Upgrade advice? (from Pany E95H to Pioneer 630H)

[justinz]

Hi all. (First post!)

I'm looking to move from a Panasonic DMR-E95H to perhaps a Pioneer DVR-630H. Mainly I want to add Dual Layer writing, but also because there have been so many complaints posted about the Pany that I hope to avoid an inevitable failure.

There are soooooo many aspects to consider, my head is spinning! So I thought I'd post my wish list here and see what comments crop up.

What I like about the DMR-E95H:
- TV Guide (no TiVo subscription)
- DVD-RAM
- Excellent video quality

What I hope to add by going to the Pioneer DVR-630H:
- Dual Layer, DVD-RW

What I'm sorry to lose:
- VCR Plus+

What I wish this unit had (Is there another Pioneer which does?):
- HDTV

What I hope to NOT get stuck with:
- Copy protection preventing me from burning cable content, such as a movie recorded from cable (I hear that HBO has copy protection that some recorders refuse to burn(???)

Now, this movie burning stuf would just be a one-off. I've burnt one movie on the Pany, and I'd be very disappointed if I bought the Pioneer and then the first time I tryed to save a show to DVD it barked "Nope -- Sorry, no can do! Ha ha!"

I hope this doesn't come off as a newbie asking "make my decision for me!" -- but I guess it's just that Thanks for your comments!!

-Jaz

[Frobozz]

The VR-mode DVD-RW works much like DVD-RAM. You do realize the DL media is not rewritable, though.

You also get a large number of customization features with the Pioneer. Plan to keep the manual close by for the first couple months.

There is no DVD recorder available today that records HDTV except as standard definition 480i. You have to wait at least a year for this and who knows what it or the media will cost and what the copy restrictions will be. The Pioneer does have XP+ recording to the hard drive which is higher quality than the maximum bit rate for DVDs.

As for copy protection, at worst you might have to save your the restricted program to VR-mode DVD-RW instead of a finalized video-mode DVD-R. But that is uncommon at this point.