Pioneer DVR-RT300-S DVD Recorder and VCR Combo
Pretty good product
I've had the RT-300 for a few days now, wanted to put up a quick review for folks thinking about buying it.    Good:  * Crisp playing, recording, and dubbing, especially at the XP and SP DVD settings: XP is virtually indistinguishable from live broadcast. It does what it is supposed to do, and does it well, as one would expect from a Pioneer product.    * All the plugs on the back are clearly marked, which made for quick installation. All the necessary cables were included, as were batteries for the remote that comes with it. The RT300 integrated easily with our particular TV and cable setup, and I was dubbing VCR tapes to DVDs in about 20 minutes after getting it out of the box.     * Pleasantly surprised that it came with a blank DVD-RW and a blank DVD-R, so that I could start recording with it right away.    Bad:   * The product manual is poorly laid out, with no table of contents or subject index. You'd do better to download the product manual and search that instead if you're looking for a particular function.    * The remote is relatively \\"dense\\" as far as number of buttons crammed into a small space. This is a consequence of having a machine that can do both DVD and VCR functions, but it makes navigating around to find a particular button difficult until you're used to it.    * Entering alphanumeric info for things like DVD chapter titles is a pain, involving using the remote to navigate across an on-screen keyboard to enter letters. I don't know if there's a better way of having users do that, but it seems like there has to be an easier way than this.    * The timer function for recording could have been designed a little better: it works OK, but it seems a little overly complex - had to check the manual the first few times to make sure I hit all the buttons in the right sequence.    Neutral:  * Note that you cannot record using DVD+R media with this device. DVD-R and DVD-RW are fine.    In sum, I'm pretty happy with this product, and would recommend it to others. Pioneer puts out a solid product line, and this doesn't seem to be any different. Don't put too much weight into that there's more \\"bads\\" than \\"goods\\" in this review, its just that when a function is doing what it is supposed to do, I figured that's covered under the first \\"good.\\"    ---    Update 8-19-05    After having the RT300 for about a month, I'm still happy with it, and the pros and cons I stated above still stand. I want to mention a couple of things which would be good for new owners to know off the bat - they're mentioned in the manual, but not given the emphasis they deserve.    1. If you want to play DVD-RW disc recordings on other DVD players, computers, etc., you *must* record it on DVD-RWs formatted by the player as \\"DVD Video.\\" DVD-RWs formatted in \\"VR Mode\\" will *not* play on other players. The main advantage to \\"VR Mode\\" is greater versatility in setting up chapters & the capacity to erase selected chapters without reformatting the whole disk, so it's better for recording programs which you plan to record over soon (weekly TV programs, for example).     Also, don't forget to finalize the disk before trying to play it in other players. If you're using a DVD-RW & want to record more on it later, you can always unfinalize the disk at that time.    2. When recording onto DVDs, if you hit \\"stop\\" it will process it as one title/chapter on the DVD; if you hit \\"record\\" again, it will start recording on to a new title, which means a half-hour TV show will get broken into 3 or 4 different segments if you're editing out the commercials. However, if you just hit \\"pause\\" while recording, when you unpause the recording it will continue under the same title/chapter. This reduces considerably the amount of clutter in the DVD-RW's menu when playing it later.