Panasonic DMR-EH50S DVD Recorder with 100 GB Hard Drive Recording
Bought both - Which is best - Panasonic DMR-EH50S or Pioneer DVR-533H-S
Using to record TV shows -  I have not recorded any shows. <br /> <br />I don't know why anyone would want to use either of these to record TV shows, when Tivo and other DVRs have been around for the last few years. I have a Dish 942 high definition DVR now, but I have also owned Direct TV Tivo, and Comcast DVR for about 2 years. The Comcast DVR is the best DVR that I have used. <br /> <br />Pioneer DVR-533H-S is better for my needs <br /> <br />I use it for making DVDs of home videos of the last 20 years and for copying movies from my Dish 942 DVR, so I can edit out the commercials or copy HBO movies. <br /> <br />Since I have not used the 533 for TV recording, I don't have any of the problems of hard drive noise, etc that have been reported in other reviews. <br /> <br />What I like about the 533 is that when you make a DVD from camcorder video, you need to organize sometimes hundreds of video clips. Keeping track of all of them can be confusing. The 533 has a database sorting ability which is similar to a good DVR, so you can organize the video clips by date, or title.  <br /> <br />You can also assign 6 different symbols to a video clip so you can organize your video clip database like you organize your favorites menu on Microsoft Internet Explorer. It just makes the editing a lot easier. <br /> <br /> <br />Panasonic DMR-EH50S <br /> <br />I like the EH50S for its higher recording quality in LP 4 hour mode. But with the price of DVD-R disks so low, that is really not an issue.  <br /> <br />Also the Panasonic instruction manual is more confusing than the Pioneer. All Panasonic products that I have owned have been very reliable, which might be something to consider. <br /> <br />Panasonic is coming out with a 200GB version in April 2006 and Pioneer will probably come out with a new one to. But I don't see any info on Panasonic changing their editing interface.  <br /> <br />You can see it here. <br /> <br />[...] <br />5/index.html <br />