Pioneer PRV-LX1 By HT Staff December 10, 2003 — Pioneer Electronics has introduced a new DVD recorder for the professional market that may find some crossover customers among serious video hobbyists.

Featuring one 120GB internal hard disk drive and one DVD-R/RW recordable drive, the PRV-LX1 can also be configured with a second DVD R/RW drive if desired. Built for industrial use, the new machine is said to be ideal for "a wide variety of video and post-production environments." The PRV-LX1 enables easy DVD authoring and conversion of any video archive to DVD-R or DVD-RW without the need for a PC or authoring system.

Pioneer claims that the PRV-LX1 benefits from "a future-proof modular design" with plenty of features but simple operation. The company has also recently introduced the DVR-S606, its first external DVD/CD writer drive in a sleek industrial case. Quick and easy to install, the drive supports multiple DVD media formats, can be mounted either vertically or horizontally, and plugs into standard IEEE 1394 (Firewire) and USB 2.0 ports.

Based on the company's DVR-A06, Pioneer's sixth-generation internal recordable drive, the DVR-S606 allows users to write a wide variety of files to DVD for storage or playback in other DVD devices. The DVR-S606 is compatible with DVD-R/DVD-RW formats as well as +R/+RW discs, making it a good choice for most videophiles. Bundled software supports importing of content, recording and editing video, authoring DVDs, creating digital photo albums or slide shows, playing movies and testing recorded DVDs. The drive also supports data recording.

Specifications include high-speed recording of up to 4x write speed with high-speed DVD-R discs, 2x with high-speed DVD-RW discs, 4x with high-speed +R media, and 2.4x with +RW media. It also records CD-R media at up to 16x speed and 10x with high-speed CD-RW discs. Suggested retail price on the DVR-S606 is $299.