Commenting only on the Pioneer we've got here at work, which is a year or two old, but was top of the line at the time.

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Does it play all the stuff most stand-alone DVD players do (DviX, mp3, jpg...)

Nope, not at all as far as I'm aware.

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Does it interface to a PC in some way, and if so, what functionality it offers

Nope, not at all. It's got firewire input/output for video, so you could reccord stuff to/from your PC over that.

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What is playback functionality like

Poor. Finding what you want is a
pain, retitiling anything requires the onscreen keyboard. Once you've selected the show, it's easy to ff/rwd and play and pause.

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What kinds of DVD archives it produces

Very playable ones. Since it's got a hard drive, you (generally) reccord onto the hard drive and are then able to burn things onto discs later if you want to. We've never had any problems with unplayable DVDs.

With a replaytv, I always watch tv through the replay. With this thing, I could set it to reccord my favorite shows, but I'd never use it to just watch tv through. Go for the Myth box if you think you can get guide data for it.

Matthew