recording to DVD; Chase Playback; 10-bit, 54MHz Video DAC; 1-Touch Record Model: DVR533HS
Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive
Average customer rating: 3 out of 5 stars
  • R.Thomas
  • Some good, some bad...
  • flawed but good enough for my aims
  • Which is better? I own both the Panasonic DMR-EH50S and Pioneer DVR-533H-S
  • Five Star rating if the TV Guide function was reliable!
 Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive

Manufacturer: Pioneer
ProductGroup: CE
Binding: Electronics

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Product Features:
  • DVD player and recorder with 80 GB hard drive; measures 16.55 x 2.4 x 10.75 inches
  • Records to DVD-R/RW discs; compatible with CD-R/RW, VCD, SVCD, MP3, WMA, JPEG
  • Built-in TV tuner, 8-day TV Guide On Screen interactive program guide
  • 2 composite in/out, 2 S-Video in/out, 1 RF in/out, 1 component out, 1 Firewire in
  • Dolby Digital and DTS output

ASIN: B000AHSTMY

Product Description

Hard Drive Records Up To 170 Hours, 10 Hours On DVD / DVD-R (Single Layer/Single-Sided, Dual Layer/Single-Sided), DVD-RW , DVD Video, CD, CDR CDRW MP3 WMA

Amazon.com Product Description

Record your library of home movies and your favorite television programs to disc quickly and easily with the Pioneer DVR-533H-S DVD recorder. The built-in 80 GB hard drive lets you record lots of home movies and TV shows for temporary storage, and it can hold up to 170 hours of content (recorded at lowest video quality--SEP Mode). Once recorded, you can watch them whenever you want, edit them, delete them, or burn them to DVD. The DVR-533H-S burns to DVD-R/RW discs, and is compatible with playback of CD-R/RW, VCD, and SVCD disc formats as well as JPEG, WMA, and MP3 digital file formats.

The DVR-533H-S includes a built-in TV tuner and the free and easy-to-use 8-day TV Guide On Screen interactive program guide--just find your favorite programs and select them for recording. The Chase Play function lets you watch, stop, or pause a show being recorded to the hard drive--even while you're recording it. It also includes a commercial skip feature that lets you jump ahead 30 seconds at a time.

The i.LINK (also known as Firewire or IEEE 1394) interface allows you to transfer your DV (Digital Video) home movies from your digital video camcorder smoothly to the hard drive. If your movies were shot in analog format, inputs for composite video/S-video and Left-Right audio are provided for dubbing them directly to DVD. With Disc Backup, you can make a direct file transfer of your home-movie DVD back to the hard drive, and from that make as many copies of your home movie as you want, all at blazing speed.

The Smart VBR (Variable Bit Recording) recording functionality lets you choose the quality level/recording time that best suits you. Choose from Fine, SP, LP, EP, and Auto; Auto automatically sets the optimal recording quality for the time remaining on the hard drive.

This DVD player's PureCinema 2:3 Progressive Scan gives you a more film-like presentation when watching movies. The 54MHz/10-bit video DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) delivers beautiful video quality. Other features include Dolby Digital and DTS Digital surround sound outputs and a high-end 24-bit/192kHz audio DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) for superb musical performance. It offers the following connection options:

What's in the Box
DVD recorder, remote control, DVD-RW disc, printed operating instructions

Customer Reviews:

2 out of 5 stars R.Thomas.......2006-07-14

This is my 5th DVR (all Pioneer) and the first with TV Guide. I would NOT buy this unit again!

ISSUES:

1. The automatic TV Guide feature causes my unit to be on about 18 hours a day. I can hear it thrashing the hard disk constantly. Why does it take so long to get programming???

2. It is very difficult to find the manual timed programming mode, or to make changes to the TV Guide programming. The menu's are hard to use for this feature (which is mostly the way I want to program).

3. There seems to be much less disk space available on the DVR for shows than the older units (which I like SO MUCH BETTER). Maybe this is due to the space TV Guide takes.

I would trade my unit for one of the older 420/520 units ASAP!
and would not buy another Pioneer DVR until they fix the interface.

4 out of 5 stars Some good, some bad..........2006-04-06

I got this for a gift at Christmas. It's a very good DVR, but I have never had one before, so I have nothing to compare it to. The menus are *fairly* easy to navigate, but can be confusing at times. The quality of recordings is very good, although the one time that I've pushed a HDD recording to a DVD-RW, the volume was very low; so low that you needed to almost max your speakers to hear what was playing. The remote control is very well laid out.

Onto the big problems:

The unit is currently connected to the coaxial cable output of my digital cable box. On the other end, it's connected to my Sony receiver, via S-video and an optical cable. Everything is set to use fully Dolby Digital, but when I'm watching TV, I usually only get Dolby 2/0, and when it's a DVD, it's Dolby 3/1. I'm still getting surround, but it's not full 5.1 (I don't have a sub connected, so negate the .1). Additionally, when I'm watching TV, sometimes the sound output will be only from the right front speaker, even if the receiver says it's in Dolby 2/0. I've tried adjusting all the codecs on all three pieces of equipment, but nothing has worked so far. The cable box is also connected directly to the receiver via S-video and a digital coaxial cable. When that is in use (no DVR) I get great audio, and I never encounter the problem of it output to only the right front speaker.

