Hi

Nothing to get too excited about with the new models, just seems to be more of the same, the main difference is 1080p for those that believe this gives them something better than the upscaler in their HD Ready TV. Of course the existing 545HX supports 1080p, it's just disabled in the firmware. There is no reason to use 1080p/i for most HD Ready TVs as they can only display 720p at best.

http://www.pioneer.eu/eur/products/4...H-S/index.html
http://www.pioneer.eu/eur/products/4...X-S/index.html

The LX60 and LX60D with digital tuner appears to be the replacement for the very expensive 940 and will likely be just as expensive!
http://www.pioneer.eu/eur/products/4...60D/index.html

Amazingly these are still "Made in the UK" at Pioneer's factory rather than OEM'd to some far eastern company. Pioneer do not appear to have listened to criticism regarding the simplified remote as this appears the same.

There is no mention of "all digital" internally and so I imagine these are identical (same LSI and design) to the existing models. This will mean the internal digital tuner is connected via S-Video rather than using a digital output directly to the encoder, and RGB input/DV Input also converted to S-Video. This is a real shame as it would be possible to get an improvement to the picture quality by not converting to S-Video as that isn't able to carry quite as much picture detail than digital or component analogue. It's a bit cheeky of the Pioneer to bang on about the all digital HDMI output when internally the box's best signal is S-Video! Just shows how it's all marketing these days

Regards

Phil
Last edited by PhilipL : 15-04-2007 at 17:15

I'm really surprised to hear it's S-video internally. I used to think Pioneer made the best DVD recorders, but now it's obvious they couldn't care less about visual quality as long as they can tack-on a new digital tuner through the same old analogue inputs, and gouge the customers for yet another new model. No wonder they don't score particularly highly in reviews.

From time to time I've looked at new Pioneer recorders to replace my rickety old DVR-5100H, only to find they are basically the same! With the latest models, I get a faster DVD driver, and bigger HDD (the latter being massively overpriced), a Freeview receiver attached by S-Video (which I already have!), a GuidePlus system that doesn't work very well (and will probably become defunct soon), and a selection of crappy media file support functions which aren't even as good as a LiteON! (looking at the specs for the LX60D, it seems it still can't play DivX from HDD). Oh, and lets not forget the new toy remote which doesn't have a chapter mark button.

Isn't it about time we got an all-singing, all-dancing DVD recorder with network connection, and support for all media types at this price point? There's nothing here that can't be done better and cheaper with a Dreambox and Lifebox or chipped Xbox! (why is everything some kind of box these days? Ah well, at least they work!)

Hi

The S-Video internally isn't that uncommon, it's just most people haven't seen the service manual and realised and there isn't such a major quality difference that it stands out. Yes Pioneer could get better quality out of the box but don't make enough money on them to justify the expense of it, however they still command a premium for the Pioneer brand and it certainly isn't worth upgrading from an older model.

Pioneer have missed out on the PVR market really by sticking to the DVD Recorder with a hard-drive added on concept, rather than going for a twin tuner PVR with a DVD Writer added on for the occasionally bit of archiving.

Regards

Phil

Indeed they have, Phil. However, is there any manufacturer offering the latter? P.

Assuming that is not a rhetorical question; no there is not. Well nothing that could be described as CE off the shelf stuff.

When everyone here says the tuner is connected via s-video internally is that really the case?
I would expect it to be at least a component connection Y-U-V between tuner and recording sections?
No point playing around with PAL codecs surely.

Hi

Just an update and good news.

The new Pioneer models mentioned here are based on a new platform that doesn't use S-Video internally any more.

The Freeview tuner passes the picture digitally, and RGB is used directly with an S-Video step.

As an aside, Sony's latest DVD Recorders are now made by Pioneer and apart from a few cosmetic differences and hard-drive size/connections, they are the same platform and identical. Even the user interface is the same. If the Sony model is cheaper, get that instead.

Regards

Phil