LiteOn LVW-1105 HC

...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 ...
...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 forward, it literally is plug and play. Switch on and connect the adapters and the system guides you through the process; nothing could be simpler. Once installed I never felt the need to test it out for recording I felt happy ... more

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 forward, it literally is plug and play. Switch on and connect the adapters and the system guides you through the process; nothing could be simpler. Once installed I never felt the need to test it out for recording I felt happy with the recorder. That evening I watched a DVD on the machine without problem, and even recorded with it a few times over Christmas; but come the new year things began to turn.

LiteON DVD Recorders always record on all formats of DVDR this is the type of disc that plays on the machine. Most brands pick either the plus or minus format to record with; the specific difference I fail to know but we are basically talking Betamax verses VHS with the minus format being the VHS. Phillips strangely introduced the plus format some years ago when DVD recorders lifted off in the hope to win the war, but plus format machines and the discs are historically less reliable. Trouble being is that you would often go shopping and find the more popular minus format discs out of stock. LiteOn were the first company to master the dual facility to use either disc. Since mastering this all their recorders have been made with dual option. Over the New Year I used the recorder to record something taking up half a plus format disc. A few days later I changed the disc to record something else, then put the original disc back in to finish the disc off. To my annoyance the recorder refused to recognise the DVDR. A few days later a similar incident occurred. I decided that if I was to use plus format discs (the issue only occurs on plus format DVDR's) I would finalise the disc before removing. Finalising makes the disc compatible with all other dvd players and recorders ALLEDGEDLY. Any plus format disc I finalised refused to ever record again, in fact no sooner had a separated the disc from the loading drawer than the DVD disc became obsolete.

I returned the DVD Recorder and exchanged it for another, a few days later the same fault occurred. More noticeably now though from a playing perspective the machine was refusing to play certain shop pre recorded DVD's. A brand new DVD of Dirty Weekend played on every DVD in the house except the new LiteON recorder. The noise that came from the machine was horrific, almost like I had just thrown a piece of random metal in the machine and charged it up. I again returned the DVD and exchanged it, and for a third time I'm encountering the same issues. Worse still because LiteON have a really good track record I now suspect the staff at Currys. Digital believe I'm deliberately vandalising the machine. In honesty I suspect I'd think the same as in a year of selling the LiteOn products in a store I managed we never once had one returned, they are becoming the most popular and most reliable make on the market.

As if I have not had a fair share of issues model number 3 sporadically goes through a stage that I regard as "a fit". The front panel lights all come on at one, if a disc is inside I get a strange noise coming from the machine then the whole machine just goes into blackness. The only way to return the recorder to life is to unplug the machine from the mains leave it to cool down for a minute before plugging it back in again, when for a temporary period all features work properly.

I'm returning this DVD recorder tomorrow and demanding a different type. While I love LiteON products I feel that this may well have alienated me from the brand. It could be that like Hitachi products they are sourcing components in countries like Turkey that has a different power supply making the products of only temporary use. I hope this set back is only a temporary one for the company.

Despite the all round negativity of my review its worth pointing out the following aspects of the product:-

The Recorder is easy to navigate around, menu's are easy to understand with no tehnical confusion for the purchaser.

Instruction manuals are easy to understand and very brief.

The machine comes with batteries for the remote and one blank DVDR.

Disc finalising takes less than a minute (most other brands take about 3 minutes).

You can turn an ordinary blank CD into a videodisc allowing you to record just over an hour of visual entertainment to a CD. So if you ever run out of DVD's you have a back up option.

The LiteOn remotes do not interfere with other products actions, each LiteOn remote and machine is different so you don't end up accidentally doing something to another device.

The machine has two different standby options to save the environment.

There are two scart sockets at the rear, and one audio visual jack socket at the front.

Remote control is well laid out with illuminating buttons for operation in the dark.

Most of the controls on the remote can also be activated by the front panel of the machine in case of a lost or damaged remote.

You can play discs that you have downloaded from the internet in DIVX, MPEG and Avi format without the need to convert. This recorder will play most internet used media applications.

You can use to play discs of your photographs, the machine turns boring snaps into an interesting slideshow.  

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