detail information

In this page, we carry out various tests such as to see which audio codec bit rates it supports, what types of video is supported and video recording picture quality.  For those interested in playing discs from outside of their DVD region, we will cover how to remove the region lock.

As this player is capable of playing WAV, WMA and MP3 audio, some may ask about what bit rates and modes of each codec is supported.  For example, WMA could mean WMA standard, WMA professional, WMA voice, WMA VBR or WMA DRM, not to mention the choice of bit rates also. As this Recorder cannot be connected up directly to a PC for Windows Media Player to authenticate it this obviously rules out WMA DRM support. 

For these tests, we used Goldwave to create different Wave formats, LAME 3.96.1 to create different MP3 formats and Windows Media Encoder 9 series to create different WMA formats.

Wave Audio

As Wave audio does not need much processing besides resampling it to suit the internal DAC, we have only done a limited number of tests on wave audio, which includes different bit depths, sample rates and channels to basically cover from the lowest to the highest bit rates one is likely to encounter.  The test results are as follows:

It is nice to see support for up to 96 kHz audio as well as 32-bit playback support, however this is unlikely going to output any quality better than what its internal DAC's are capable of handling.  As we do not have equipment to test its digital out capabilities, it is unclear if any wave format with a sample rate higher than 48 kHz or bit depth of greater 16-bit is down converted.  On the other hand, the player is incapable of playing 24-bit wave audio as these result in a loud buzz coming from the speakers.

MP3 Audio

As MP3 is still the most widely used audio format when it comes to consumers carrying their music on the move or downloading it online, some may ask what bit rates it supports or whether it plays variable bit rate, etc.  When encoding MP3, we left LAME to decide on the sample rate and MPEG version.  We will also test free-format bit rates in which the MP3 is encoded at a non-standard bit rate, such as 125kbps for example. 

The Sample rates and MPEG Versions LAME used for CBR encoding are as follows:

The Sample rates and MPEG Versions LAME used for VBR encoding are as follows:

For the Free-format bit rate tests, we tested 88kbps and 152kbps to be in-between the regular bit rates and still be a multiple of 8, 125kbps to test a bit-rate that is both non-standard and not a multiple of 8 and finally from 328kbps to 640kbps in steps of 8kbps. 

The results of all the MP3 tests are as follows:

It is nice to see that the Recorder can play all standard bit-rates in both constant bit rate and variable bit rate.  However, for audiophiles and those who may use non-standard bit rates, this Recorder will simply skip any MP3 file using a non-standard bit-rate.

WMA Audio

As pretty much everyone has Windows Media player installed on their PC and many use it to rip their music into WMA (often without realising it), it is handy to be able to play Windows Media audio also.  When WMA version 9 came out, Microsoft added a professional WMA format as well as a Voice WMA format to this version, so these tests will cover testing out these special versions of WMA. 

As Windows Media encoder gives so many combinations of bit rates, sample rates and options for encoding WMA, we have grouped bit-rates for a sample rate together to shorten the table when ever a group all passed.  For a few bit rates, Windows Media Encoder gave a 'Low Delay' option by default, so in these few cases, there is an '*' beside the bit rate.

The results are as follows:

Note:  * = Low Delay

Like with MP3, the Recorder will play all WMA's standard bit rate encodings ranging from 8kbps all the way up to about 500kbps for the quality based VBR encoding and can play CBR, VBR, ABR Peak and Quality based VBR encodings.  However, the Recorder does not support the new Voice and Professional versions of WMA included from version 9. 

For the Video tests, we got some MPEG1 files encoded in both NTSC (352 x 240) and PAL (352 x 288), some MPEG2 files also encoded in both NSTC (720 x 480) and PAL (720 x 576) and finally some MPEG2 files recorded directly off to satellite including one small HDTV clip for curiosity sake.  We tried video content on both CD and DVD recorded as an ISO data disc and can confirm that the Recorder will play video content off both disc types.

The results of these video tests are as follows (each tested from CD-RW):

As we can see, this Recorder has no problem accepting standard video files, whether with an .MPG or .VOB file extension.  Unlike with a TV tuner, a satellite DVB tuner does not perform MPEG 2 encoding, but instead captures the incoming MPEG 2 digital stream.  As a result, the resolutions above for satellite are actually what ever resolutions were used on the source digital satellite TV channels.  For example, Sky News uses a resolution of 544 x 576, so if a recording is made from this channel, the recording will have the same resolution.  The HDTV recording failed to start playing (no picture), but then again this test was only done out of curiosity to see what would happen.

