The menu system is pure TiVo, with the addition of several DVD-related pages. As with all TiVos, each button push produces an annoying boop-beep, which thankfully can be turned off. Otherwise, I found the menu system to be quite easy to learn and use. (Then again, I'm already a devout TiVotée, so I already know how to navigate the system very well.)

The two manuals are surprisingly comprehensive and relatively easy to follow. The short one concerns itself with installation, including various connection scenarios, and the long one addresses setup and operation. Both include an index, which is great.

Features
The amount of material that can be recorded on the DVR-57H's 120GB hard disk depends on the quality setting, of which there are four (see "The Big Tradeoff" table for the maximum recording times at each quality setting). Ultimately, the quality setting determines the nominal bit rate at which the incoming signal is encoded, which is performed using a variable bit rate (VBR) around the nominal rate. The recording time also depends somewhat on the quality of the source signal; poor signals tend to take more space because the MPEG encoder has to work harder to sort them out.

Out of the box, the 57H comes with TiVo Basic service at no additional cost. TiVo Basic lets you control live TV (pause, rewind, etc.), gives you a three-day EPG to see what's coming up, and lets you program recordings on specific channels at specific times, much like a VCR (the devil's work, to be sure). In addition, you can record one program while watching something else that's already on the hard disk, and you have access to Showcases and TiVolution Magazine, which offer promotional information.

However, for true TiVotées, upgrading to TiVo Plus is a must. This adds features such as a 14-day EPG, Search by Title/Filter by Genre, Season Pass (automatically record every episode of a selected series, first-run only or first-run and repeats, even if they change schedule), and WishList (find and record shows by actor, director, sports team, etc.). These are invaluable features, but they'll cost you $12.99 per month, or $299 for a lifetime subscription—the unit's lifetime, not yours.

As a DVD player, the 57H can play DVDs and CDs (including those with MP3 data), and it includes Faroudja's DCDi deinterlacing and Pioneer's PureCinema 3:2 pulldown, both of which make for some fine progressive images from the component output. In addition, the 57H can convert an incoming 480i source, such as a television broadcast, to 480p. But the 57H has no way of reconfiguring the image to compensate for widescreen displays that lock into anamorphic16:9 mode whenever they receive a progressive source. As a result, NTSC TV and non-anamorphic DVD images from the progressive component output of such a display are stretched and, in my view, unwatchable.

Then there's DVD recording. Like all Pioneer DVD recorders, the 57H uses the DVD-R/RW format. DVD-R is among the most compatible of the recordable formats—finalized discs can be played in most DVD players—and DVD-R blanks are typically the least expensive of any format. DVD-RW lets you erase and re-record new material up to 1000 times, but is less compatible with DVD players, especially older ones.

However, the 57H is not like other DVD recorders in some significant ways. First, it can copy only material that already resides on the hard disk; it can't record an external source directly. Still, the copying process is entirely digital, and the DVD copy is an exact, bit-for-bit duplicate of the original at whatever quality setting/bit rate was used to record it. As a result, the quality setting determines the length of program that can be copied onto a DVD (see table, "The Big Tradeoff").

In addition, a DVD can be recorded only in a single pass, much like Disc-At-Once CD-R recording. You can't record something that fills part of the DVD, then record some more at a later time. To copy material onto a DVD, you first select what you want to copy from a list of items on the hard disk, specifying the order in which you want them to be recorded. The 57H indicates how much space each item will take on the DVD and prevents you from selecting more than will fit. If a single item is too long to fit on a disc, the 57H automatically splits it up and copies it onto multiple discs. In addition to program data, the 57H copies the TiVo metadata, such as program title, description, and so on, which is very cool. After copying is complete, the disc is automatically finalized so it can be played in a conventional DVD player.

It's important to note that the 57H has been designed primarily as a hard drive recorder that has the ability to transfer material from the hard drive to its onboard DVD recorder, if desired. If you want to record material from a VCR, camcorder, or other external device, you must first record it on the hard disk, then copy it to DVD. It takes at least 15 button pushes in eight screens each time you want to record something from an external source. And while it has an S-video input, you normally can't record to the hard disk from it; you can record only from the composite input. (To be fair, it's possible to record from the S-video input if you configure the unit to think you have a cable or satellite box connected to it—but then, it won't record from the RF antenna input). For these reasons, the 57H is not the best choice of DVD recorder if you plan to do a lot of recording directly from external sources.

Setup & Performance
The setup routine is standard TiVo: very friendly, intuitive, and easy to follow, with a progress bar at the bottom of the screen. The initial phone call that is made to TiVo shows each step on the screen, with a real-time indication of its progress. The automatic channel scan is excellent, as is the way you delete unwanted channels from the list (for me, Spanish, sports, leased-access, and home-shopping channels). The entire process took me less than an hour.

