Hi. I am from Argentina and I have been searching for a HDD DVD recorder for a while now and I had finally decided on the Philips 3455 (despite some of its reported shortcomings), but the unit, which was only available at an online auction site (regular shops have not had them available since October 2007) was sold out. I have been looking at the DVR-650H-S which has better specs (and it is a far better brand in my opinion, I have a Pioneer 393-S player and I never had any problems with it and it has been able to play almost every DivX file I´ve thrown at it), though the price is rather steep, 980 dollars (2 months salary for me) at some shop that apparently imports them directly since it does not appear to be distributed here and the people at Pioneer-latin.com have not replied to my queries about it. Anyway, I have a few questions about its features, namely:
1) Does it allow you to record from the DVD to the HDD? Because I know that the 3455 does not (I am interested in this because my computer´s HDD is almost full of DivX movies).
2) Does it have "chase play" (the ability to start watching a recording that is already in progress without having to wait for the recording to finish)?
3) Does it allow you to watch a DVD or another HD recording while recording a program to the HD?
4) Does it have the "pause and rewind live TV" feature?
5) What´s the quality like when playing back DivX files? Are there any compatibility issues or should they be comparable to my current player?
6) What´s the image quality like in general when playing back recorded TV shows to the HD in the 2 highest quality settings? (regular cable TV, not digital on a 29 inch CRT TV with AV and S-Video connectors only)
7) Does it have any major known issues? (I don´t really care about editing or the HDMI output, just recording and playback )
8) I read that this unit will play DVDs from any region. Is this correct? (we use region 4 here)
Thanks a lot in advance for any replies

I have been looking at the DVR-650H-S... I have a few questions about its features, namely:

1) Does it allow you to record from the DVD to the HDD? Because I know that the 3455 does not (I am interested in this because my computer´s HDD is almost full of DivX movies).

I have the Pio 650H-K, so I can give you some preliminary answers until someone who owns the S model replies.

You can record / copy from the HDD to DVD, and from any non-copyrighted DVD to the HDD. However, depending on what exactly you want to do with your DivX recordings / copies, you should download the manual from the Pioneer Web site, which would likely give you the specific answer you are looking for.

2) Does it have "chase play" (the ability to start watching a recording that is already in progress without having to wait for the recording to finish)?

Yes

3) Does it allow you to watch a DVD or another HD recording while recording a program to the HD?

Yes

4) Does it have the "pause and rewind live TV" feature?

Only if you are recording the program -- like Chase Play.

5) What´s the quality like when playing back DivX files? Are there any compatibility issues or should they be comparable to my current player?

I don't use DivX files, so hopefully someone else can advise on on that.

6) What´s the image quality like in general when playing back recorded TV shows to the HD in the 2 highest quality settings? (regular cable TV, not digital on a 29 inch CRT TV with AV and S-Video connectors only)

The Pio 650 has very good recording quality from the tuner AND A/V inputs if the source is high quality as well. It all depends how much your cable company compresses the signal. On my cable, even some digital channels are heavily compressed and/or use very low bitrates, resulting in the typical clay-faced, washed out picture, others, including some analog channels are still very detailed, resulting in a much sharper recording.

Unfortunately (concerning my own cable provider) - when viewed straight from the co-axial outlet to the TV - more and more channels are exhibiting slight pixelation, motion blur, and lack of detail, even when viewed on a CRT TV, which has never ever happened in the past --- Signs of the times...!

7) Does it have any major known issues? (I don´t really care about editing or the HDMI output, just recording and playback )

I've been so satisfied with the performance of my Pio 640, that I bought a Pio 550 and a Pio 650, and I would recommend the Pioneer line (without the TV Guide feature) to anyone. Only if you ever wanted to transfer old VHS tapes to DVD, there are other brands of DVD recorders on the market with better encoding chips that are able to filter VHS tape noise better.

8) I read that this unit will play DVDs from any region. Is this correct? (we use region 4 here)

The Pioneer DVR-650H-S is sold as a multi-region player.

Thanks for the reply. Does the chase play feature only work with pre programmed recordings or does it also work with manually set recordings?

Yes, the Pioneer chase play feature works with both manual and timer recordings. Pioneer does not have an automatic "pause live TV feature": you need to manually start recording to manipulate live TV, and the recorder will time out after 6 hours recording to its hard drive. The DiVX playback on Pioneers improves with each new model, but Pioneer compatibility with the very latest DiVX variations usually lags behind inexpensive DVD *players* like Phillips. All DVD recorders are primarily engineered to record from broadcast or line inputs, DiVX compatibility feature is an afterthought.

