Customer Reviews

Lite-On AllWrite LVW-5005 DVD/CD Recorder

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(25)
3 star:		(7)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(42)

 

 

I had been holding off on purchasing DVD recorders because of either high prices or poor reviews. I took a chance on this model, because of good reviews on the internet, it being at the right price point, and the fact that I filled up my PVR. It has exceeded my expectations. The recording quality at SP (two hours) is virtually indistinguishable from the PVR recordings from my dish. Four hour LP mode still exceeds a mid quality VCR, with no annoying flicker or color bleeding. The burner worked first time, every time. The controls, even timed record, are intuitive and simple, with an excellent system menu that makes all the features easily accessible. Pop in a disc - it is immediately recognized and formatted if necessary. You can easily set the time for chapter marks and append new material.
Amazingly, the burner accepts every type of media - DVD + or - R and RW, as well as CD-R and CD-RW, although I have not tried making a CD-V or audio CD. The instruction manual is well done and easily readable.
This is one of the best engineered pieces of hardware I have come across in years. Works better than any VCR I have ever owned. Basically, you just hit the record button and get a great recording. I have not used it yet for transferring and editing home videos, but if you just want to record from your cable or dish, this unit can't be beat. One weird glitch: Doesn't display closed captioning - at least on my Mitsubishi TV.

This is just the thing for transferring VHS/miniDV to DVD. Also, with the ability to use it as a DVD "VCR" and the DV-link, it's a no-brainer at the selling price. Similarly-featured units list for hundreds more. The variety of supported media is good. Operation is easy and intuitive. The quality of recordings from standard cable signal is quite impressive. I was leary of some of the concerns other people had, but the newest revision (LVW-5005) seem to have corrected most of them. Overall, I think this is an incredible product for the price and will hope for the best on long-term reliability.


I did notice a few things that are annoying, but not critical:

-No RF modulator on the cable input (can't monitor on ch3/4 like a VCR). You have to use the RCA input on a TV or other device to monitor the unit (No big deal, most TV's have RCA input).

-I found it best (for quality) to split the incoming cable and send separate runs to the TV and LVW-5005.

-I've seen the time counters on other players get confused with discs recorded on the LVW-5005.

-You'd think that once you created your own DVD, you'd be able to copy it with DVD-XCOPY or the like. That didn't work for me. The only program I've found yet that makes copies of the outputed media is Clone-DVD. Clone-DVD seems to fix the time display problem mentioned above.

-DVD-RW and DVD+RW disks created on the LVW-5005 may not play in older DVD players, though finalized DVD-r's seem to play on anything.

Somewhere around your 100th-200th disc or 5-7 months it won't read blank discs anymore or record on them. This is due to the short lived cheaper lasers they put in them. They get weak over time. Also if you leave the unit on when not using it, even when there's no disc in the machine, the laser stays on. So just by leaving it on, forgetting to shut it off, you're killing the laser by shortening it's lifetime. I have 2 of these units, plus an older one they made for the AKAI brand name from the year before, but it's almost identical. They all suffer from dimming lasers after a few months or 100-200 discs.

I'm an electronics seviceman & a videographer. Lasers do wear out, & cheap ones go dim sooner.

The machine performed great before the laser dimmed.

So you'll have to ask yourself if it's worth the price to burn only 100-200 discs or only last 5-7 months.

How long your Lite-On machine (ANY MODEL) lasts will depend how much you use it & how long leave it on even when you're not using it.

Before go to my experience, I want to say I will not judge a product based on where it is produced, I only care the quality.

I just bought one yesterday, tested most functions and it worked great.

Setup is easy. I set it up within 5 minutes without referring to the manual - connect it to satellite receiver, cable TV, VCR, home audio and TV. Power on and it works.

Recording is easy. I tested Memorex DVD+RW and TDK DVD+R, both works fine. Also tested schedule recording, works fine.

I played the recorded discs in my two DVD players, 2 laptops, and two desktops without any problems.

Tested all the recording mode, from TV, from Satellite, from VCR (RCA input), and Camcorder(iLink in). All pretty good.

Recoded qualities are impressive. HQ ans SP are pretty good, EP is OK since it is CIF size. SLP is MPEG-1 in CIF, can not expect more from it.

I read the recorded disks to PC and use DVD authoring tools to add better title and cut of not wanted contents, no problem.

Need to verify weekly recording capability, since someone in this forum mentioned it only record 1st and 3rd programs.

One failure so far, I guess it is my fault - I formated DVD+RW using Nero, and can not be recognized by the recorder.

So far so good. It may has some flaws, but none product are perfect. We need to be more smarter to make use of it. In my opinion, it is much better than those required only some strange disks I never heard before. I do not want to limit myself to use only some brands of disks even the recorder have 10 stars rating.

From the reviews, most problems will come out in weeks. I will keep on testing it to see what happens and post my result here.

I decided to give up griping and actually compliment a device that works as advertised. The other negative comments that have been written focused on defective machines. That did not discourage me from purchasing this good value, comprehensive recorder as I assumed we were just hearing about the bad apples. And I'm happy to report that mine works like a charm. It is so intuitive and simple to record and set up that I feel like there must be something I'm missing. I purchased to create space on my Tivo and specifically to keep for posterity all the Louisville basketball games from the 80s that I Tivod from ESPN classic. Now I'm on to moving my tapes from my Mini DV player to DVD. I am using TDK +R DVDs and I have not had a problem recording, finalizing or playing in other DVD players or on my laptop. I'm still experimenting so I'll update the review if I experience any more positive or negative results.

