detail information
| Posted by | Seán Byrne |
| Posted on | 23/06/05 21:05 |
| Number of views | 25021 |
Setting up the Lite-On LVW-5045:
While most recent VCRs automatically present a set up wizard when powered up for the first time, the Lite-On Recorder does not present anything different or special for its initial power up. This does have the advantage in that one can immediately start playing DVDs as with any other DVD player, however as with any other VCR, terrestrial TV channels must be tuned in before recording from them is possible and the time & date must be set before scheduled recordings can be performed.
Whenever the Recorder is powered up from standby, it welcomes the user with the following screen:
After the above welcome screen appears, the Recorder will show white noise since at this time there are no terrestrial channels tuned in. Setting up the Recorder for the first time is fairly straight forward. Simply press setup and the following screen appears:
When the setup button is pressed, the initial highlighted option is the top thumbnail in the left column. A thumbnail can be selected by using the up & down arrows. As each thumbnail is selected, the appropriate options appear in the middle column. To select something in the middle section (such as shown in the above image), simply press right to navigate in. Most of the options in the middle section also have sub-options. Pressing left navigates back out again. We find this handier than most VCRs where each sub-menu is shown on a new screen.
The first adjustments we would recommend are to set the correct video output, date, time, aspect ratio and audio output. In the above case, a SCART to SVHS adaptor was used, so without selecting a correct option, a black and white image would be presented. Be careful not to select 'Progressive' as most TV's do no support a progressive image and this may result in a blank screen if chosen. If the analogue stereo outputs are connected up to a stereo TV or speakers, no Audio adjustments are necessary. The Aspect ratio comes in a choice of 16:9, 4:3 Pan and 4:3 Letter Box.
As there are quite a lot of screens within the setup menu, a rundown of the setup menus can be viewed in the following video clip.
|
|
|
The contents of the setup menus, submenus and options are as follows:
System
Video Output
Component
SCART S-Video
SCART RGB
Progressive
TV Type
Choice of NTSC or PAL
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
--/--/---- (depends on Clock Format)
Time
--:--:--
Auto-sleep
Choice of Off, 30, 60, 90 or 120 minutes
Restore
Restore
Language
OSD
Choice of English, (Chinese), 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, Finn,
Portuguese, Norwegian or Greek
Audio
Choice of English, Chinese, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Finn,
Portuguese, Norwegian or Greek
Subtitle
Choice of English, Chinese, French, German, Italian,
Spanish, Danish, Dutch, Polish, Swedish, Finn,
Portuguese, Norwegian, Greek or Off
Playback
Aspect Ratio
Choice of 16:9 Wide, 4:3 Pan or 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
Slide Time
Off, Interval choice of 3 to 99 seconds (in single steps)
VCD PBC
Choice of On or Off
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
DTS Out
Choice of On or Off
Surround
Choice of Stereo, DOLBY or DTS
TV Audio
Choice of Stereo, Main, SAP (sub) or Mono
MPEG
Choice of PCM or Bit Stream
TV Tuner
TV Signal Antenna
Choice of Antenna, Cable or Auto
Country
Choice of Eire, Germany, Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria,
Italy, Spain, Portugal, England, France, Luxembourg
or Belgium.
Utilities
Scan Channel
Edit Channel
Fine Tune
-24 to 24 (in single steps)
Exit
Tuning in terrestrial TV channels
As with setting up a VCR for the first time, terrestrial TV channels must be tuned in before it is possible to begin making a recording from one. Like most modern VCRs, this Recorder features automatic tuning, so all the user has to do is sort out the channels it finds as well as enter their names.
The tuning menu can be accessed by pressing 'Setup' and navigating down to the 'TV' thumbnail. Select the TV Signal type, country and select 'Scan Channel' within the 'Utilities' sub-menu. The Recorder will spend a few minutes seeking out the channels.
Once the Recorder finishes tuning in its channels, the list can be edited by selecting 'Edit Channel', as shown in the following screenshot.
While the channel editor menu has some useful features, there are at least two useful features missing from this. These are the ability to automatically pick up the channel names as well as the ability to manually tune a channel. Then again, entering a channel name is fairly straight forward assuming there is a TV handy to compare against the TV's own tuned channels. Fine tuning channels is possible also.
Although there is no option to manually tune in channels, the Recorder does pick up even very weak channels during its automatic scan. For example in our area, we can pick up very weak channels from a far away television transmission mast and the Recorder had no problem picking these up during its scan:
The lack of manual tuning does have a drawback in that it is not possible to simply add a channel should a new one start up, especially when it comes to cable TV or an area where it is common to see channels frequently start up and leave. The only way to add a new channel is to do a full scan again, which also means having to resort the channels as well as name them again.
