Fast Facts

DIMENSIONS (WxHxD) 17 x 2.625 x 12.5 inches PRICE $399 MANUFACTURER Lite-On USA, liteonamericas.com, 408-935-5353

Key Features

•Records on DVD+R/RW and DVD-R/RW discs as well as 160-GB hard drive •High-speed dubbing between hard drive and DVD •inputs/outputs i.Link (FireWire) input; front-panel composite-video input, composite/S-video inputs and outputs, component-video output (switchable between interlaced and progressive-scan), all with stereo analog audio; coaxial and optical digital audio outputs; RF input/feedthrough output •rear outputs composite/S-video with stereo audio; optical digital audio

After last month’s spotlight review of three budget DVD recorders, I concluded that the only thing missing from those surprisingly feature-laden models was a built-in hard-disk recorder (HDR). Voilà! — the Lite-On LVW-5045 comes with a 160-gigabyte (GB) hard drive and even goes beyond the capabilities of similar DVD/hard-disk combos I’ve seen.

Along with its extraordinarily versatile HDR, the LVW-5045, like other decks from LiteOn, features AllWrite technology, which lets you record on four disc formats: DVD-R, DVD-RW, DVD+R, and DVD+RW. No more worries about finding blanks your recorder can use! Most DVD recorders aren’t nearly so format-friendly, and even those that do record on both “dash” and “plus” media still have manuals with dozens of small-print exceptions to the recorder’s operation that depend on what you have in the disc drawer. But the LVW-5045 treats each format equally. Even better, with any disc type, the deck also lets you mark chapters and “hide” them during playback — perfect for making commercials disappear.

But the really big deal here is the spacious hard drive and the deck’s ability to capture recordings to it and then dub them to DVD at high speed. And the way it makes high-speed dubs from DVDs to the hard drive presents some interesting capabilities.

SETUP The LVW-5045 is fairly easy to set up. Aside from the normal DVD player setup operations, there’s not much to do but connect the inputs and outputs, set the clock, and run the automatic channel-finding feature for the built-in TV tuner.

But that simplicity masks some aspects that may be important to you. The recorder lacks the electronic program guide that can make other DVD/hard-drive combos so easy to use for time-shift recording. The LVW-5045 also lacks an infrared (IR) emitter that would let it directly control a cable/satellite box, which means you have to set up all timer recordings either manually or using the VCR Plus+ system. And if you’re getting programs via cable or satellite, you’ll have to program that box as well.

EDITING Lite-On’s editing system is perfect for zapping commercials because it allows you to insert or remove chapter markers within a recorded program in all formats, including those made to the hard drive. You mark a block of commercials as a chapter and designate it as “hidden” so the ads are skipped on playback.

PLUS •Records in same way to four formats. •Bit-perfect high-speed dubbing. •Fine image and sound quality. MINUS •Takes practice to cue editing points. •Awkward remote control. •No electronic program guide. •No IR emitter for cable/satellite box.

Of course, there’s a little catch. Chapter hiding has long been a key feature of the DVD+RW format, and in effect, Lite-On’s recorder treats any disc (and the hard drive) as if it were a DVD+RW. Although you can record on any “plus” or “dash” disc, unless you play back the recording on the same deck or another Lite-On recorder with AllWrite technology, any chapter hiding you do that wasn’t done on a DVD+RW disc will be ignored, and your commercials will rise from the dead like zombies in some horror movie. Furthermore, any chapter markers you add or delete on other disc types will not be recognized on machines that lack AllWrite. If you stick mainly to recordings for your own home, that’s a small price to pay for this kind of disc flexibility.

There is a workaround if you’re only looking to make a keeper disc on a format other than DVD+RW and don’t need to re-edit it later. Just do all of your editing on the hard drive. Once you’re satisfied with the final cut and burn your keeper DVD, those commercials will be gone for good — chapters hidden on the edited hard-drive recording disappear altogether when you dub from the hard drive to DVD.