The only issue with playing back content from satellite is that the playback timer is incorrect as the Recorder seems to use timing information encoded within the recording.  For example, the following recording shows as it if the recording has been playing for just over 11 hours, yet the recording itself is less than a minute in length:

Despite the small issue with the time display, being able to play back satellite recordings and individual MPEG files means that one can fill a DVD with these without having to re-encode their content to make it DVD-Video compliant, at least for playback in this Recorder. 

As this Recorder is capable of playing MP3's from CD, it would be interesting to see how well this performs with a DVD full of MP3's, especially since a DVD can hold well over 1,000 tracks, thus potentially turning the Recorder into a useful standalone Jukebox.  For this test, we filled a DVD with several albums and folders of music, along with one containing over 900 tracks to see how well it handles a huge folder.

Upon loading the disc, it automatically started playing the first file on the root folder.  With such a large number of songs on one disc, the browser takes about 5 seconds or so to show up the Music tab.  Once shown, we get the following screen:

When we select an album / folder, it will play from track one and stop once it reaches the last track within that album / folder.  Unfortunately, as the Recorder groups all the folders together to show in the browser, it does not put them in alphabetical order, thus we would recommend keeping all the folders on the root level of the DVD to ensure that they show up in alphabetical order to ease navigation.

If we browse a folder with a huge number of tracks present in it, the Recorder's page navigation near the bottom allows the user to skip multiple pages and then use the left & right navigation buttons at the bottom to move by individual pages as shown in the following screenshot:

When it comes to the folder containing 943 MP3's, we did encounter a few issues when playing music from this folder.  If we select any song from this particular folder, it takes roughly 15 seconds to start playing the selected track.  However, a song starts playing instantly from folders containing under 30 MP3's and takes about 2 seconds from a folder containing 159 tracks.  As a result, we would recommend breaking down a huge folder into multiple folders such as one containing 'A to C', another containing 'D to F' and so on.  Seeking the next and previous track happens straight away, even when playing from the huge folder.  The only other drawback with large folders is that the Recorder's display will not show the track number properly beyond track 99.  For example track 770 shows up as '70' on the display as shown below:

Jewel case trick with MP3 albums

If the Recorder starts playing a folder containing one or more photos, it will show these as a slideshow during the playback of the music.  One nice idea we came up with is to store a scan of the jewel case as a JPG image along with each album before recording the albums to DVD.  Once we select an album containing this jewel case image, the album starts playing as usual, but also showing the jewel case image as the disc is playing:

In the above screenshot, we forced the display of the track information just to show that music is playing as this image is shown.  If we store a 2^nd image such as the track information at the rear of the jewel case, these images would alternate based on the Recorder's slideshow time setting. 

When many consumers see the word 'Digital recording', the first thing that comes to their head is a perfect picture.  As a result, many content providers such as satellite TV providers lured consumers over to digital content by announcing things like 'Digital picture quality', 'No loss of quality' and so on. 

As the main purpose of this DVD Recorder is to record content, one of the first things consumers would like to know is what its recording quality is like.  When it comes to a VCR, there are a lot of items that affect the picture quality such as the tuner, circuitry, recording heads, not to mention the quality of the tape itself. 

When it comes to a DVD Recorder or anything else that records in a Digital format, the quality of the medium generally has no effect on the picture quality, unless of course it is poor to the point where the Recorder or player encounters uncorrectable read errors while reading back the disc.  The circuitry and heads also have no effect, assuming they are in good working order and do not affect the data being written to or read from the disc.  However, what does affect the picture quality is the quality of the tuner and coder (which converts the picture from analogue to digital) as well as the video compressor, which uses lossy compression. 

In this section, we show close-up snapshots of both the picture recorded on Video CD and Super Video CD as well as compare the picture quality between the different levels of compression on DVD.  We will take a snapshot on a still scene and another of a scene in action to show how well the Recorder copes with different video sources. 

For the source, we used a DVD and played it in our Sony standalone DVD player.  This was connected up to the Lite-On Recorder using a SCART lead with the output set to RGB.  We captured the screenshots directly from the recorded discs on the PC.

The following image shows a relatively still scene on the original DVD zoomed in at 2x:

The following image shows a scene in fast motion on the original DVD zoomed in at 2x.  In this case, the camera starts pointing in the field and quickly moves up towards the house:

Video CD

The Video CD format is often compared to as VHS quality as it has only one-quarter the resolution of DVD.  This Recorder seems to do a good job on still scenes such as shown in the following image (zoomed in at 2x):

The screenshot looks like a very softened version of the original when zoomed in close, but at least not blocky as we have seen from many MPEG1 software encoders, especially those that come with TV Tuner cards.  Unfortunately due to the lower resolution, a lot of detail is lost such as some of the whiskers and the texture in this case.

