Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive
Beware the TV Guide "Functionality"
I was very excited when I bought this DVD-Recorder.  It's a beautiful machine; the quality of recordings is great, and I could even get used to the multitude of various menus and buttons. <br /> <br />However, I can't get the TV Guide functionality to work.  I live in Southern Ontario, I get cable, it should work.  I've tried for 3+ weeks, with various postal codes, etc.  The straw that broke the camel's back was the fact that even though I kept setting the time (and what a painful process that is - you have to go through setting all the channels too), every time the unit powered off, the time jumped ahead by 5 hours.  Tech support just told me that this is because the TV Guide is not working properly.  Their solution: (1) keep trying different postal codes in my area.  (2)  keep resetting the clock every time I turn it on.  I pointed out that (2) wouldn't work because you can't make a manual timer recording without powering off the machine.  So suggestion (3) was the best: offset my timer recordings by 5 hours so that they would record properly.  I'm not making this up - this is the Pioneer tech support. <br /> <br />There is absolutely no way of turning off the TV Guide functionality.  I thought maybe if I told it that I don't have cable or antenna that it would leave me alone - nope, it still does the EPG (trying to get the TV Guide informaiton) thing all the time.   <br /> <br />I'm so disappointed, especially based on the amount of money this baby cost me, and the fact that I always thought Pioneer was a great brand name.  I'm getting ready to take it back to the store.