Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive
Pioneer dropped the ball on the TV Guide function
Purchased this unit 3 months ago, almost immediately had trouble with the TV Guide, it worked fine for a week then came up with a message that said that I had changed some settings (which I had not!) and it had to update. Well the update never happened and my saga with Pioneer customer service started. During the past two months I have called, sent emails, even pictures of the problems with the TV Guide and reset my recorder many times. It is always the same it takes it a week to load the programming and then poof it is all gone! <br /> <br />Two weeks ago the TV Guide stopped working all together. None of its menus even come up on the screen any more. So now the unit is just a manual recorder, I have to be there and press record for it to work. <br /> <br />So I made yet another call to customer service and after the customary ten minutes of listening to hold music some one finally picked up and listened to my story, she offered to repair the unit and I politely pointed out that this unit has been nothing but trouble for me and I wish it to be exchange rather than repaired. I was told that a customer service rep will call me back in 5 business days! When I got a call back 10 days later the rep told me we cannot have it exchanged but you can have it repaired!!  <br /> <br />By this time I was sick of the whole thing, I was sold a product that was not right from the beginning and lots of other people have the same trouble too. So I have asked for a refund and they are working on that. My next purchase was going to be a Pioneer 50\\" Plasma TV but my estimation of Pioneer quality and service has taken a beating so I think I will buy a different brand. <br /> <br />I have given this unit 3 stars because other features and functions work very well. From what I can gather the TV Guide thing works well on some of the other recorders like the Panasonic. Unfortunately the Panasonic does not have a Firewire input otherwise I would buy it right now. As it is I have to wait forsome of the models already in the Japanese market to show up here. <br /> <br />