New Pioneer DVR-220-S dvd recorder available now

[fredpb]

Found a Pioneer DVR-220-S in Wal Mart of all places. New, release date June 1, 2004 (got it before then!). Under $300. Looking at their site will now show it. It is in the SUperstores, and if you search on the web it will show up at Walmart site.

[fredpb]

Returned it and got a Panasonic. The DVD-Rs of many brands (finalized) would not work on my other players. The Panasonic had fantastic features, but no compatibility. For me anyway.

[TheUnknownComic]

I just picked up the Pioneer DVR-220-S at Wal-Mart last night for $248. I had previously tried two Sanyo's and both were extremely unreliable. I played with the Pioneer a lot last night and tonight and have not had any trouble yet. It definitely has a lot of controls and large manual to explain them.

I haven't tested the finalized discs on other set top players yet but was able to play one on my computer (LiteOn DVD recorder drive).

I didn't think I'd have any use for the chase feature, but it is really neat. It's hard to imagine it can record on a disc while also playing the same disc. It can play the same show that it's recording or play an entirely different title on the same disc. From my expermentation, I can definitely see why TIVO is popular.

The recorder has 32 levels of recording quality which you can set in 10 minute increments. I think this is great because so many have pre-set timings such as two hours. I don't know about everyone else, but I've always set my VCR to come on a couple of minutes early and run a few minutes after the end to make sure I get the entire show. With the Sanyo I had, in two-hour mode it only record 1:59. So, it cut off the final bit of the movie I was recording. With the Pioneer, set it to record for 2:10 and you'll get the whole show. No worrying about having your clock set exact and shows starting and ending on time and compression not shortening your actual recording time by a minute or two.

As for the menus the Pioneer creates, you get nine choices. The Sanyo I had only had one menu and that was it. Oddly, the Sanyo would let you enter a long title for a recording but it truncated most of it. The Pioneer actually shows a much longer title. The Pioneer also allows a mixture of upper and lowercase letters (the Sanyo only allowed uppercase).

As for picture quality, I think it looks great. The six-hour mode is definitely blurry, though. You most likely will have little to no use for it. But my quick experiment at 4:30 looked good. If I remember right the manual says the quality changes at 4:40 (resolution drops or something). I think most people would be happy with the 4:30 mode for many uses. Such as if you're wanting to put a lot of episodes of some show on one disc.

As for reliability, I can only base this on two nights of experimenting. I hit it pretty hard last night with the chase feature and it never failed. The recorder had been on for several hours, too, so it had time to heat up, if that was going to be a problem. Speaking of heat, the fan is very quiet. The Sanyo had a rather loud fan that I found annoying.

I had a homemade video (footage of a friend's rock band) that run about two hours. The Sanyo would not display it at all. I assume it either couldn't lock in or thought it was protected (and it definitely wasn't). The Pioneer copied it fine. The disc took four minutes to finalize (in Video mode). I believe the Sanyo won on this point. The discs that it didn't fail on took less than two minutes to finalize. I finalized something on the Pioneer last night that took 11 minutes. I can't remember if that was in VR mode or Video mode. It did have several titles, though, which may have been the reason.

As best I can tell, the Pioneer website does NOT mention the 220-s except in one tiny place. You can order a replacement manual which serves it and the 320-s. From my manual, the only difference in the models seems to be that the 320-s include the DV input. The Pioneer site does advertise the 320-s, which is pretty much the same machine (except the DV input) as far as I can tell. Perhaps they don't sell the 220-s anywhere but Wal-Mart? If so, it's too bad because I think the Amazon price on the 320-s was about $100 more.

Well, that's my first impressions and I hope it helps anyone that is thinking of picking up a Pioneer DVR-220-S.