Pioneer DVR-533H-S Slim Design DVD Recorder with 80 GB Hard Disk Drive
Quality machine
If you have satellite like I do (DirecTV), then forget about the TV Guide function...that only works with cable or antena. But I didn't care about the TV Guide.....what I wanted was a user-friendly recorder with a hard drive plus compatibility with dual-layer DVD media. The Pioneer 533H-S is perfect for what I wanted to do. I record football games onto the hard drive at the highest quality bit setting (HQ+), then edit the commercials, create chapters (all very easy to do), and then burn it onto a dual layer DVD at the same HQ bit rate. The burned copies are outstanding. As for editing, this machine tells you exactly how much time you have left after each commercial edit, so you always know exactly how much to trim off your hard drive recording to make sure it fits onto your DVD. Furthermore, creating chapters is simple. All editing and modifications you make to the original hard drive recording is successfully burned onto your DVD.    If you have satellite, then setup is easy. Select \\"cable\\" and let the built-in tuner go through the channels, just like a VCR. When the screen appears asking you if you want to configure TV Guide, select the option \\"never remind me again\\"....after that it will never be an issue. This unit acts just like a VCR.    All recordings, including timer recording, are straight forward. Once this unit is setup with satellite, you will manually record whatever channel your receiver is currently on....just hit the \\"record\\" button on the remote and that's it, or set the timer.    Quality recordings, easy and straight-forward to use. It does exactly what I want it to do, this is a sweet machine. I'm happy. I also called Pioneer tech support with questions about the TV Guide function, and they answered promptly, actually spoke perfect english and were helpful. I think they said the tech support is in California.    Also, this machine apparently lets you plug in your VCR so you can transfer your old tapes to the hard drive. Then you can edit the videoand burn it to a DVD. I haven't tried this yet, but I have dozens of old VHS tapes of football games going all the way back to Super Bowl 23. Now I'll be able to archive my NFL library onto digital media that will last a century. How great is that?    I'm impressed with Pioneer.