Need DVD recorder before World Cup!

hawthorn

Well the title says it all! Im threatening for a long time now! Ive sort of decided on Pioneer, having read a lot of posts/reviews here and avforums. Branner, i think you have the 530??

Just looking for opinions, should I wait for the new ones (though they probably wont be in in time) or go for a 530 or 433?

I read where some features were missing from the new ones, and obviously some added. I dont have HD and probably wont have for a long, long time. So maybe the current models would be fine. Opinions please!

Anyway, heres the deal in Clerys in Dublin. They have the Pioneer 433 reduced from 499 to 449. And the Pioneer 530 reduced from €599 to €549. I rang them and asked if theyll be cheaper when the new stock arrive (no harm trying...!) and the guy said hold on and I'll see what I can do...

Came back and said he'd do the 530 for €500. I reckon this is a good deal, what do you think??

Probably the 433 would be €400 then, it got a great review. 533 not quite as good review, though very good. The main difference between the 433 and 530 seems to be Guideplus, which I don’t think works here anyway, so maybe the 433 would be good enough. Both seem to have 80gbHD. Id probably have to go for the 630 model for 160gbHD (which is €649 in Limerick)

I don’t know what to do? I mean, am I being a snob in not going for the Lidl one, at €299? Or indeed a different make like reasonably priced Toshiba with 160Gig. Help needed! I'll be checking in here regularly!!! And will let you know what I decide!

Thanks

kc

Skyuser

Do you want HDD in it [didn't bother rading it all]. I got the one in Aldi for €129 and it brilliant.

hawthorn

Now what is HDD...? I dont intend getting High Definition TV for a LONG time. And I definitely want one with a HDdrive. What was the spec of the 129 one? Didnt see that , saw the 299 one in Lidl alright, which is a good price, but a few iffy comments here about it.

kc

Idleater

I have the 433 with 80 gig HD.

I think it is fantastic and have no complaints with it at all. Very easy to set up, very easy to use and navigate, it can record and play (HDD or DVD) at the same time, (but not when burning from HDD to DVD) and the picture quality is excelent.

My recommendations for buying and checking out specs would be to ignore entirely the "amount of hours" that it can record. This is on the crappiest lowest quality.

I always record at XP (eg films that I want to keep on DVD) or SP (general TV) which means on the 80gb hd, there is about 15-20 hours before I have to do a clearout. This is perfectly adequate for normal viewing.

It records in RGB from NTL Digital and it records the WS flag too (I think it writes it too to most media).

The downside is that it is dvd- based (it plays +) and doesnt record RAM.

I bought from RicherSounds and apparently it is Region free (but I haven't checked this out yet).


L.

hawthorn

Thanks for that! The main difference in it and the 530 seems to be the 160Gig HD. Dont know if Id need it. I suppose for €100 extra I probably should go for it.

h

Idleater

hawthorn wrote:

Thanks for that! The main difference in it and the 530 seems to be the 160Gig HD. Dont know if Id need it. I suppose for €100 extra I probably should go for it.

h

Yeah, if you are going to be saving a lot of programmes on it then maybe. I just use it like a big video recorder - like pause the news if the phone rings or something like that. Anything "important" I burn to DVD anyway.

Quality wise, I have no complaints, so after that you are paying for HD size. The component out is pretty good too.

Speaking of which, it will convert the RGB signal from the NTL Digital to component which is good too.

L.

hawthorn

yeah think I'll ring Clery's tomorrow; they'll post it for just €15 which in fairness is good.

Any particular brands of disks to use with it? I will be doing lots of archiving of old tapes. Occasionally I may want to record a programme for my sister (when she buys a dvd player); presumably she will have to but a machine that plays dvd -r. Could you use -RW for this purpose, ie you could record over it continously? Or do you have to "close" the disk before playing it in another machine, then you cant record over it again? Or is there a way around this?

Anyway thats in the future, Im going for it! Thanks for your opinions.

h

Idleater

hawthorn wrote:

presumably she will have to but a machine that plays dvd -r. Could you use -RW for this purpose, ie you could record over it continously? Or do you have to "close" the disk before playing it in another machine, then you cant record over it again? Or is there a way around this?

