Lite-On LVC-9006 Progressive-Scan DVD Recorder/VCR Combo
Very Versatile and Economical Unit
I'm rather fortunate that I didn't read any of the reviews here prior to purchase of my unit. I picked it up at a great price last November 2005 on 'Black Friday' (the day after Thanksgiving). Since then I have either recorded off the air or made archive copies totaling approximately 250 DVD+R/RW discs and have wound up with only about a dozen 'coasters' out of that many.    Perhaps I'm just lucky but I haven't had any problems with mine with the exception that the picture on the VHS side is somewhat washed out, as another user mentioned, so has to be adjusted. Since I also have a standalone Philips DVD recorder purchased the year before, I'm able to archive both VHS and DVD programs.     The remote could be a little more intuitive and some functions can't be accessed while the machine is busy on the other deck.    I expected to be able to watch a DVD while recording on the VHS side but wasn't able to do so, though I had assumed it possible since the while viewing a tape, you are not using the tuner.     Still, for the price, I think I got my money's worth and more. It has been dependable so far <knocking on wood> and I have no regrets on my purchase.      ******************* UPDATED July 19, 2007 *************************    After this review was written I discovered through trial and error that the tuner in this machine does NOT decode MTS stereo. In other words, when you record a program off the air, the resultant file on the DVD will be in MONO, which is very poor for this day and age and is a serious drawback because it makes the home theater equipment worthless since there is very little a receiver can do with a MONO signal. I'd like to subtract a star for that.  What's confusing about this is that when copying from DVD to tape or vice-versa, the stereo is very high quality. I also don't know if I have a defective tuner or all of them are that way. I didn't realize it was in MONO until way after the warranty was over. I'll just have to be more careful with future machines.    It does still work fine in all other respects after more than 1 and a half years.    ************  UPDATED 22 JULY 2008 (!) **************************    Yes, this machine is still working just like when it was new. I wanted to add to my previous review to point out another aspect of the All-Write technology that really hasn't been touched upon in any other reviews: The capability to create finalized CDs that will play on any standard CD player. Being a music lover, I sometimes find that there are musical performance on TV that generally are not available on CD. As an example, over the weekend, I went through my recordings of American Idol Season 7 and was able to dub the audio from the perfomances of the gals that were voted off too early or at least didn't win: Alaina Whitaker, Amy Davis, Kady Malloy, Brooke White & last but not least Kristy Lee Cook. With this Lite-On machine, you simply load a blank CD-R in the DVD/CD drive and then connect another unit to the audio inputs (front or rear) from which to play back the performance from a previously recorded DVD+R/RW. The Lite-On machine will create separate tracks each time you press the record button on the remote as long as you also press 'Stop' after each recording. Then when the disc is full, just finalize it in the same manner as a DVD and you have a customized CD that will play anywhere.     As you can see, I'm still enjoying this machine.    ++++++++++++++++++++++++ UPDATE  27 MARCH 2010 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++    I realize that this device is no longer available, but Amazon still carries its successor, the LVC-9016, so I'll keep updating my review since they are 99% identical.  My LVC-9006 is still working fine. I'm currently using it to archive all my old VHS tapes containing movies and TV shows recorded from cable in the 90s. While every production run may produce a lemon or two, I seem to have gotten a gem as I'm still enjoying this thing, even though I have more modern equipment including 4 DVD recorders equipped with internal hard drives.    I hope to have this in my rack for many years to come or at least till I have all my VHS archived - only about 60 more to go!