When it comes to motion, the picture becomes rather distorted.  Then again, at least the Recorder does seem to suffer from the infamous 'blockiness' that occurs with most MPEG1 encoders in fast motion. 

Super Video CD

Until the time DVD writers and recordable media became cheap, many consumers used Super Video CD as a way of storing high quality recordings such as from a camcorder or making backups of other sources such as Laser Disc.  The following image shows a close-up of the above still scene, but recorded as a Super Video CD:

Unfortunately when it comes to Super Video CD, this Recorder does not show as much improvement as we expected when compared with Video CD as quite a lot of detail is still lost, apart from the whiskers coming out sharper.

When it comes to fast motion, there is some improvement in the picture quality over Video CD; however there is still some loss of texture, such as shown in the following comparisons:

Whether recording on to the Recorder's hard drive or onto DVD, the user is given a choice of 5 recording modes ranging from 'High Quality' to 'Super Long Play'.  In this section, we will compare the quality of the different recording modes as well as show a thumbnail of the 5 recording modes together along with the original at the end.  Like with the Video CD and Super Video CD tests, we will use the same slow and fast scenes. 

DVD - High Quality

The following image shows a close-up recording using the 'HQ' recording mode:

When compared with the original, there is only a slight loss in the texture, which makes it difficult to tell if this is caused by the original DVD player, the player & Recorder's DAC's or so on.  Either way, this is a significant improvement even over Super Video CD.

When it comes to fast motion, the recorded image looks almost identical to the original recording.

DVD - Standard Play

The following image shows a close-up recording using the 'SP' recording mode:

In this case, we see slightly more loss in detail when it comes to the texture and white whiskers; however the difference is unlikely going to be noticed by the average consumer apart from those performing a close-up comparison such as in this case. 

When it comes to motion, we also see slightly greater loss in detail, but again only visible upon close inspection of a snapshot of the original and this image put side-by-side.

DVD - Long Play

The following image shows a close-up recording using the 'LP' recording mode:

As long play cuts the horizontal resolution in half, we can clearly see a difference in quality between this snapshot and the original, but then again it is not as bad as Video CD either.  We would recommend sticking with SP where possible to obtain a better picture quality.

When it comes to motion, we can see a significant loss in detail, for example the flowers look more like a purple blob in this case. 

DVD - Extended Play

The following image shows a close-up recording using the 'LP' recording mode:

Unlike the significant difference we see between standard play and long play, we can hardly make out and difference between the quality of extended play against long play.  Then again, in this case the recording uses the same resolution as the long play mode, but with additional compression.

Unlike the still image comparison, we can see clearly some further loss of image quality when it comes to fast motion as some evidence of the infamous blockiness starts appearing in the image.

DVD - Super Long Play

Finally, where the only thing the user is worried about is maximum recording time, the following close-up shows the effect of hefty compression on the image:

As this recording mode halves the vertical resolution also, we can clearly see a further drop in recording quality, bringing it pretty much on par with Video CD.  Like with recording in Long Play, we would only recommend using this mode where more than 4 hours must be stored on a single disc or where the original recording is very poor anyway.

Finally when it comes to motion, we can see further some further blockiness in the image, even when compared with Video CD quality.  This makes this recording mode unsuitable for a noisy source or source with a lot of motion or action.

DVD - Quick quality comparison of the modes

The following table shows a close-up thumbnail of each screenshot for each recording mode, along with the original:

The following table shows another comparison of each recording mode along with the original, but for the fast motion screenshot:

Since the first DVD players came out, they are required to enforce a region restriction such that the player will only play discs matching its region code.  As a result, this allows the movie industry to prevent consumers from attempting to purchase DVDs outside their designated region, such as trying to purchase a disc in the US and take it back to Europe.  For example, if we attempt to play a Region 1 disc sourced from the US, all region 2 compliant DVD players and recorders such as in Europe will reject the disc.  The following screenshot shows what happens if we attempt to play the disc in this Recorder:

One nice feature about this drive is that the region restriction can be removed with a simple secret key sequence.  Just be warned that this not an official feature of this Recorder and is not supported by Lite-On.  This means that Lite-On is free to remove this region changing feature in their next firmware revision.

To remove the region sequence, simply bring up the setup menu by pressing 'Setup', navigate down to the 'Exit' icon and then key in the digits 2, 9, 6 and 0.  The following screen will show:

On this screen, simply select the region that matches the disc or select 'Region Free' to allow playback of the foreign region disc.  Once selected, the disc can then be played:

We can also confirm that a change in the region setting is retained even after unplugging the unit.

Now, that concludes our review of the Lite-On LVW-5045.  Head over to the last page to read our conclusion…