Lite-On LVW-5005

The Lite-On LVW-5005 is useless. "invalid disc" and "fail" pop up on any disc I try to put in the thing. When it did work, not very often, it would sometimes fail to finalize rendering the 4 hours amount of material I had recorded useless and a complete waste of time.

My first one quit after two weeks and was returned for a replacement. the replacement unit quit after just a couple of years. A dvd recorder/player should last more than a couple of years, given that it was used just once or twice a week when it worked.

It's DVD recording function quit working the second week out of the box, and yes I purchased it new.

When I called the tech assist line I was given instructions on how to update an "update" for it. I was told you simply inserted the update disc and the unit would virtually "repair itself ".I found it only made it worse.

I have had the recorder for almost 10 months now and it seems fine for the most part, and the price was right. I was able to transfer tapes from VHS to DVD. The operation is not as crisp as I would like it to be (compared with a Daewoo player that I also have, however, the remote on the Lite-on is better). It seems like a good basic recorder. It remains to be seen how well it stands the test of time.

I really like this brand and this model and I am very sorry that I am now having this problem with it because I have told other about how good it was. If any one know where I can download any firmware that will fix the problem or where I can get help resolving it, I would be grateful.

I had high hopes when I first bought this machine to replace a VCR. I was going to record TV programs and archive video tapes to DVD. Within a very short time the eject tray started sticking until eventually it wouldn't open unless pried out, but that was the least of the problems with this unit.

If there are specific discs that work well I have yet to find them, but RW discs are the only ones that it seems to ocassionally record to - and then only if you don't turn the machine off, don't eject the disc until it's full and finalized, and even then it's unreliable.

Upgrading firmware seems like it should be a simple matter but I've never been able to get the machine to perform the upgrade - and sadly the manufacturers upgrade website is infested with virus and porn pop-ups (very uncool).

Discs that do record will rarely be playable in another machine.

This machine is unreliable and a waste of time and money - You have been warned

I like how simple the Lite-On was to set up and record. Too bad it didn't last.

This Lite-On LVW-5005 unit worked very well at first and seemed to be good value as it wasn't very expensive when compared to other brands. The user interface was clear and very simple to operate. The picture quality was quite good when using the 1 hour to 2 hour settings but dropped in quality rapidly below that. However , I started having all kinds of problems: The player would give me the message "invalid disc" and now it will not read a disc of any kind. I was told to upgrade firmware which didn't help at all and am still waiting for a reply to an email to see what they will do, as the machine is still under warranty.

I upgraded the firmware on my Lite-On LVW-5005 DVD recorder as requested by Lite-On when my recorder stopped accepting discs, and this didn't fix the problem, so if you get the same problem, don't bother trying. Just ring them up and get them to repair it for you. I found that Lite-On have actually extended the 12 months warranty to 24 months, so if your recorder is over 12 months old, it's still under warranty and will be repaired free of charge. They send a delivery firm to pick it up from your home, repair it and return it to you completely free. It takes about a week to carry out a repair.

The Lite-On LVW-5005 is NOT ACCEPTABLE!!

The Bottom Line: Not recommended. 1 out of 5-stars. Why? Because the non-standard (weird) format of the data written to disc makes editing or re-authoring impossible or a nightmare.

I would actually give the Lite-On recorders zero stars but for the excellent user interface. If you do purchase a Lite-On recorder because of the low price or ease of use, my recommendation is that you use the Lite-On DVD recorders only for recording on DVD RW media that you intend to watch once and erase, or that you have no intention of editing, re-authoring, or copying.

The Lite-On line of DVD recorders has one of the best user interfaces of any recording device, bar none. However, the biggest problem with the Lite-On recorders is the weird format that they use to record their data onto DVD's. If you explore a 2 hour DVD made with the Lite-On recorders using Windows Explorer, you will usually find that it shows up as having 8Gb (yes 8 Gigabytes!) of files, which is impossible on a 4.7Gb DVD media.

My guess is that they use some kind of a trick to do this to compensate for bad spots on a DVD. There appears to be two sets of VOB files that are duplicates in content but with different file names. This causes problems when you try to copy or re-author the DVD (which you may want to do if you made the original recording on a DVD RW).

You can copy the DVD to a hard disk, but if you try to use only one set of the files (4Gb) the result will be an incomplete DVD with time gaps, and it may not even play on a standard DVD player.

I have had a total of 4 Lite-On DVD recorders since April 2005, and this applies to models:

Lite-On LVW-1101HC1

Lite-On LVW-5005,

Lite-On LVW-5005A

Lite-On LVC-9016G