I would completely agree with all the earlier answers provided by tac7, except for his remarks regarding VHS transfers (which you don't seem interested in anyway). While it is true some older recorders of different brands (primarily JVC and Toshiba) could sometimes make arguably "better" recordings from VHS, in my experience this was an extremely unpredictable advantage. The JVC and Toshibas I used then often exhibited IRE (brightness) issues which occasionally negated any advantage of the "better" encoder. Also, the "better" encoder in these units was annoyingly sensitive to certain obscure tape issues: this required the use of additional expensive items like a DataVideo TBC and high-end VCRs with noise filtering. This again could negate the "better" encoder advantage, because the additional processing softened the image.

This was more of a problem pre-2005, because the encoders in those earlier Pioneer models was "too sharp" and emphasized noise and dropouts from VHS tapes: that is why some of us turned to JVC and Toshiba. However, since the x30 models introduced in 2005, Pioneer improved its encoder compatibility with VHS to the point where it is now about as good as any other mfr. In fact, current Pioneers are an excellent choice for VHS because their encoders stabilize many VHS errors that used to require a super-expensive vcr and/or external TBC to fix. A current Pioneer will almost always make a decent recording from any standard VCR, it isn't necessary to use a fancy noise-reduction VCR or external TBC just to get a usable signal. Unless the tape is very unusual, Pioneer's current encoder will handle it nicely by itself.

Finally, it is a mistake to assume your DVD recorder is giving you the best possible playback of its own recordings. I have often been concerned that some of my Pioneer 640 recordings looked a little too "soft", but when I played the Pioneer DVDs on other dedicated players from Panasonic, Phillips, etc the playback was very clear and sharp. Despite the fancy playback features they include, recorders are not really designed for the best playback performance. Always double check important recordings on another player, to reassure yourself the recorder is working properly.

Thanks for the reply. Does the chase play feature only work with pre programmed recordings or does it also work with manually set recordings?

It works with both.

The Pio DVDRs have really great flexibility without the greater risk of freeze-ups reported with other brands when doing multiple tasks. I routinely edit material on the HDD while timer recordings start or finish, and never had any issues, although when a recording starts or finishes while doing some editing of another program, you get kicked out of the editing window. But all you have to do is get back and continue whatever you were doing.

As long as you keep your HDD reasonably "tidy," without having tons of edited and fragmented material filling up the HDD close to its capacity, you should not have to worry about user-induced glitches or crashes. Of course the hardware of all brands of recorders follows Murphy's law; so backups (to disk) are always important.

It works with both.

The Pio DVDRs have really great flexibility without the greater risk of freeze-ups reported with other brands when doing multiple tasks. I routinely edit material on the HDD while timer recordings start or finish, and never had any issues, although when a recording starts or finishes while doing some editing of another program, you get kicked out of the editing window. But all you have to do is get back and continue whatever you were doing.

As long as you keep your HDD reasonably "tidy," without having tons of edited and fragmented material filling up the HDD close to its capacity, you should not have to worry about user-induced glitches or crashes. Of course the hardware of all brands of recorders follows Murphy's law; so backups (to disk) are always important.

I'll second that one. I have a 520 and a lot of times I'll have a lot of stuff stored on the HDD and will burn it all to DVD in 1 night. A lot of times what I'll do is after I've edited a program and transfer it to DVD, I can start editing the next one while a high-speed copy is going on. Assuming the later models are similar (and incidentally, I'm about to be the proud new owner of a 450), you don't have full access to all of the editing features while a disc is being burned, but you can view and chapter-mark other programs which can save you a lot of time, especially if you're like me and aren't always watching the program you're recording at the time.

Hi Citibear. So you are saying that the playback quality is not that good? Does that only apply to its own recordings or to playback in general (I intend on recording to the HDD mostly, since I watch a lot of TV shows, but I do not intend to store them, so unless I burned them to a DVDRW I would not be able to watch them in another player)? (I mostly watch DivX movies, not regular DVDs on my current player) I am asking this because I was thinking of replacing my current Pioneer DVD player (DV-393-S I believe it is) if the playback compatibility (for DivX with and without external subtitles as well as regular DVDs from different regions) was comparable or superior to my current player...
Also, speaking of subtitles, I dowloaded the manual for the 650 and it does not mention that it reads external subtitles (in srt or sub/idx formats) for DivX files (my current player´s manual does mention it and of course it can read them). Thanks again to everyone

Hi Citibear. So you are saying that the playback quality is not that good? Does that only apply to its own recordings or to playback in general? (...)