Second, the TV Guide won't work correctly with my cable box. I've followed all the instructions and troubleshooting guides, but nothing works. If I want to make a timer recording, I have to set the DVR as though it were a VCR, and set a VCR timer on my cable box. It's annoying, though I can live with it.

I may sound as though I have a lot of problems with this box, but in reality, it's very good. At SP recording, I can get something like 70 hours on the HDD. Not too shabby!

3 out of 5 stars flawed but good enough for my aims.......2006-03-23

Clock constantly resets itself but does not seem to do so when a recording is programmed. I manually reset it through initial setup. Following a recommendation by another amazon reviewer, I entered a canadian zip code in the set up procedure to avoid all the downloading problems amply covered in other amazon customer reviews of this product. It works. Otherwise no problems. It has revolutionized the way I watch t.v.

4 out of 5 stars Which is better? I own both the Panasonic DMR-EH50S and Pioneer DVR-533H-S.......2006-03-03

Using to record TV shows - I have not recorded any shows.

I don't know why anyone would want to use either of these to record TV shows, when Tivo and other DVRs have been around for the last few years. I have a Dish 942 high definition DVR now, but I have also owned Direct TV Tivo, and Comcast DVR for about 2 years. The Comcast DVR is the best DVR that I have used.

Pioneer DVR-533H-S is better for my needs

I use it for making DVDs of home videos of the last 20 years and for copying movies from my Dish 942 DVR, so I can edit out the commercials or copy HBO movies.

Since I have not used the 533 for TV recording, I don't have any of the problems of hard drive noise, etc that have been reported in other reviews.

What I like about the 533 is that when you make a DVD from camcorder video, you need to organize sometimes hundreds of video clips. Keeping track of all of them can be confusing. The 533 has a database sorting ability which is similar to a good DVR, so you can organize the video clips by date, or title.

You can also assign 6 different symbols to a video clip so you can organize your video clip database like you organize your favorites menu on Microsoft Internet Explorer. It just makes the editing a lot easier.


Panasonic DMR-EH50S

I like the EH50S for its higher recording quality in LP 4 hour mode. But with the price of DVD-R disks so low, that is really not an issue. Also the Panasonic instruction manual is more confusing than the Pioneer. All Panasonic products that I have owned have been very reliable, which might be something to consider.

Panasonic is coming out with a 200GB version in April 2006 and Pioneer will probably come out with a new one to. But I don't see any info on Panasonic changing their editing interface.

You can see it here.

http://panasonic.co.jp/pavc/global/diga/europe/eh65_eh55/index.html

3 out of 5 stars Five Star rating if the TV Guide function was reliable!.......2006-03-02

First the good news: Recording, editing, copying is great. Sound and Vision mag gave the Pioneer DVR-633H (identical to the DVR-533H except 160GB drive) their nod for the best overall hard-drive DVR last year. They said Pioneer editing function is the best short of a computer. I agree, as I love the ease and accuracy of edits.


Now the bad news: As others have pointed out, the TV Guide function is the real Achilles heel on this dvr. The same system is used on other dvr's as well. Pioneer licensces the system from TV Guide. My unit reset itself more a half a dozen times since I bought it in August 2005, without any input from me. (Just like Sean M. says in an earlier review.) When that happens, you lose the program guide data and it has to rebuild it all over again over a period of a week. When it works, it's slow, but handy and capable.


Today, the TV Guide function died altogether. (Again, just like Sean M.'s unit. Now mine works only as a manual recoder, too!) After a 25 minute wait on a Pioneer 800 number, I explained to a Pioneer rep what was happening. After he looked up the problem on his computer, he said they would have to fix it "at the factory". Sounds like they know about the problem but don't say how often it happens. Pioneer says it's a one week turnaround for repairs.

Love the machine, but hate the hassles!
Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive
Average customer rating: Not rated
    		Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive

    Manufacturer: Pioneer
    ProductGroup: CE
    Binding: Kitchen

    AllAll | DVD Players & Recorders | Audio & Video | Categories | Electronics
    DVD RecordersDVD Recorders | DVD Players & Recorders | Audio & Video | Categories | Electronics
    Audio & VideoAudio & Video | Refurbished & Used | Special Features | Electronics Features | Electronics
    PioneerPioneer | Brands | Electronics Features | Electronics | Home Audio
    ASIN: B000AO4GQ0

    Product Description

    TV Guide EPG; Disc Title; Record on Hard Drive While Recording to DVD; Chase Playback; 10-bit, 54MHz Video DAC; 1-Touch Record Model: DVR533HS

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