detail information

Setting up the Lite-On LVW-5045:

Like any VCR or other DVD recorder, this DVD recorder does need some initial setting up to make proper use of it, such as setting up timers or recording from terrestrial TV using its internal tuner.  When powered up for the first time, this DVD recorder does not present any wizard or initial configuration screens like many other recorders do, however these can easily be accessed through its setup menu. 

When the power button is pressed, the power indicator on the recorder turns green and it takes several seconds to power up.  The following welcome screen then appears for a few seconds before it is ready for use:

Upon its first power-up, it will simply show white noise like watching an analogue terrestrial TV channel without the aerial plugged in.  Even without setting up anything initially, it is still possible to watch a DVD or record from its AV inputs, however this also assumes that the default picture's aspect ratio (4:3) and AV output (SCART RGB) match the TV.

The following screen shows the setup menu:

For this review, we have the DVD recorder hooked up to a capture card using its S-Video input, which means we have the Scart set to 'S-Video'.  The default 'Scart RGB' would have resulted in a black & white picture. 

Navigation is very straight forward:  The up & down keys navigate up & down, the right key navigates into a sub-menu, the 'Enter' key selects the highlighted option and the left key navigates to a parent menu.  One really nice feature with this menu system is that all the parent menus remain shown as the user navigates in and out of sub-menus, which makes it straight forward to see which branch one is at.

As with preparing a VCR or any other DVD recorder, we would first recommend selecting the correct video output and aspect ratio, set the time & date and configure the audio output if using digital multi-speaker system.  This DVD recorder does have an advantage in that if one accidentally selects Progressive output and their TV does not support it, the recorder will automatically revert back to the previous video-output mode after a couple of seconds if no key is pressed in the meantime.

The contents of the setup menus, submenus and options are as follows:

System
            Video Output
                        Component
                   Scart S-Video
                   Scart 
                   Progressive
          Clock Format
                   M/D/Y-12Hr
                   D/M/Y-12Hr
                   Y/M/D-12Hr
                   M/D/Y-24Hr
                   D/M/Y-24Hr
                   Y/M/D-24Hr
          Date
                   --/--/20-- (Depends on date format)
          Time
                   --:--:--
          Auto-sleep
                   Choice of Off, 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes
          Restore
                   Restore

Language
          OSD
                    Choice of English, (Traditional Chinese), (Chinese
                    Simplified), Frané§ais, Deutsch, Italia,Espaé±ol, Nederlands, 
                    Dansk, Suomi, Svenska, Polski, Norsk, Eλληvıĸé³é§ or Portuguéªs
          Menu
                    Choice of English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, 
                    Danish, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, 
                    Norwegian or Greek
          Audio
                    Choice of English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish,
                    Danish, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese,
                    Norwegian or Greek
          Subtitle
                    Choice of English, Chinese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, 
                    Danish, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Finnish, Portuguese, 
                    Norwegian, Greek or Off

Playback
          Aspect Ratio
                    16:9 Wide
                     4:3 Pan
                    4:3 L.Box
          Parental Lock
                    Choice of Off, 1: Kid Safe, 2: G, 3: PG, 4: PG-13, 5: PG-R, 
                    6: R, 7: NC-17 or 8: Adult
          Password
                    Change Password :
                    Old Password -> New Password -> Confirm Password
          Slide Time
                    Off, Interval (choice of 3 to 99 seconds in single steps)
          VCD PBC
                    Choice of On or Off
          DivX® VOD
                    Registration Code

Record
          Mode
                    Choice of HQ, SP, LP, EP or SLP
          Chapter Mark
                    Choice of Off, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 or 30 minutes

Audio
          Digital Out
                    Choice of PCM or Bit Stream
          MPEG
                    Choice of PCM or Bit Stream

TV Tuner
            TV Signal
                   Choice of Antenna, Cable or Auto
          Country
                    Choice of Eire, Poland, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, 
                    Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, 
                    Spain, Portugal, UK, France, Luxembourg or Belgium
          Utilities
                   Scan Channel
                   Edit Channel
                              List box of tuned channels with the choice of Up, 
                              Down, Insert, Swap, Rename, Disable, Fine Tune 
                              or Decode
                   TV MODE
                             Bypass Allowed
                             Not Allowed

Exit

Tuning in terrestrial TV channels

Assuming one will be using this DVD recorder to record from terrestrial TV broadcasts, the first thing that user needs to do is tune in all the broadcasts, much like setting up a TV for the first time.  Performing a channel scan is very straight forward: Just press Setup, select the TV Tuner icon, set the TV Signal type, country and select 'Scan channel' in the utilities sub-menu:

The recorder will take several minutes to tune in the broadcasts.  Once complete, it is then possible to reorganise the channel layout as well as title the channels.  This can be accessed via the utilities sub-menu's 'Edit Channel' option or by pressing the 'Edit' button while the recorder is idle on a broadcast channel:

Unlike many VCRs, unfortunately this DVD recorder does not pick up the channel names, so the user will need to manually title each channel.  To help title the channels, particularly those that don't use logos, we would recommend comparing each tuned channel against a TV's own tuned channels to see which preset matches a given TV channel.  As this DVD recorder does not pass Teletext signalling to the TV from its internal Tuner, bringing up Teletext to see the title will not work in this case. 