I started by taking a look at the DVD player's progressive component output, which you can specify as Automatic or Video for the player and TV images separately. Presumably, Automatic mode performs 3:2 pulldown correction when necessary, while Video doesn't. With DCDi and PureCinema, anamorphic DVDs looked fantastic on my Loewe Aconda 38-inch widescreen direct-view HDTV. (The Loewe can produce only a 16:9 (stretched) aspect ratio with progressive sources, so 4:3 and letterbox DVDs look distorted.)

The Snell & Wilcox Zone Plate test pattern on Video Essentials revealed that the 57H locked on to the 3:2 cadence quite quickly, and normal program material looked great, including the torture-test sequences in VE's Montage of Images (waving flag, pans across the stadium seating, etc.)—all were very clean and free of artifacts. Also, flesh tones were rich but completely natural, and the various shades of green in foliage were well-differentiated.

The main focus of my testing was the DVR-57H's recording capabilities. Its TiVo functions performed exceptionally well, as expected. Thankfully, I had TiVo Plus service activated for the review, so I could use the 57H as I've used my own TiVo for the past few years. The 57H has a much more capacious hard disk than my older unit; I was glad to be able to record at a higher quality setting than I normally do with mine. At the highest two settings, the picture looked excellent. At the lower two settings, the picture looked decidedly softer, with more blocking and pixelization, especially during fast-motion scenes.

To test the relative quality of the record modes, I recorded VE's Frequency Sweep and SMPTE Resolution test patterns from another DVD player at all four settings. For the reasons noted earlier, recording material like this from an external source was very tedious and had to be done from the 57H's composite input.

It was clear that the two highest settings were quite close to each other in quality. Both exhibited horizontal resolution above 350 lines per picture height. The Extreme setting started to roll off around 4MHz and the signal was gone by 5MHz, while the High setting started to roll off around 3.5MHz and was gone by 4.5MHz. The Medium and Basic settings were virtually identical, with horizontal resolution of no more than 250 lines per picture height and a frequency response that started to roll off around 2MHz and disappeared by 3MHz. These results coincide with the softer images I saw when recording normal program material at the lower settings.

Interestingly, at all quality settings, a luminance frequency sweep from DVD exhibited anomalous vertical lines at around 3.2, 3.7, 4.5, 5.2, and 5.3MHz. These appeared a second or so after the test pattern first came on the screen. I suspect the MPEG codec is responsible, but I saw no visible effect on normal program material.

Once I'd recorded some shows on my TiVo, it was time to copy them to DVD. As my test case, I used a Nova miniseries. I recorded the series in the highest quality mode, but failed to realize that the first episode was two hours long, which won't fit on one DVD; the program-selection screen indicated that it occupied 198% of a DVD's capacity. However, the 57H split the episode into three segments. Why not two, you ask? So did I. As indicated by one screen, each segment occupied 97% of the disc's capacity, possibly due to some housekeeping data. The material on the third disc occupied only 12% of its capacity, which seemed wasteful to me. The second episode was one hour long (99%), and it fit on one disc. I found out the hard way that it's important to know how long a program is, and to select the appropriate quality setting if you intend to copy it to a DVD.

Before copying, the 57H asks you to name the disc; it provides a default name based on the name of the program, but you can enter any name you want. Then, a screen indicates the progress of the copying process, which seems to take roughly half of real time at the highest quality setting; copying the one-hour Nova episode took about 32 minutes. During the copy process, you can return to TiVo and do other things (watch live TV or recorded programs, record something new to the hard disk, etc.).

After copying is complete, the DVR-57H finalizes the disc, which is specified as taking two minutes. This was accurate for discs that were full, but the 12% segment of that first Nova episode took a lot longer. The actual time it takes to finalize a DVD-R disc depends on how much material is recorded on it.

Conclusion
The DVR-57H is beautifully designed to perform certain specific tasks. First and foremost, it's a TiVo Series 2 DVR that lets you digitally record video programs on its hard disk and copy them to DVD-R and DVD-RW discs. To take full advantage of these capabilities, I would choose the High quality setting rather than Extreme as the default record mode; it looks nearly as good, it doubles the amount of time you can record on the hard disk, and it ensures that a two-hour program will fit on one DVD. The 57H also does a superb job of playing DVDs from its progressive component output.

However, I wish the unit had more general-purpose functionality, especially considering its price. For example, I wish it allowed incremental recording to DVD with separate finalization. I realize that Pioneer probably wanted to keep it as simple as possible, and that what I'm asking for here would increase the complexity of the recording process, but perhaps there could be a software switch that enabled and disabled the "simple" mode. I also wish it could easily record external sources into its S-video input as well as directly to DVD, bypassing the hard disk altogether as an option.

Still, the DVR-57H and its smaller sibling, the DVR-810H, satisfy a distinct yearning felt by TiVoists everywhere, allowing them to permanently archive their favorite video moments and share them with family and friends. This will help them to more effectively spread the gospel according to TiVo and teach the joys of true TiVotion, singing hosannas to celebrate the inevitable leap in human evolution that will be ushered in by this transformative technology:

Are we not men?

We are TiVo

Are we not men?

T-i-V-o