Pioneer DVR-633H-S DVD Recorder With 160 GB Hard Drive
Very good DVR with a few mistakes.
On the surface the Pioneer DVR-633-HS seems to be the one to get. After review I'll give it 4 stars without the TV Guide. It's a very good unit and perhaps the best in its class right now.    The Good: It's nice looking. It has many inputs although no component inputs. The remote and menu system is clean. Recording/picture quality is very good, 16:9 is automatically recorded and preserved. Can set many video levels (not audio though) to compensate for bad external signals. Flexible recording is fantastic. Hard drive is quiet although some complain. It does DVD copying. It does burning and finalizing DVDs in one shot. It has an amazing number of video controls for INPUT for recording from a VHS. Recording VHS tapes is *superb* and best I have seen and this is a great unit to buy if you are archiving. The dual layer is a great idea but it is only DL- which is not popular at all. I wonder if it will become popular eventually.    The Bad. TVGOS sucks. I feel like trashing the TV Guide magazine I see every time I buy groceries. Setting it up is nightmarish and you will be fortunate if it works. The TVGOS is made by Gemstar. Unfortunately you cannot turn it of. I read another reviewer's problem and I have the same setup -- problem is that the 633 won't control my cable box. What is insane is that if you want to record using the S-VHS, you have to allow the unit to cycle through all your channels when off. This means that you cannot watch TV when the unit is downloading information. Expect not to watch TV for 24-48 after you purchase since the unit needs to cycle your cable box through all the channels.    What is unfortunate is the omission of the \\"chapter mark\\" button where, during playback, you can add areas to place \\"chapters\\" or indexes where hitting the fast forward (not seek button) will go to these chapter points. These will also be burned on DVD you create and are the same \\"chapters\\" you can view in movies. For undisclosed reasons Pioneer REMOVED the chapter markbutton from the 533/633 remote. As matter of fact all video editing is done while viewing the video in a tiny 1/8 window. Why options couldn't be superimposed lightly over the video is beyond me.    Overall this is really one of the best DVRs for the money. My prior review gave this machine only a three star because I realized how bad TVGOS. Shame on all the manufacturers for not allowing you to turn this off. If you cannot use it, unfortunately there is no way to have the TVGOS stop searching for data and popping up on your screen every time you turn it on.