One real nice feature with the DVD recorder's automatic channel tuning is that it can tune in very weak stations, unlike many other devices and TVs we have come across where we would have to go through the tedious process of manually tuning in channels it missed.  Just to give an example, the following channel is from a neighbouring TV mast, however while this channel is not watchable, it clearly shows that this is not going to miss any watchable broadcast during its scan:

While this DVD recorder can automatically pick up very weak broadcasts, unfortunately there is no way to manually tune in broadcasts.  The obvious thing would be to perform another channel scan, but unfortunately all the presets are lost each time a channel scan takes place, so should a new terrestrial TV channel start broadcasting, it means having to retune, title and reorganise all the channels just to add a new channel!  For most consumers who live in an area where the number of broadcasts they have remains fixed, this should not cause any issue, however this will be a concern for those who use cable, are in a built-up area where broadcasts come & go or have broadcasts that only run during certain time periods and wish to record from them.

Setting the recording options

Like most other Lite-On DVD recorders, this DVD recorder features five play modes, which range from High Quality to Super Long Play.  Like Short Play and Long Play with a VCR, the picture quality is dependant on the play mode.  By default, the recorder will also insert a chapter mark every 5 minutes. 

Our recommendations for selecting the appropriate play mode would be as follows:

If the user begins a recording by simply pressing the 'Record' button, the default play mode will be used.  The default play mode and automatic chapter mark can be set in the 'Record' submenu as shown in the following screenshot:

One nice feature with automatic chapter marking is that it allows the user to skip ahead five minutes of video at a time during playback.  While this DVD recorder can fast forward up to 16x, this works out at about 20 seconds per 5 minutes of fast forwarding!  If the user needs to jump to the middle of a 4 hour recording, it would take about 7.5 minutes with 16x fast forwarding or just 24 presses of the 'Next Chapter' button assuming the chapter mark interval was set to 5 minutes. 

While it is possible to insert chapters during a recording, unfortunately this recorder does not support the editing of chapters, which means that what ever chapters were inserted into a programme during its time of recording, these become permanent in the recording.

Setting up DivX Video on demand

Like any other DivX certified player, the user must register their box in order to play DivX VOD content such as pay-per-view content.  Before the user can register their player, they must get their player's registration code.  On this DVD recorder, it can be obtained by going into the DVD Recording options submenu, selecting 'DivX® VOD" and selecting 'Registration Code".  The code shows up as follows, however the code shown below is the registration code for our review device, since each DivX certified player and recorder will have its own unique registration code:

To register the player, one must download the official DivX player, set up an account (if they don't already have one) and then activate their player using this registration code.  Setting up an account is fairly straight forward - click the Tools menu in the DivX player and select 'User Account':

The fields shown above are the only details DivX requests.  Once the account is created, they send out an e-mail with an activation link.  When we clicked the activation link, we got the webpage as shown below confirming our account (and e-mail address) has been confirmed:

Finally, in order to activate the player, we had to create an activation disc using the DivX player.  Again, this is very straight forward.  This can be done by opening the 'Tools' menu and selecting 'Device Manager…" within the DivX player.  The wizard starts with the following screen:

The next screen asks for the player's registration (activation) ID, a name to associate the activation with (such as to differentiate between two or more activated players).  After this, the wizard downloads the activation video and gives the option of whether to burn this to disc or have it delivered to a networked player (which our review device is not):

After this, it asks to select which CD/DVD writer to use to use for writing the video to CD-R.  We used a blank CD-R and let the wizard record the disc.  Once written, the following screen shows:

Once we loaded the disc in the DVD recorder, we were presented with the following screen:

It seems strange for the DVD recorder to ask to choose a media type when the only option available is 'Video' (besides 'Exit').  Once we pressed Enter, the disc played a short video clip, starting off with the DivX logo and displaying one letter after another in sequence until the following screen was shown:

Finally, once we clicked on Finish on the PC, we got the following message box.  As there is no physical link between the PC and the DVD recorder apart from a SCART to SVHS cable to capture the images, we would have got the following screen regardless of whether we played the activation disc or not!: