I bought a Pioneer DVD Recorder DVR-640H-S new from Harvey Norman (Australian major chain) in November 2006 and have had heaps of problems with what the manual complains to do and what it actually will do. Is it just my model?
For instance, I find no way to make it actually change to video mode, whatever I set it for in the Set Up/Recording menus. Secondly it won't play most (but not all!!) +R DVDs, even those recorded on an earlier Pioneer DVD recorder I owned before this current one! (In fact on two discs I recorded onto one after the other on that older recorder, it plays one and won't play the second one, yet they were recorded - and finalized of course etc - one after the other!). Thirdly, when I put in a new +R disc (Imation and TDK both now tried) to record onto, it rejects it saying it is the wrong disc-type and has to be
-R/RW, but that's not what the manual claims in the very first paragraph on Recording! 4thly, where and how do you get a "DVD-R disc with CPRM for recording from"?
Any comments and advice much appreciated, I have wasted hours these last months over this machine's shortcomings or worse as I see it, given the claims of the manual!

Assuming our North American 640s are very similar, and that you have already set the Initial Setup...Recording...HDD Recording Format setting, I'm going to assume your recording mode problem is with copying to a DVD. Keep in mind the format of the DVD determines the recording format. If you are trying to record to a VR mode DVD, you can only copy in VR mode. (I believe the default initialization for RW DVDs is VR mode.)

I suspect your +R problem is with the media. Most recorders seem to have a preference as to the best media, and with the 640 IMO the best media is Verbatim. The 640 also does better with -R media, with more FF and REW speeds. I have gone through many spindles of Verbatim 16x -R without a single coaster when recording initially to the HDD and then copying to DVD. I do not recommend recording directly to DVD when using 16x media.

Regarding CPRM DVDs, from the manual: "Video that is ‘copy-once only’ can only be recorded to HDD, CPRM-compatible VR mode DVD-R/-RW (see below), or DVD-RAM."

Initialize a disc in VR mode and try that if you want to copy a copy-once recording to DVD, but it will be less compatible with other players. With copy-protected material there is no guarantee it will let you copy but you have a better chance with a VR mode initialized disc.