Does what it says on the box except play DivX in sync
Written: Aug 30 '06 (Updated Jun 10 '07)
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Pros: Easy to use, firmware updates available, DivX playback, can make region free
Cons: Scart to TV poor quality, DivX out of sync. No text for MP3-just Track No.
The Bottom Line: Buy if you can live with minor issues I have raised. I chose good for pic quality, this applies to recordings viewed on another player. Great if DivX works.
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| lawrencefp's Full Review: Lite On LVW-5116GHC DVD Recorder |
I've only had mines a week but used it a lot.
Out of the box it's easy to install and has an "automatic" setup. When I say automatic, I mean it will search for all available channels when you execute the command to do so. It will not arrange channels in order so you will have to do this yourself. It missed a couple of channels the first time for me and I had to do it again. After setting up the channels, time, date and so on, it decided to lose all settings and I had to do it all again.
Looping my satellite box through the unit turned out to be a wasted afternoon instead of the usual 9.5 seconds for every other piece of electrical equipment I have ever bought. The satellite screen viewed through the scart input is surprisingly fuzzy and washed out. In fact, anything looped through the unit suffers badly which as you will have guessed by now, so does playback of DVD's.
The funny thing is, recordings are not affected by this as they are crystal clear when played on other equipment. This leads me to believe that it's the scart output from the unit that's the culprit and not the input source. This is ok if it's not you main viewing unit but only one to record on. There is also a problem with the RGB offset and this DOES affect recordings. On my unit the offset is about half an inch.
Recording on all types of media has proved faultless with the exception of some cheap +RW discs I have. These seem to stop recording whenever they feel. I'm not sure if dual layer is supported, I've not even read the manual and I don't have the discs anyway...too expensive :) Discs have to be finalised when planning to view them on another player except +RW, these will playback without finalising but I wouldn't bet on them working in an old player.
You can edit the final recordings, edit is a bit of a strong word as the only editing you can do is rename or delete.
There are inputs for a DV camcorder on the front behind a flip down door as well as phono inputs for analogue equipment. The flip down door must have been a bit of rush job in the design room, the whole bottom half of the unit flips down to reveal inputs that takes up 4 inches. The unit is more than 16 inches wide.
The tuner is quite bad quality and I'm sure it's mono but that doesn't bother me as most of my viewing is on satellite anyway. The point is, why is the tuner mono, this is supposed to be progress?
There are various levels of recording quality, about 5 steps between 1hr and 6hrs. The 4hr setting is bordering on VHS pirate movie quality so I'm guessing the 6hr mode will still be ok for Limewire downloaders. 3hr and below is acceptable especially if you are keeping your recordings.
The unit looks good although it is a bit wide, why it's so wide is beyond me. The only thing I can think of is the case might be the same case Liteon use for their DVD recorder with HDD. There is a cooling fan at the back which can be quite noisy. Mines is in the bedroom so guess what's not on when I'm in there for a kip?
Overall it's a good enough unit for the price, the only real thing that bothers me is the RGB offset. If I switch off RGB on my satellite box then I'm trading the offset for inferior picture quality. It's not a big deal but it may be for you.
This is an update as I didn't have any DivX movies at the time of writing:
Steer clear of this machine, every DivX movie plays out of sync and the same thing happened on the other two units I exchanged. If you get one that plays DivX perfecly then its a good enough machine. Maybe a firmware update will solve that problem but I think Liteon should address that BEFORE they sell them.
I now have a Philips DVDR3300H, see my review on that!
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 120
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Epinions.com ID:
lawrencefp
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Location: Scotland (Scotland is NOT in England)
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 0 members
About Me:
My wife says, "If you do what you're told, you'd be much happier."
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