Lite On LVW-5045 (160 GB) DVD Recorder

I've had mine for about three weeks now. Bought it on-line at CostCo for just under $400. Could be better but a decent unit nontheless.

The programming is tedious and the editing leaves much to be desired. No A-B delete. You must split the program, split the remaining program portion again, delete the portion you have "splitted out" and then merge the remaining two parts. Title entry is a pain (as with all the other units I've been reading about). No keyboard input; you must dial in a letter, hit enter and then continue onto the next letter.

I've found the VCR+ programming to be dependable but subject to the vagaries of the program listing you are working with. I can't blame this on the machine however. The picture itself is very good at the two highest resolutions but falls off rapidly after that. The color is slightly washed out but not enough to be bothersome.

A glaring mistake in design is that the OTR (one touch recording) does not power down the unit upon completion so anything programmed after that will not begin unless you have turned the machine off manually. For example, if you use OTR to program something from 9 to 10PM and have something programmed to begin at 11PM and you go to bed, the unit will stop recording at 10PM but will remain idle in the "on" position so the 11PM program will not record. I contacted their tech support about this but got two different answers. The second level tech says his machine turns off but two first level techs say no it doesn't. Kinds of dilutes your confidence in their tech support. Maybe (hopefully) this may be solved by a firmware upgrade.

The manual does not instill a great deal of confidence as portions are grammatically pidgeoned.

I was going to take it back but now I don't think I will. I've been reading about the Sony HX900 which is ungodly pricey and the Panasonic e95 which is decently priced but appears to be "buggy." Neither of those two units may be better than the LiteOn for basic recording.

I think for the money, this unit is still a pretty good buy if you will be satisfied with a basic unit with a large hard drive. I have played a pre-recorded movie, a picture disc I made myself and a copy from HDD to DVD and everything has played well.

The FF and RW functions at 2X, 4X, 8X and 16X which is really nice to skip over unwanted portions.

The remote is crowded with a bunch of tiny buttons and will not control volume level. This is a real annoyance since the volume level of the LiteOn seems to be about 3 or 4 db above my TV level so I've got to keep my faithful TV remote right by my side.

There is considerable "lag" when you access any operation on the LiteOn. I still need to do more work with it to discover any bugs I may have not yet discovered.

This is my first DVD recorder so maybe my squawks are not necessarily unique to this machine. I do believe, from what I've read, that ALL DVD recorders need at least some degree of refining before they become "user friendly" and as dependable as your old VCR. One great advantage of this machine is that firmware upgrades are available; and I've already downloaded the latest.