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April 16, 2005
Shifting my life around
Yesterday I bought a Pioneer DVR-420H DVD Recorder (80 GB hard-drive). This model is the same as the 520 but without the firewire port (and around 100 Euros cheaper). I was also considering the Panasonic DMR-EH52EG which is in the same price category. Both recorders have similar test results and from the forums I read, they both seem pretty equal. The Panasonic has an EPG that it downloads automatically but I read that this doesn't always work and the Pioneer has several ways of setting up timer recordings. So in the end I went for the Pioneer that also happened to be slightly cheaper in my local store.
Connecting the recorder up between my pay-tv decoder and aged Loewe TV was pretty simple. The actual recorder setup is well designed and the menus are easy to understand and walk through. Just make sure the cables are connected properly before moaning that you'll have to take it back to the shop (note to self).
My main reason for getting a device like this is to make our TV viewing more flexible. Let the device record what you want and then watch at your leisure, start your viewing say 10 minutes after the program has started but still be able to watch from the beginning or pause the program when the phone rings without missing anything.
So, my first step was to enter all our "regular" programs into the timer-programming - and it's really easy. Again, the Pioneer menus are well thought-out. My only quibble being that some things are only possible once you've entered the schedule into the device. For example - when entering a daily (or weekly) recording using the ShowView (or EasyTimer) function, I don't seem to be able to configure that I want the recording to replace the one from the day before. Once the program has been entered, I can however go into the timer-overview and change this option (and it works).
I'll probably be mostly recording to the hard-drive, but it's nice to have the DVD writer in case I want to transfer something over to a DVD. I haven't really tried most of the options yet - but up to now it does exactly what I want.
Posted by Matthew at April 16, 2005 10:06 PM