Pioneer DVR-533h question

[Razortceps]

First off does anyone know when its going to come out. They said at the end of April but is there an exact date yet and do you think there will be a delay? Also do you know what stores will be carrying it? Like will both Best Buy and Walmart carry it or will it be an exclusive, does anyone have a clue? Thanks.

[LakotaRose]

Mid June is what the Pioneer Customer Service folks said when I emailed to ask when the DVR-533H will be available.

[gshelley61]

Picture of the 533H from a Japanese web site...

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20050107/ces04_01.jpg


Here's the 633H -

http://www.watch.impress.co.jp/av/docs/20050107/ces04_02.jpg

[picrthis]

I'd bet you won't see it at Best Buy / Circuit City / WalMart, etc as they never carried the 520H, I don't think they are authorized, they do/did carry the low-end pioneer models w/o HD's though.

First off does anyone know when its going to come out. They said at the end of April but is there an exact date yet and do you think there will be a delay? Also do you know what stores will be carrying it? Like will both Best Buy and Walmart carry it or will it be an exclusive, does anyone have a clue? Thanks.

[LakotaRose]

Hello All. If anyone's interested, there's an ebay seller who is offering this unit for $334 which includes insurance and handling. As of this writing, there are two left.

[lumis]

I'd bet you won't see it at Best Buy / Circuit City / WalMart, etc as they never carried the 520H, I don't think they are authorized, they do/did carry the low-end pioneer models w/o HD's though.

actually, i was at wal-mart recently and they had a pioneer dvd recorder with an 80gb hdd.

[bnbhoha]

533 can be bought at vanns.com for $379 and various other "unauthorized" but reputable venders online for about $335 + shipping.

[tonydead]

Look around! I got my 531H-S on ebay for $260. Everything the 533 has except the firewire port, big deal. I've seen them cheaper. They work great for what you gotta do!

[gshelley61]

I got my 531 from eBay for about the same price as tonydead. Brand new, sealed box. I've seen some others go for even less. Just keep in mind that Pioneer does not honor their warranty unless you purchase from an authorized online (or brick and mortar) dealer. If you get one from an eBay vendor, you are on your own (although most of them guarantee against DOA, etc.)

If you're willing to accept that risk, you can definitely save some money.

[heavyharmonies]

533 can be bought at vanns.com for $379 and various other "unauthorized" but reputable venders online for about $335 + shipping.

Watch OneCall from time to time to see what specials they are running. They are an authorized Pioneer dealer, and had the 533S for $359.10 including 3-day FedEx shipping. That's where I bought mine. Has since gone back up to $399.

-Dan

[gshelley61]

BTW, I did a quick test of the HDD to DVD two pass encoding feature. That is, recording to the hard drive in XP+ (15Mbps) mode, then transferring to DVD at a lower quality setting (hence, the second encoding pass).

I recorded about 45 minutes at XP+ to the hard drive from another DVD player using a backup DVD-R of "Return of the Mummy" 4:3 version. I used the s-video input with no video picture adjustments at all (other than the default 7.5 IRE input black level correction).

For the transfer to DVD-RW, I went from XP+ down to SP to see how it would do. I have to say, I could not see any difference in clarity and detail between the XP+ hard drive recording and the re-encoded SP version. The SP re-encode did have a little more compression artifacting (to be expected) in the form of very mild mosquito noise, but no macroblocks that I could see. Remember, the bitrate was reduced by about two-thirds in the process... my preliminary impression is that the MPEG encoder in this unit does a very fine job.

The second pass re-encode occurs in real time, that is in the time it takes to play back the hard drive recording at normal speed. So, the re-encode from XP+ to SP took about 45 minutes.

I'll have to do some more experimenting with this feature, but it definitely looks promising. I will try it out on hand held camcorder footage next... I will probably record a 2-hour 8mm camcorder tape at XP+ to the HDD then re-encode it to fit on a single DVD-RW using the "Optimized" setting. That should be a good test... I want to see how it handles all that constant motion.

[sapiendut]

gshelley61,

I have the 633HS version of the recorder. What is the IRE setting should I use? Another thing: I've just setup TV Guide and it's past its 24 hour period but the EPG display is still showing. Is it safe for me to use the DVD-R?

[ekmek]

sapien: You can use the DVD-R when the EPG thing is on - as far as I've figured out it just means it (thinks it) hasn't finished downloading the listings. While it hasn't happened to me (yet) you may find that if you try to record/view listings that are "far" into the future they may not have been downloaded yet - a couple of times I've just set a "manual" record time. Also, make sure you turn the recorder off (or leave it off after it's recorded something and turned itself off) - at one point I left the thing on for a few days and then found no listings when I went into the TV Guide.

[sapiendut]

I see. Oh well, as long as I can set manual record time, I'm happy. I'm not big with EPG anyway

Thanks, ekmek!

Cheers.

[gshelley61]

Here in NTSC land, the input black level setup should be on 7.5 IRE for most sources (VHS, 8mm, Hi8, laserdisc, TV tuner, etc.) The unit will "stretch" the black level of the source down to 0 IRE for a proper DVD encode. You may also need to use the variable black level and gamma adjustments, depending on the source.

0 IRE would be selected for MiniDV or Digital8 (when using s-video input), since they are recorded at 0 IRE to start with. If you use the firewire input for a direct DV to DVD digital conversion, the picture controls are bypassed altogether.