When I received my LVW-5005 from the UPS guy I was a little concerned about it's condition. It seems the Office Depot who I purchased it from (Via Amazon)wasn't too concerned about throwing the normal box inside a box 2X it's size for shipment with no cushining... Long story short. From out of the box and hooking up to the TV was maybe 5 minutes. The initial setup was easier than I had read on other reviews about DVD recorders. It was just like operating a VCR.

I've only made 3 recordings so far but I havn't had any problems from either...I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I won't have any of the problems some of the others writing reviews have had.

I have noticed there is a noticable color difference (slightly darker) when the show is running through the recorder to the TV screen..BUT during playback from another machine the color was normal...maybe it's my cables,connection or TV?

I've used GQ brand DVD-R discs not on the "list" and they work fine. I have a DVD player at my office that I've had since 99 and it plays just fine on it too.

I was prepared to shell out the $$ for a Sony but I could not believe that thier own DVDR machines didn't have firewire (iLink)..the one feature I wanted was that and the ability to Record + and - R media, so the Lite On was my next choice.

Since I only ever wanted to record TV Shows (history, Discover programs etc.)and back up old VHS. I never had a need for a TOP END machine. The LiteOn in my opinion is perfect for that.. as long as it's working I'll be a happy camper.

Hope my investment lasts a long time because right now I'll stand behind the product. I only wish I had picked it up for $149 instead of $179.

After it was done, I ripped it with Disk Decrypter and Recoded with NERO to have a better looking Menu.

Pros: Cheap Cost even at $200
Super Easy to setup and Use
Nice Picture quality (recorded to disc)
Accepts Media not on the "approved list"
Records/Plays +/- R/RW media
2/4/6 hr record times

CONS: Image output to TV is slightly darker
A little noisy (just don't sit too close)
Takes approx 30 Sec to load Disc so plan ahead
Menu is very Plain

hope it helped...B. Bussey

We purchased this product for considerably more than the current price of $89.99. It always had a few quirks, but we ignored them. Over the course of about 18 months, the unit became more troublesome. This weekend, it totally died. This unit is in an adult household, and it was never abused. In fact, it really wasn't used much at all. I would never buy a Lite-On product again.

Unless you enjoy being on hold, being hung up on, returning products and losing DVDs, DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY or time!!! This is an excerpt of our 1st communication with lite-on in June of 2005...
"I received a LITEON LVW-5005 as a Christmas gift. I just recently set it up and started using it (active duty military) and have had the following
problems:
Playback--disks hang up and/or skip (new disks without damage)
Record--fails to start the recording process
In both cases, the Recorder eventually started working after repeatedly ejecting and re-inserting the same disk. It appears there is a mechanical problem associated with the Disc Tray. Once it finally seats correctly, it works fine."

2 months later we received an RMA that was valid and shipped the unit back. We received a refurbished unit and had the following problems with in a few days

"We received the DVD writer in the mail and used it for several days. When playing a DVD, the player skips backwards throughout playback. This happens with all DVDs (work correctly on other players). DVDs created have errors when trying to copy them on our computer. In addition, the device began making a loud grinding noise after a few days of use." (November 2005)

It was January of 2006 before we received another refurbished unit. It worked great for about a month and then locked up completely with my daughter's favorite Baby Einstein DVD stuck inside. After working with tech support for quite sometime, we were unable to retrieve the disc and told to return the unit with the disc and the DVD would be returned. We have yet to see the DVD and it was June of 2006 before we received another unit. The current unit is a 5115 (offered to us because the 5005 was out of stock and we were hoping it might be more reliable after 3 lemons).

Tonight was the beginning of the end when this unit locked up with the new favorite Baby Einstein stuck inside. Tech support did help me recover the disc, but tried to blame the failure on my child (who is not big enough to even reach the unit and never touched it!). I am ready to toss the thing completely and spend the money on a different brand. After over a year of hassles with this company, I'd have to say this is the worst gift ever and I feel bad that my father-in-law wasted his money. Now, we will have to buy a new DVD recorder and a new DVD. I plan to share this review with all my friends and family and any other site I can find to post it!!!

I recorded only 1 hour of video on a DVD+RW. It functioned pretty good without problems. I played the DVD on another player and was impressed with the quality of the picture. I think VCRs are over. There was one glitch though during initial setup. It wasn't clear to me which jacks and which RF channel that the video signal was coming from: S-video, composite, component, or RF? Without a screen I couldn't see any menus to setup the system. By trial and error I found that composite output worked and it was a breeze after that. I bought a second one that I will give as a gift. I choose this model based on reviews I found on internet. There are a lot of DVD TV recorders. However only two brands supported PAL and NTCS. Philips models got poor reviews, which narrowed my choice to LVW-5005

This is an excellent dvd recorde, and the discounts sometimes given on it make it an excellent value. Obviously its most telling feature is versatility. it can record DVD+R/RW, DVD-R/RW, or audio cds. The on screen menues are generally easy to understand, and the owners manual is well written. it is a good buy to people who may be new to dvd recording. i use it mainly to transfer vhs tape content to dvd, but it has other uses as well. It has an on screen display that lets you know how much time you are using at each recording session, and how much time is left to record on the dvd when you started the session. The dvds recorded on it are compatible with most dvd players. and you can write in a title for each recording session with easy to understand built in on screen displays. There are only two drawbacks to the unit. first of all take good care of the remote, because most of the functions related to recording are in the remote. But this is also true with most vcrs as well. The other thing is to be sure to leave the dvd drawer closed when not in use. i didn't do that, and banged my shin hard against the dvd drawer. This affected the units performance. But i was so pleasaed with the unit that i bought two more and make sure i don't leave the drawer open when not in use. Finally the on screen menu, from which you can pick which session to watch transfers well to other dvd players after the disc is finalized. Overall, this is an excellent product.