It’s easy to insert or clear chapter markers or to designate a chapter as “hidden” — just push a button — but it’s tricky to cue up the recorder to the precise point where you want a chapter to start or end. Slow-motion playback is not available during editing, and frame-by-frame advance is provided only in the forward direction.

Complicating things is that chapter markers are inserted a fraction of a second before the point in the program at which you paused to hit the Insert Chapter button. So your first attempt at removing commercials might lop off a fraction of a second of the preceding program segment and leave the last frames of the commercial before the start of the next segment.

The lack of cueing precision in reverse is the kind of thing that may be addressed by downloadable firmware updates, as provided for on the Lite-On Web site. What a firmware update can’t address is the awkwardness of the remote control, whose main buttons are too closely spaced and barely protrude above the surface, making them hard to navigate by touch.

DUBBING On the upside, the high-speed dubbing from HDR to DVD was a real treat. Lite-On makes no claims about speed, but I was able to burn a 1-hour episode of Revelations — originally recorded onto the hard disk in the 1-hour HQ (high-quality) mode — to each of the DVD formats in about 18 minutes. If I’d used the lower-quality 3-hour LP mode for the original recording, the dubbing time would have decreased to about 6 minutes for a 1-hour program. Video quality was excellent in the high-quality mode and at slower speeds was on par with what we’ve come to expect from DVD recorders (see “in the lab”).

High-speed dubbing does have a few restrictions, however. The original hard-disk recording must fit on the DVD you’re dubbing it to. The deck doesn’t record on dual-layer discs, you can’t change recording modes during a dub, and there’s no real-time, normal-speed dubbing between hard disk and DVD as found on other DVD/HDR combos. You also need high-speed DVD blanks. My speed tests were obtained with 8x and 4x discs.

A great feature is that the high-speed dubbing also works in the other direction, from DVD to the HDR — and a bit faster, too. Not only that, but the high-speed dubbing process is bit-perfect! Everything playable gets transferred to the hard drive — menus, soundtracks, subtitles, camera angles, whatever. I could play the hard-disk files for the titles I copied as if the discs were still in the drawer.

Of course, the catch this time is that copy-protected DVDs can’t be dubbed, period. But homegrown DVD productions and the occasional unprotected title transfer just fine. Once on the hard disk, they can be cued faster and more smoothly than on DVD. And while you can’t edit DVD-to-HDR dubs, they can be dubbed onto blank DVDs, also with bit-perfect accuracy.

BOTTOM LINE Except for the predictable bother of timer recording without an electronic program guide, the LVW-5045 was a breeze to use. I even got used to its peculiarities of cueing — probably because I was so taken by its ability to do high-speed dubbing with no loss of quality. It’s a fine DVD recorder, but an even better dubbing machine.

IN THE LAB
DVD-VIDEO PERFORMANCE Maximum-white level error (composite): –1 IRE Setup level (composite): 7.5 IRE Onscreen horizontal resolution: 540 lines	Horizontal luminance response (progressive-scan, re level at 2 MHz) 4/6/8 MHz: –0.1/–0.2/–0.4 dB 10/12/13.5 MHz: –1.7/–2.5/–3.6 dB In-player letterboxing good
DVD-movie playback was fine, and progressive-scan performance was free of the common faults (like color smearing), though as usual, video-originated material looked distinctly rougher than movies, with jagged diagonals often visible. Whether the source was the built-in analog tuner, the composite/S-video input, or the i.Link input, recording quality on either the hard drive or a DVD depended on the recording mode. Image quality ranged from excellent in the 1-hour HQ and 2-hour SP modes to barely watchable in the fuzzy and jerky 6-hour SLP mode. Horizontal resolution fell by around half, to 260 lines, starting with the 3-hour LP mode, producing a VHS-like softness. Video encoding artifacts such as blocking and mosquito noise were also visible in the LP mode. These became annoying in the EP mode (4 hours) and very distracting on all but the simplest program material in the SLP mode, which also halved vertical resolution (240 lines instead of 480). All DVD recorders behave like this, unfortunately. On the other hand, high-speed dubbing quality between hard drive and DVD was bit-perfect in either direction. —D.R.