Cyberhome DVR1500
This was my first PVR, bought at Walmart 1/04 for $248 (it was the only one for sale there at the time). (Returned later)
PROs:
- It's a decent first try, for a noname company, and its price surprised me ($400 was the cheapest I had seen for any PVR)
CONs:
- It's very buggy, and shows the result of the new business miracle called "just in time manufacturing". Obviously there was no 'extra' time to notice that fast forward and rewind don't work correctly, at least not in LP, EP, and ELP modes. Fastforward at 4x and 8x are actually just about 2x, 16x is actually about 4x, and 32x is WAY too fast. So scanning is almost impossible.
- It absolutely positively refused to eject a disc on two occasions, requiring me to break the box open to find the manual eject button.
- It converted 2 out of 15 namebrand disks into coasters.
- A little slow changing channels (almost a second delay)
- Overall, a frustrating lack of engineering. All the pieces are there and pretty, but they didn't bother to finish the programming (design) job.
Conclusion:
This was a thrilling unit to borrow, being the first PVR I'd ever played with. But this model is only a first attempt. Stay away unless it's the only one available, and you plan to return it before the return period expires.
Pioneer DVR310
This is what I bought when I returned the cyberhome. Walmart, 5/04 for $398. (Returned)
PROs:
- Very good tuner.
- Very nice GUI for all operations, good usability--they actually put effort in!
- Nice remote with pretty good layout and function design.
- Records flawlessly and without delay
- Nice 'play menu' showing actual previews with sound.
- Nice editting functionality--good for removing commercials.
- Nice DVD menu choices for finalizing your disc with a menu.
- It knows (oftentimes) which program you're recording, and labels it automatically.
CONs:
- Only uses DVD-R/RW (this won't be a con for most people--for me, I have about 75 blank +R's, and I'd prefer not to waste them)
- Long delay on 'stop' recording (about 10 seconds)
- Slow changing channels (about 1 second delay) makes channel surfing annoying.
Conclusion:
Since I have a 6-month supply of +R/RW disks, this unit had to go back. (I forgot which ones I had until I got home) But this is a great unit. It's not perfect, but no major flaws. Best onscreen GUI I've seen, and it will only get better. If you have -R/RW disks, I give it two thumbs up. Hopefully they can fix the other two cons with a firmware update. This is easily the best unit I've seen so far. But remember: by christmas, there will be better units and cheaper.
Review for Sanyo DRW-500. Bought at Walmart 5/04 for $248.
PROs:
- Good tuner with delay-less channel-changing (finally!).
CONs:
- It often loses sound sync, even when you're not recording!!
- Slow to start recording (about 12 second delay), and there's no video or sound while you're waiting. So you could miss the vital tv moment you're trying to record.
- Worse, it's very slow to stop recording (about 20-30 seconds delay), no picture or sound while you wait, and then it kicks you back to the 'play menu' rather than back to the channel you were watching.
- Exceptionally poor ergonimcs/layout on the remote control. They don't even put the digits in a 3x3 grid like every other device in the world. This thing stinks of very sloppy commitee work. Page 44 of the manual actually states that the manual was "printed prior to product development." It's apparent that the remote was similarly made in isolation, according to dumb proceduralization. Very poor quality is the result--almost an unfinished product. ('just in time')
- The record quality button on the remote doesn't work (page 44 of the manual goes on to explain that "when a part of the product specification must be changed to improve operability... the instruction manual may not entirely match ... the actual product"). And setting record quality in the onscreen menus requires 3 levels of poorly designed menu navigation, and there are decidedly non-intuitive rules about when you can actually get to those menus (e.g. they're disallowed while you're watching tv), making it very inconvenient to change quality (e.g. fast action recordings need higher quality than normal TV).
- Overall the GUI is better than cyberhome, but buggy, incomplete, and inconsistent.
Conclusions:
This product is an embarrassment. I trusted the Sanyo name, and I am extremely disappointed in this first-class-looking piece of crap. With just a little bit of work to finish designing this thing (new remote, firmware upgrade), it COULD be a fine unit. I'm pretty sure it won't happen until some distant "new model". Apparently the shoddy workmanship and buggy business habits of the software industry now have swept into consumer electronics. I give this thing two thumbs WAY down. SHAME on you Sanyo!! Finish the product before you ship it!!
=========================================
The only other model currently at walmart is the emerson, which looks ok, but it uses -R. So I've decided to buy a new batch of DVD-R's ($40 for 50 Riteks, which got good reviews, bought on web), and I'm going to return this crappy sanyo and get the pioneer. This is a very easy decision. I'll probably return the pioneer after 3 months and hope that they have a better one for under $300 by then. I'm really looking forward to the DVD recorders with built in hard drives. Can you imagine a massive video jukebox? It'll be here within a few years.
|