I have been a happy user of my Pioneer DV-533 HD/DVD recorder for over 2 years. One problem I have is that I have been unable to use the highspeed dubbing mode with any DVD-R that is rated greater than 8x.

I have tried a variety of different 16x discs with no success. I bought a stock of 8x a few years back, but have no exhausted my supply and am now forced to always avoid highspeed mode.

Have other DV-533 users experienced the same problem?

Thanks!

It looks like you need to upgrade your recorder's firmware.
Additionally, 8x media, including TY and Verbs, is plentiful online from reputable dealers like Newegg and Rima.

Since the burner in the Pioneer 533 (and most other DVRs) is specially modified with DRM chips, it is not possible to upgrade the firmware to handle current media. The 531-533-633 series is particularly prone to 16x disc failure when using media made after early 2007 (no matter what mfrs claim, they are indeed tinkering with dye formulations every few months). I have usually had good luck with Taiwan-made Sony 16x DVD-R, but they have recently moved all disc production to Malaysia and the Malaysian discs tend to fail. The advice to use 8x TY discs from Rima or SuperMediaStore is correct, the older Pioneers never fail to high-speed-copy onto 8x TY media. Note also, use of TY 8x media sometimes has the beneficial side effect of "goosing" the burner into accepting 16x discs for high speed copy: there have been several occasions when my 531 started choking on 16x media, after burning a couple of TY 8x discs the recorder seemed to recover its ability to high speed copy to 16x discs.

Again I refer to older Sony Taiwan 16x media, my 531 (and others I have serviced) will not under any circumstances make a successful high speed copy to TDK, store brands or any other brand that is OEM'd by the CMC conglomerate, which now mfrs nearly all the discs sold at USA retail outlets. Older recorders now screw up with nearly all 16x media conveniently available in stores, get used to ordering TY 8x online and save yourself a lot of aggravation.

Bought a Pioneer DVR-533H-S in December '05, and I love it, it's a great machine. I too have had problems in recording on DVD-R 16X blank DVDs and am looking for a firmware update but I do not wish to send the machine off and be without it for ?? weeks. I have discovered something that permits me to use ANY 16X disk and maybe it'll work for anyone.
1. Record a dummy program on the Hard Drive, need only 10 or 12 seconds in length.
2. Put in blank 16X disk, copy HDD to DVD. I don't select "format" --
just copy that short "dummy" program.
3. After about a minute or so, a window will come up and say CANNOT COPY or something to that effect.
4. NOW, select COPY again, HDD to DVD, new program list and select
the movie or whatever you wish to copy, also select FORMAT if you wish, It'll WORK! About 8 minutes later (for a 1 1/2 hour movie), you'll get a window saying "COPY COMPLETE."

I've been doing this for a few years, and have never found a 16X disk that it won't work on! I dunno what the firmware in this thing is and maybe different versions will react differently. In any case, I am curious to see how well it works on other machines. Rarely have time to check this forum, lemme know at JGidusko@cfl.rr.com.