Pioneer DVR-633H-S DVD Recorder With 160 GB Hard Drive
great technology
First just a thank you to TechGuy \\"Jack\\" for his review.  It convinced me to buy it regardless of the other reviews and I'm gald I did.     I will start by saying that I had already read about the problems with the TV Guide so I got it anyway knowing it probably would not work.  I have a HD/DVR from my cable company already so don't really need it for that.  Unfortunately since I record in HD I can only fit about 20 hours on the HDD.  So I decided to get this machine for the purpose of copying Movies or Programs I'd like to save longer or permanent to DVD, and also VHS tapes to DVD.  I hooked it up and have tried recording from my HD/DVR, VHS, Live TV.  I even recorded a program that was in High Def and although the Pioneer doesn't record in High Def, it still made a good copy.  It all worked great.  I also tried to record from the HDD to the DVD and that worked great too.  I was surprised at how easy it was to hook up and to use.  I kind of followed the instructions for the hook up although I had to make some modifications due to my equipment.  No problems though.  As for set up and using the HDD and DVD, I found it fairly straighforward and I haven't read the manual yet to play with all the extra little features.  Suffice it to say I'm very pleased.  I'll finally be able to get rid of all my old tapes.  As for the noise some people have mentioned, I can't hear the hard drive unless I turn everything off in the room and stand next to the TV.  I'm puzzled on that complaint.  Just for fun I tried setting up the TV guide to go through the cable box and it didn't recognize any of the codes, so I opted to set it up telling the machine I don't have a cable box.  I really don't care about those anyway since I have my HD/DVR.  I guess it depends on what you are buying it for but it gets a great rating for what I bought it for.      Believe me this won't be the last DVR/DVD recorder I buy.  This will hold me over until they come out with one that will record in High Def both on the HDD and DVD.  I think they have some to claim to do that using upconversion already but I'll wait till there are some better choices.