I think most players nowadays will play pretty much any format (-+ R & RW) but RAM is still lacking complete support (which is a shame I think but anyway).

You do have to finalise the discs to play them in a normal DVD player but I have used both R and RW discs fine. There are two options that you can use when recording - one is more supported and the other is faster but less supported.

The High Speed copy only works high speed if it doesn't have to rescale the picture (ie at XP a 2 hour film will take 2 dvd's so if you want it to fit onto 1, then it plays the XP film at SP and records that if you get me).

L.

TheDriver

I got the BenQ from Komplett for 253+13delivery and find it a great little machine for the yoyos, even has 250Gb hard drive. May not be as great with features as others but for that price and also 2 years warranty....

hawthorn

Certainly sounds good value.But ive been waiting so long since I first got the notion, and after looking at a lot of articles and reviews favoured Pioneer, that i think I will stick with it.

Now heres the deal, and a tale of good and bad service. As I mentioned earlier, Clerys had come from €549 to €500, and €15 delivery so total €515.

Then I read from an irish guys post in AVForums, that the 530H is in Richer Sounds for €449, and 13 delivery making a total of €462, I sat up and looked! So i rang Clerys and asked to speak to the guy I was speaking to earlier. I was told he was with a customer and would ring me back soon. So I rang after a while and he was on lunch. Fair enough. Then I rang again when I didnt hear from him, and was told he'd definitely ring me. Well, he didnt. And if he had perhaps waived the 15 delivery I would have bought it despite the €38 difference. But Im not really impressed.

In the meantime I had phoned Richer Sounds in Belfast. They have 2 in stock. I asked about service if something went wrong.So the deal is they will arrange to have it collected, and you pay the delivery but its only €12.99. If I had to drive to Dublin it would cost more than that.

So I think I'll go for it. On the other hand Im wondering should I wait and give Clerys the benefit of the doubt and see if they'll ring in the morning......

As they say "I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure" !!

K

Idleater

hawthorn wrote:

As they say "I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure" !!

If it is any good, I bought my 433 from Richersounds over the internet. Can't fault the service (apart from that silly rule that the delivery MUST go to the cardholder address).

Is the machine you are looking at Region Free? Mine was and when I checked Harvey Norman's it was R2 only (plus €50 more expensive after delivery)

L.

hawthorn

Yes almost certain its region free. Im glad to hear good commentc about Richer sounds, surprised that Harvey Normans were even within €50 of that price. Clerys have only just come down.

regards

h

sweetie

hawthorn wrote:

Yes almost certain its region free. Im glad to hear good commentc about Richer sounds, surprised that Harvey Normans were even within €50 of that price. Clerys have only just come down.

regards

h

Hawthorn, it's the same sweetie from avforums here. I ordered one of those two 530s that Richer sounds have left so if you haven't ordered yours yet you should before it's gone.

hawthorn

AAAHHHH!!:eek: Im just doing it now! Did you order from Belfast....well of course you did, youre in Ireland!

Obviously Clerys didnt ring me, I shouldnt have waited! Anyway I just rang, they said there was one left, but I dont think he actually looked!

I suppose the Guideplus wont work here?

h

sweetie

hawthorn wrote:

AAAHHHH!!:eek: Im just doing it now! Did you order from Belfast....well of course you did, youre in Ireland!

Obviously Clerys didnt ring me, I shouldnt have waited! Anyway I just rang, they said there was one left, but I dont think he actually looked!

I'd say he was right, there were only 2 left when I ordered.

[

I suppose the Guideplus wont work here?
h

I'm not sure. It's supposed to be carried by utv analog and eurosport and on a previous thread a guy with ntl analog got it partially working so here's hopin'. I may invest in phantomplus if it doesn't. I saw your thread on avforums about it and will be interested in hearing the replies. I remember checking out a website about it somewhere. I will try and look this up again.

hawthorn

Hi Sweetie (god that sounds like a chatup line..!)

Yes i got it as youll probably read in my other post. Some service from Richer Sounds--1 day!

Saw your Guideplus post, havent got that fr my self yet, so will be following it.

Im using a Video Sender too, which is a bit like a Scart 2-way adapter, wonder if this couldbe causing my flickering/ghosting? Hope not!

k