Lite-On LVW-5115GHC+ DVD Recorder with TV Tuner
A nice recorder with nice features, but unreliable
I bought one of these back in January, eager to finally enter the world of component DVD recording. My wife likes the Mexican food show \\"Con Sazon\\" and wanted to record all the episodes to DVD in SLP mode, plus I wanted to start my long-awaited project of transferring old VHS material to DVD. <br /> <br />The unit itself is very handsome, with a bright blue power LED and a nice VF display that tells you pertinent information. It has front input jacks and even has a Firewire input for video camera recordings (though I didn't ever try that.) It supports DivX playback, which is nice (if it could RECORD in DivX, that would be awesome!!) <br /> <br />The first thing I noticed is that the auto time setting feature did not work. We live in an area that has relatively poor TV reception (we use DISH Network for locals) so I let that slide. <br /> <br />I use Taiyo Yuden DVD-R blanks for just about everything now - they are inexpensive and of high quality. I have never had any trouble with them in computer drives, and at first they seemed to run fine in the LVW-5115GHC+, but a few discs into my experimental recordings the thing went nuts when I inserted a new disc. It started buzzing loudly, just like an old Apple II disk drive when it can't read a disk, and wouldn't stop or respond to anything until I unplugged the unit. <br /> <br />After this episode, I went to their site (it took some searching; they have separate computer and consumer electronics sites) and found an updated firmware. It was fairly painless to install (burn to a CD on the computer and put it in the LVW-5115GHC+) and after that the problem seemed to go away.  <br /> <br />During the following month I copied over 50 old VHS tapes to DVD, and had no problems. The record quality is quite good - even the 6-hour (SLP) mode is noticeably better than SLP mode on VHS. LP (3-hour) mode is comparable to SP mode on VHS. I didn't bother using anything higher than LP for VHS transfers. The unit has One-Touch Record (very important with write-once media!) and creates a rudimentary menu with each recording session (though the menu picture is of the first recorded frame and cannot be changed.) Chapter marks can either be inserted on-the-fly while recording or inserted automatically every so many minutes (selectable.) Unwanted recordings can be \\"erased\\" (they disappear from the menu) but of course cannot be literally erased from write-once media. Once you finish a disc it must be \\"finalized\\" before it will play on other DVD players. <br /> <br />The remote is fairly easy to use, though it lacks buttons for functions like record quality (you have to delve through a few cumbersome menus to change record quality.) <br /> <br />A couple months into my ownership of the unit, problems started occurring again. While creating a DVD with several recording sessions on it, the unit would occassionally have trouble reading the disc (which was perfectly clean, by the way) and then corrupt the disc so none of the formerly recorded sessions were playable, even on a computer, and the recorder would not finalize the disc. It just showed up as \\"blank disc.\\" At that time another firmware was available so I upgraded, but this time it seemed to have no effect. A couple weeks later the problem recurred (complete with the loud buzzing), and I lost more recordings. <br /> <br />I had enough of the thing. I returned it and got a Magnavox MSR-90D6, which I am currently evaluating. I liked the Lite-On's features, and will probably buy another Lite-On DVD recorder in the future, but will wait for the second or third generation unit that has the bugs ironed out.