Pioneer 53x/63x Navi Mark Workaround  

You and I are technically inclined, Average Joe is not and having the button right on the remote allowed chapters to made even while watching a HDD movie or DVD-RW VR Disc movie.

Accidentally hitting the button inadvertently while trying to push another button in the dark movie watching setting or even while setting the remote down, would add the chapter marks while you were unaware. Hopefully you caught the brief On-Screen icon pop-up to make it's presence known so that you could quickly go into the edit menu and combine the two chapters before you forgot.

Not knowing that the accidental new chapters are now in the movie, could lead to you burning a disc and therefore having a mistake permanent now. Using the navigator lets you actually see where every chapter is on a timeline bar. Therefore if you are trying to space them equally or not have to short of a chapter, the timeline helps greatly.

With DVD-R Video discs, this feature was useless as DVD-R are finalized with chapters at a set time interval making the chapter button useless for this disc type.

The chapter button just outlived it's usefulness. You may have gotten use to it's presence but now with a different way that's fool proof for anyone, you just have to adapt to enjoy all the other benefits of the recorder or go to another make and loose some of those benefits.

Models change so that they benefit everyone not just us technical people.

Try to get over it and have a good one.

Mike Up:
Nice satire. I assume you are kidding.

Chapter mark and Navi mark buttons? "We at Pioneer want to put this TVGOS thing in, and there's no room for the buttons. You won't miss them, you were too stupid to use them correctly anyway, and if you want to put in chapter marks, it's much better to do it through some elaborate and inconvenient method (that you could have used on older models, but didn't.)"

Anyone else old enough to remember New Coke? "Believe us, it's better." Believe us, we won't buy it.
Anyone old enough to remember the Edsel? "We have no idea how people drive, but our market research shows that people think this would be cool." We are people, and we won't drive it.
Anyone remember steering-wheel mounted push-button transmission? "We have this idea, and it seems like a good place to put the buttons." It's unsafe, unreliable, and inconvenient, so we'll just wait until you change back to levers.

Don't feel like you have to justify bonehead product design. Human beings create products, and sometimes make the choices they do just because one committee didn't send a memo in time to stop another committee from doing something. As a result, imperfection gets produced. Look at Microsoft. Look at the government. Now, I can add, "Look at Pioneer."

I'll be honest, I originally used the chapter button to mark chapters, mainly for editing on the DVR-510H. I was use to this way of editing so I used the same on the DVR-420H I have, even though there is an 'erase section' now that was copied from Panasonic recorders. I always added chapters after I was done recording so that I could go back, and frame accurately mark them where I wanted. When I watch a movie, I watch it to enjoy it, not to worry about putting chapter marks in it. I always marked chapters after the fact.

Now that I have the 531s I can no longer add chapter while viewing. It was a change I was made to make.

After using the divide chapter feature with the timebar, it's a much easier way to do my marking as I can visually see right where I marked them and then skip right to the erase drop down menu and see on a timeline, the chapter I want to erase along with their thumbnail. AWESOME!! No more accidental chapters that I'll find on my permanently burned disc and no more time wasted making sure that there are no more accidental chapters. Made chapter marking more efficent as did it with the chapter erasing.

Then again, I was a creature of habit until I forced myself to try another way because there was "NO OTHER WAY". Could it be, Pioneer actually improved the process but I was so set in my own way, I wouldn't had even tried had they not removed the old obsolete process? YES!

Then again, others see it a different way, so be it. All I know is that I'm happy enough to be glad they done away with it as the new way is easier for "ME". I also now don't ever have to worry about phantom chapter appearing where I didn't put them.;)

Each to their own, Have a good one.

Hey Mike, read my reply to you in the 531 thread you started. The fact that you must have constantly had your ass sitting on top of the remote and were thus "accidently" adding chapter markers to your recordings doesn't justify Pioneer studpidly removing the function so that they could add on TVGOS buttons. The chapter button on the 520 has a very real and very functional and practical use. They have created more button pushing by removing it. Why can't you just admit Pioneer screwed up with this decision? Some things on the newer models just aren't as good. Deal with it.

See Ya. ;)

Mike, I know you probably won't answer me, but here is a real world example of why having the chapter marker on the remote to mark while recording on the hard drive is useful. You are watching a football game--you want to save it to DVD but don't want commercials and halftime etc. You simply hit chapter at each commercial break and return, and at halftime and at quarters etc, and then when you high speed burn it to DVD, you simply can go quickly to the chapter marks you set and delete the chapters with the commercials and halftime. It would take a matter of a minute to edit the whole game. By your after the fact method, it would take a heckuva lot longer as you scan through the game locating the commercials to then insert chapter marks. And its a football game, so who cares if you're a frame or 2 off? Its a method for quick and simple editing that is much faster than you method.

