Pioneer DVR-RT300-S DVD Recorder and VCR Combo

The Pioneer DVR-RT300-S DVD Recorder and VCR Combo offers a space-saving combination of equally well-endowed technologies. This unit lets you enjoy your existing collection of VHS tapes and still move into the world of DVDs and DVRs.
Perhaps the most distinguishing of its high-end feature set is the unit's recording capabilities. You can record VHS to DVD, or DVD to VHS. This cross-recording offers a flexibility few others do. You can also play WMA and MP3 files; and view JPEGs.

The DVD player features progressive scan output. Progressive scanning, referred to as 480p for the number of horizontal lines that compose the video image, creates a picture using twice the scan lines of a conventional DVD picture, giving you higher resolution and sharper images while eliminating nearly all motion artifacts.
The tape player sports a HiFi 4-head VCR that delivers high quality video and stereo audio. VCR Plus ensures you see the best picture quality possible.
A host of output choices mean you can use whichever connection is most convenient or highest-quality. There's the standard composite A/V (RCA) jacks in both the front and rear. S-Video and component video output connect higher-end TVs, and digital audio output lets you send audio to most any home theater system.
The DVR-RT300-S is a great hybrid at an even more stellar price. This unit lets you play the old-school tapes and still enjoy the newest DVD technology.

Test Report

good for the money and for a pioneer / Report September 29, 2005
I'm still new at using this item but so far i'm happy with it.It is what i expected from a Pioneer brand.It has a good picture,but my Pioneer dvd 343 player in my opinion has a better picture quality.Otherwise im happy with this DVR RT 300s combo.I'm pretty much set in my ways i use only Pioneer brand equipment.

Get something with multi media writing formats / Report August 16, 2005
I bought this unit without checking what media it accepts. It only writes to DVD-R/DVD-RW. It just so happen that my house is full of DVD+R...so i had to go purchase it. Then I set it up to my set top box and for some reason I couldn't get it to record. It might be user error, but it was all very confusing, so I ended up returning the unit.


Pretty good product / Report July 28, 2005
I've had the RT-300 for a few days now, wanted to put up a quick review for folks thinking about buying it.

Good:
* Crisp playing, recording, and dubbing, especially at the XP and SP DVD settings: XP is virtually indistinguishable from live broadcast. It does what it is supposed to do, and does it well, as one would expect from a Pioneer product.

* All the plugs on the back are clearly marked, which made for quick installation. All the necessary cables were included, as were batteries for the remote that comes with it. The RT300 integrated easily with our particular TV and cable setup, and I was dubbing VCR tapes to DVDs in about 20 minutes after getting it out of the box.

* Pleasantly surprised that it came with a blank DVD-RW and a blank DVD-R, so that I could start recording with it right away.

Bad:
* The product manual is poorly laid out, with no table of contents or subject index. You'd do better to download the product manual and search that instead if you're looking for a particular function.

* The remote is relatively "dense" as far as number of buttons crammed into a small space. This is a consequence of having a machine that can do both DVD and VCR functions, but it makes navigating around to find a particular button difficult until you're used to it.

* Entering alphanumeric info for things like DVD chapter titles is a pain, involving using the remote to navigate across an on-screen keyboard to enter letters. I don't know if there's a better way of having users do that, but it seems like there has to be an easier way than this.

* The timer function for recording could have been designed a little better: it works OK, but it seems a little overly complex - had to check the manual the first few times to make sure I hit all the buttons in the right sequence.

Neutral:
* Note that you cannot record using DVD+R media with this device. DVD-R and DVD-RW are fine.

In sum, I'm pretty happy with this product, and would recommend it to others. Pioneer puts out a solid product line, and this doesn't seem to be any different. Don't put too much weight into that there's more "bads" than "goods" in this review, its just that when a function is doing what it is supposed to do, I figured that's covered under the first "good."

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Update 8-19-05

After having the RT300 for about a month, I'm still happy with it, and the pros and cons I stated above still stand. I want to mention a couple of things which would be good for new owners to know off the bat - they're mentioned in the manual, but not given the emphasis they deserve.

1. If you want to play DVD-RW disc recordings on other DVD players, computers, etc., you *must* record it on DVD-RWs formatted by the player as "DVD Video." DVD-RWs formatted in "VR Mode" will *not* play on other players. The main advantage to "VR Mode" is greater versatility in setting up chapters & the capacity to erase selected chapters without reformatting the whole disk, so it's better for recording programs which you plan to record over soon (weekly TV programs, for example).

Also, don't forget to finalize the disk before trying to play it in other players. If you're using a DVD-RW & want to record more on it later, you can always unfinalize the disk at that time.

2. When recording onto DVDs, if you hit "stop" it will process it as one title/chapter on the DVD; if you hit "record" again, it will start recording on to a new title, which means a half-hour TV show will get broken into 3 or 4 different segments if you're editing out the commercials. However, if you just hit "pause" while recording, when you unpause the recording it will continue under the same title/chapter. This reduces considerably the amount of clutter in the DVD-RW's menu when playing it later.

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