Setting the recording options
This Recorder gives a choice of five recording modes. These range from High Quality to Super Long Play. When it comes to recording a programme directly on to its hard drive just to watch once and delete, the High Quality mode would be ideal. However, if the user wants to transfer their recording to DVD at a later stage or wishes to record directly to DVD, the recording quality is important since the DVD Recorder cannot re-encode an already recorded programme to fit to DVD and longer recording modes result in lower quality recordings.
Our recommendations would be as follows:
HQ Transferring a DV tape (up to 60 minutes) to DVD SP General everyday recordings as well as movies and programmes up to 2 hours, transferring a DV tape recorded in long play or transferring up to 2 hours of VHS recording. LP Movies or programmes of between 2 and 3 hours or transferring 2 to 3 hours of VHS recordings to DVD. EP Movies of between 3 and 4 hours or transferring 3 to 4 hours of VHS recordings to DVD. SLP Transferring low to moderate quality VHS tapes to DVD to such as a 3 Hour tape filled of long play recordings.
The recording options can be set by pressing 'Setup', navigating down to the 'Record' thumbnail and pressing the 'Right' arrow to select the sub-menu:
The Chapter Mark allows the automatic marking of a chapter at a given interval. The advantage with automatic marking is the ability to quickly navigate through a lengthy recording during playback. As the fast-forward feature only goes up to 16X, it would take about 4 minutes to navigate through an hours worth of recording, however by marking chapters at ever 5 minute interval, skipping an hours worth of content can be quickly done by pressing the 'Next Chapter' button 12 times. Chapter marks can be easily removed later such as to only place marks at certain parts of a recording.
Features and bundle
Same for the OEM-Version, Philips 520H
To me, the audio sounds fine directly from the Lite-On itself and I didn't notice any unusual background hiss, unlike what most PC onboard soundcards pick up. I tried recording from various sources including CDs, over SCART, TV, etc. However, as the audio output (over Phono and SCART) is fairly high, it can cause distortion on audio equipment that has very sensitive inputs. For example on my PC's sound card, I had to set the Line-in level fairly close to the bottom to avoid the input meter from peaking.
I did also check for other issues that people mentioned in user reviews back in January such as audio-video sync problems after an hour of recording, remote keys acting if pressed twice, etc. However I haven't encountered any issue with the remote and after a 2.5 hour recording, the audio & video was still in perfect sync that I could see, i.e. 'B' & 'P' sounds matched the person's lips.
And it´s the best magazine for video-equipment and can not be compared with magazine´s like Audio-Video-Bild usw.
And I read in many forum´s that almost nobody can say that Liteon DVD-Recorders have a good picture-quality
I have seen Microsoft often use image and audio analysis to show that their codecs beats other audio and visual codecs and for a good while I often seen people boasting about how good Windows Media sounds & looks until later when visual & listening tests have changed this around.
Contacted Liteon & ended up taking 5 days off work, each time I was waiting in for the unit to be collected. Eventually, Liteon agreed to send an upgraded unit - 5045B and uplift the old one at the same time.
4 months later, this new machine suffered the same fate. I had originally put a couple of films onto DVD so I knew this feature worked.
Contacted Liteon, this time I lost 2 day's pay waiting for collection & then delivery of the repaired item.
2 months later, I have the self same problem - the machine simply doesn't recognise any DVD-r/rw, +r/rw, or even blank CDs.
When it works, this machine is the business, when it breaks down, it's a real PITA getting it fixed.
Rather than waste any more money taking time off work, I'm going to spend a day's wages & buy a standalone DVD recorder & link to this machine. It will pay for itself straight away because I won't need to take a second day off work.
And BTW, I tried to upgrade the firmware but the machine won't recognise any disk that is or was blank, so I have a CD full of firmware upgrades now destined for the bin.
Serial Number 002535611284
LVW 5045 HARD DRIVE FAILURE **PLEASE HELP**
I bought mine in sept 2005 and except for menu bounce its worked satifactorly untill the other day when I tried to play a disc it read 'Invalid'. I have it set at 'Region Free' and the disc's I want ed to play were 'Region 4'. Oddly it played Regions 1 & 2 without difficulty. Even after resetting to Region 4 it still didnt want to work.
On VideoHelp site, some members reported replacing the DVD drive which in some cases worked.
The label on the case says Lite-On IT' a DDW-813S but the mother board is by Sony with no discernable other details.
As far as I am aware the HDD is still working ok.
No one tried the swap option??
This message was edited at: 25-06-2008 15:01
The bad news is that there is NO after warranty expires service available for any Lite-On product.
I was advised that during warranty the item is replaced not repaired due to cost but do they replace the whole item or cannabalise another so you get your original unit back?
So depending on its price, you would have to seriously consider paying for an extended warranty or be prepared to replace the unit if it fails one day after the warranty runs out.
add a tag
