Pioneer DVR-520HS DVD Recorder + 80GB Digital Video Recorder
Top-quality DVD Recorder at a great low price!
It took me a few months to decide which DVD Recorder I would buy. Pioneer, of course, has an excellent name and their products are usually reliable and are top quality. I have DVD Players by Pioneer and also external DVD/CD recorders for my PC, so after much research I gave the 520H-S a shot. And I'm very satisfied -- everything worked right away: the hook up, the recording quality and all the features of this DVR are just excellent. You will need to read through the manual in order to understand the onscreen menues and commands, etc. As other users mentioned, the editing functions are a little tedious and you'll need the manual right beside you. <br />But it's easy to record TV shows, old videos to the 80GB harddrive and then make edited copies to a DVD-R. The finalized DVD-Rs that I've recorded played in all my DVD players and the quality is excellent. It took me about a couple of hours for the complete setup for my home theater system with satellite receiver, video player, other DVD player, etc., so that everything worked perfectly. And it took me about a day to record the last 12 years of home videos that we had and burn the DVDs. The 80GB harddrive comes in handy with a capacity of approx. 36 hours for SP mode (excellent quality) recording. The burning of the DVDs is fast -- it takes about 5-7 minutes for a 2-hour DVD to burn and finalize. <br />Compared to the other models out there and considering all the features, etc., at this price I think the Pioneer DVR 520H-S is hard to beat, and it's a solid top quality unit with lots of features. Also, it has a DV input (i-Link) which lets you hook up your digital camcorder right into this DVD recorder and record unto the harddrive or a DVD. It's not an absolute perfect machine though, because e.g. it converts film-like 24P fps into 60i with a so-called Pure Cinema feature and it's okay, but don't think of this machine as a substitute for PC computer editing if that's something you'd like to do, because the editing features are just not extensive and/or sophisticated enough on this machine to do so. But it's probably the best DVD Recorder out there at the best price and I really enjoy it, and I'm glad I bought it.