Pioneer DVR510HS (80 GB) DVD Recorder

Pros: Hard Drive recording, DV (firewire) Input.
Cons: Too many to list, see the body of this review.

After reading the reviews, I determined the Pioneer DVR-510H was the right DVD recorder for me. But the deck did not meet my expectations. This recorder works best for those wanting to copy video from a mini-DV camera with a Firewire port to a DVD. ...

Pros: Excellent user interface, DV in/out, Good JPEG viewer, excellent recording quality
Cons: Accurate edit points mean no high-speed dub from HD to DVD.

The Pioneer DVR-510H is a relative newcomer to the standalone DVD recorder market and thus has had a good look at the competition. Its primary rivals, the Panasonic DMR-E100HS and the DMR-E80H, have already established a sound following among videophiles ...

Pros: Easy-to-use, best feature-set for money, good appearance and built-quality, use of popular DVD standards, multi-system.
Cons: No simultaneous bilingual-recording to harddisk, NTSC/PAL manual selection, unsatisfactory photoviewer, composite/component-out quality should be better.

I bought this unit to replace my 12 years old Panasonic VCR which has served me for 4 Olympic Games ( but the most funny thing is that I didn't get the new DVR before the Athens Games but only after its closing :-) I wait the price cut for too long :-( ) ...

Pros: Easy to use. Hard drive provides Tivo like play/record features.
Cons: Interface for setting up timer recordings could be a "little" better.

This is one of my favorite xmas gifts I have ever received. I have been burning to DVD with my computer and a Haupaugge TV tuner card for a while now and though it works... it has not always been successful. The DVR510H has fixed that for me. First ...

Pros: Good user interface, simultaneous record play-back and auto titling
Cons: inflexible remote, some user interface quirks

Purchased mine 4 weeks ago, and I've recommended to everyone from my engineers to my mother. Almost everything is perfect from the basic operation, the smoothest parts being the simultaneous record and playback. Video recording in the SP mode is of ...

Pros: everything about it
Cons: nothing so far

recently purchased the 510h from crutchfield. paid a little more than others but on a product like this you want to buy from a top quality vendor. SO FAR IT HAS BEEN ALL I HOPED FOR AND MORE. everything has worked great. I can't imagine not having the hard drive. the convenience of having 35 or more hours of home video available with a couple of clicks is incredible. the owners manual is lengthy and intimidating but well written and not too bad once you try various functions. It is also written with U.S.A.thinking and not overseas thinking. the various menus are very well thought out and offer great convenience. the picture quality on the 2 hour mode is excellent (haven't tried the others). I have been waiting a long time to buy a dvd recorder and am glad I waited for this one. highly recommended.

Pros: Easy editing, reasonable price, thin, quiet, good looking, fast recording, optimizes compression for space.
Cons: Doesn't have tivo, editing is great but Panasonic DMR-E80S is slightly better.

I've tried several other DVRs with DVD burners built in and this seems to be the best one. It doesn't have TIVO but the programing and editing make it worthwhile.

Here's some things I like about it: Big enough hard drive that you can record a reasonable amount of programs at the highest quality. It names most programs for you somehow! It can optimize the recording for fitting it on a DVD, if you need just that extra couple of minutes you don't have to step down a whole step in quality, just a small percentage! It's more quiet than the one I tried before it, the DVR-810H, which was very noisy, it never stopped humming loudly and you couldn't turn it off!

I had other problems with the 810, I wrote a review.

Living with this one is heaven. If you want TIVO too, get another box. I thought I wanted one box, but TIVO is so much different than just a hard disc recorder, I couldn't do anything but watch TV on it.