Now I suppose you could keep pausing and unpausing the recording to create the edits, but that seems more cumbersome and easier to forget if you have restarted the recording.

People use recorders to record stuff other than movies. For a movie you may want that frame accuracy, for other stuff the exact edit point may not be as critical. And by the way, if you have frame accurate editing ON, I don't think you can high speed dub anyway.

On top of all that, as doxtorRay has noted in the other thread, Pioneer not only got rid of the chapter mark, but made the whole copy list functionality clunkier and more cumbersome.

But hey, maybe you like doing things the hard way.
Have a better one.

Mike,
I just think Pioneer's reasoning had less to do with preventing erroneous chapter inserts and more to do with the logic that the button was essentially accomplishing a task that could be done some other way.
Obviously, the function of the chapter mark button is replicated in the chapter editing function, as it has been since the early units. In fact, when I am concerned with the exact positions of the chapters (if I am going to edit commericals, for example) I do 98% of my chapter editing using the Edit Chapter mode on my 510 and 420. However I still find myself using the Chapter Mark button when I want to quuickly insert chapters and I don't care about accuracy. For example, when they are not automatically inserted, I put chapter marks in 10 minute intervals in movies. If these don't fall in the correct 1/2 second (GOP) spot, I don't care. For those, it is easier just to put them in using the CHP MARK along with commercial skip or time search.

The lack of the button makes one little thing just a little less convenient, but when you record, edit and burn as much as I do, that adds up.

I think the 531/533/633 are fine machines. The PQ is about as good as I could hope to see and the EPG would be nice if I had cable. I am glad the black-out bug is gone (although I've only seen it twice on my 420 in about 300 hours of transferred videotape).

For me, I think Pioneer tinkered needlessly with some of the aspects of their interface that were already pretty good, and should have left well enough alone. I think that a person who liked the interface of the 510 or the 420/520 and does a lot of editing will probably not be as happy with the 531/533/633 interface. That is my experience, but if others do not share that opinion, I respect their right to describe their experiences, and to hold a differing opinion.

The real question is whether slinky is REALLY going to send his Pioneer back. Looking for the thread, "I REALLY MEAN IT THIS TIME, THIS PIONEER 633 IS GOING BACK. NO I'M SERIOUS THIS TIME ITS REALLY, REALLY GOING BACK. NO KIDDING. ITS GOING BACK NOW. I REALLY MEAN IT..." ;) I really hope you get your issues with the Pioneer resolved, slink. But you don't need to keep reminding us that if you don't you are going to send it back. You see, nobody here (unless they work for Pioneer) gives a damn whether you are going to send the thing back or not. LOL!

Microsoft built Windows with 10 zillion ways to do the same thing because people like to do things differently. I didn't appreciate this until I was forced to switch from Outlook to Lotus Notes where there's only one way to do any given thing and it usually seems to be the most awkward way ever.

So I don't think it's fair to criticize because people want to do something a different way. Offer suggestions, sure - but ultimately people will do things the way they want and make their decisions based on it.

It sounds like the "Chapter Mark" button could have been useful. Shame it's not there on these new models. No show stopper for me, though.

I must admit that I never used the chapter button on my DVR-510H as I did all my chapter marking in the Chapter Edit menu. If a market research firm called me and asked what features I use and don't use Pioneer would feel safe using that space on the remote for something else. But now that there is this hoopla over the feature being taken away on the 533/633 models, I'm trying to make more of a point of using this key. However, I keep pressing the Recorder settings key that's just above it (which does nothing in play or record modes). I press again and again until I finally look at the remote and realize I'm pushing the wrong button. I apologize to everyone who would love to have this feature for being so incompetent that I don't enjoy any benefit from it.

Now let me tell you about the cool "Smart Jog" wheel on the front of the 510 that Pioneer took away from the 520 owners....

I have to agree with Mike Up here. I too used to always insert chapter marks using the button after the fact on my Pio 520. Now being forced to use this method in the 531 chapter edit menu, I actually have come to prefer it for the same reasons Mike Up stated. I still think they should have kept the button, as many people will be used to and prefer doing things a certain way, but for myself I don't miss it.