The 640, 650 and presumably 660 are all based on similar components and should perform comparably to each other. Sorry if I was unclear: my remark regarding playback "softness" was not meant to scare you off using a Pioneer recorder for playback: I was more specifically talking about its playback of recordings it made from VHS. Such recordings are a little "soft" to begin with due to tape limitations, then the Pioneer softens it very slightly more during playback. When recording from broadcast or cable sources there is no noticeable softness, don't worry. A Pioneer recorder makes a perfectly serviceable DVD or HDD player but just like all other recorders is more optimized toward recording.

Using any DVD/HDD recorder as a "jukebox" to store lots of DiVX files is problematical. They all pay lip service to DiVX compatibility but most recorders don't really handle it that well, particularly when you start getting to arcane matters like subtitles. While it would of course be extremely convenient to load all your DiVX files to the recorders HDD for playback on your TV, in practice the machines are often disappointing. Full DiVX versatility still requires viewing on either a PC or on burned DVDs played on a dedicated DVD player specializing in DiVX, not a DVD/HDD recorder.

I would completely agree with all the earlier answers provided by tac7, except for his remarks regarding VHS transfers (which you don't seem interested in anyway). While it is true some older recorders of different brands (primarily JVC and Toshiba) could sometimes make arguably "better" recordings from VHS, in my experience this was an extremely unpredictable advantage. The JVC and Toshibas I used then often exhibited IRE (brightness) issues which occasionally negated any advantage of the "better" encoder. Also, the "better" encoder in these units was annoyingly sensitive to certain obscure tape issues: this required the use of additional expensive items like a DataVideo TBC and high-end VCRs with noise filtering. This again could negate the "better" encoder advantage, because the additional processing softened the image.

Here is an example of a VHS to DVD copy comparing the Pioneer 640 with a LiteOn 5005. I posted this a couple of years ago, but it's gone from the archives, so I'm attaching the jpg file again. From my own experience, the Liteon clearly does a better job on movies up to 124 min in SP mode, while the manual recording flexibility of the Pio makes it a better choice for tape transfers that are longer than 124 min. I haven't done any comparisons between the LiteOn 5005 and the Pio 650, but I expect the results to be the same.

It seems I accidentally hijacked this thread and made it into a VHS transfer topic:o- my apologies, I'll drop it after this post. tac7 is certainly correct to say some machines can appear to make better VHS copies, my point was that "better" quickly becomes a relative term after you begin making a great many VHS transfers. The "better for VHS" recorders often required a significant amount of futzing and additional equipment to achieve their full potential, they also tended to be less easy to edit on and less reliable than some "good enough" recorders. If you have a warehouse of tapes to dub, a current Pioneer is a good compromise between dub quality and workflow efficiency. If you have a smaller number of tapes and can spend time experimenting, older models of other brands can make somewhat better transfers. It depends on your priorities.

Folks in Europe and Asia have a wider selection of machines to choose from. In the USA, we don't see too many Lite On recorders so they are kind of a non-issue. Their primary advantage was the LSI encoder chip, which only worked well in the 5005: similar performance could be had from JVCs using the same system. Toshiba had its own version which was also very comparable. Unfortunately all three proved a bit unreliable and only the Toshibas were easily available with a hard drive. Today there are fewer choices: Sony and Pioneer come off the same production line, Panasonic quality is all over the place after a couple years of stability, and almost nothing useful with a hard drive is available in the US market besides the Phillips 3576 (which uses a good customized LSI-type encoder). The latest Canadian Pioneers use a 12-bit encoder compared to the 10-bit on the 640, giving those a slight edge over the older model.

Ok, back on topic. I finally decided to buy the 650, so I called the store on Thursday, they told me they had it in stock so I went there this morning and guess what...? It was sold out!! The guy told me he had 3 of them, 2 were sold and the third was reserved for someone else, but since they had not come to pick it up yet he let me test it. I had taken a DVDRW with some 5 or 6 DivX movie files, most of them were in Xvid, one in DivX5 and with different audio codecs. It read them all, audio and video (after a few minutes of suspense where it wouldn`t even read a regular DVD, since apparently it was trying to access the HD first), but there was one thing. One of the files was a japanese movie with external SRT subtitles. It read the subtitle file, but on every single file on the disc.. So everytime it started playing one of the movies it would also display the subtitles for the japanese movie. My current player, a Pioneer DV-393-S, will read the subtitles only if the file name is the same as the movie file (eg: HolyBeast.avi and HolyBeast.srt), which makes sense, it`s just like if you were playing it on a computer. Are there any owners of the Pioneer 650 who can tell me whether this was some sort of fluke or glitch in the unit or if it is normal behavior for it? Because I am wondering what would happen if there was more than one file that had subtitles... would it display them overlapped, make you choose the subtitle track or it wouldn`t play them at all? Once again thanks for all the feedback.

PS: I forgot to mention that the guy told me that they should get some more recorders in a month

Anyone...?