Advantages: Easy to use Disadvantages: Dreadfully unreliable
I have always been a strong supporter of LiteOn DVD products, as well as a DVD writer in one of my PC's I have two LiteON DVD players and two different LiteON DVD recorders all of which I have reviewed and been fiercely proud of; however a recent budget purchase has put LiteOn on a much different plateau in my mind.
In our new home the size of one of my DVD recorders meant that a new purchase was needed; room in our bedroom in a little scarce as we traded down to increase our financial situation. With new bedroom furniture in it meant an existing recorder was millimetres to big for the location. So I headed off into town where I purchased the LiteOn LVW-1105 from Currys. Digital, priced at just £79. Proudly rushing home with my new toy under my arm I was confident that the LiteOn brand was the one for me.
Install is straight ...
Advantages: Cheap, can be made multi-region. Works well. PC Pro Best Buy Disadvantages: Doesn't alter the fact that dual layer media is not cheap! Possible dual-layer compatibility issues with home DVD players
the other for more normal use, like writing this opinion!
CAVEATS
With dual-layer blanks priced at around £2.99, it pays to make sure your DVD writing process isn't in the least bit flaky. I haven't wasted a 35 pence DVD-R blank for ages, but sure as eggs are eggs it'll start happening on the very first dual-layer disk I use.
(Prophetically, that's exactly what's happened, although the disk isn't exactly spoiled. I seem to have created a dual layer recording of a DVD successfully, but it only seems playable in the machine it was burned on, i.e. the LiteOn. Neither of my domestic DVD players want to know it, so for the moment, and probably until the next time I buy a domestic DVD player, I'll not be bothering with the dual layer facility, since I don't watch DVDs on my PC)
Make sure your writing software can recognise the new 'nearly ...
BNibbles 04.10.2005 (15.10.2005)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of LiteOn SOHW-1693S
Advantages: Good value, space saving, can be made multi-region Disadvantages: Not a DVD-burner, but very little else at this price
from outside of your own Region.
In theory, and having used up your 5 ?lives?, it is possible to get the vendor to reset this by returning the kit to base, and it?s likely to be a particular nuisance to those with DVD collections sporting a mixture of imports and home grown disks. Even the vendor is limited to 4 resets of the 5 choices, leaving the machine practically unusable after 20 regions have been swapped??..or SO they?d like you to think.
I downloaded a natty little utility purposely written for LiteOn machines called LTNRPC which comes in a zip file from www.rpc1.org. This not only allows you to reset the number of regional changes back to 5 every time it gets close to zero, (which in turn uses up one your precious ?vendor resets?) but also allows you to regain the full number of vendor resets too! It does has a facility ...
