Shola's Home Gadgets

Okay this is not a true review, but merely my opinion of the Liteon LVW-5026 and how it meets up to my requirements of a DVD/HDD recorder

I got this player as my old Samsung 709 DVD player was on its last leg of providing service, the main problem with it was freezing while playing a lot of rented DVDs. So I needed a new DVD player, but also once in a while I need to transfer a home video onto DVD, so a DVD recorder would be useful as my computer does not have a DVD writer, but more importantly I need something my wife would be able to use. The HDD was added as a last requirement to allow us to record programs from the TV, as we don't have a VCR connected to our SKY digital receiver, A HDD recorder meaning we don't have to mess about with tapes.

Having set these requirements, I had a look at various models, and settled on the Liteon, based on their proven reliability in the DVD writer world, and affordability. The Liteon LVW-5026 is a multi format DVD recorder with a 80GB hard drive, there is the Liteon LVW 5045 which has a 160GB drive for those who need more storage space.

The first thing I noted about the Liteon LVW-5026 was it took a long time to boot up. Now I've never had a DVD/HDD recorder before, so I can't say if this is normal, but compared to my old faithful Samsung 709 DVD player it was too long.

Once it is booted up, there wasn't any problems playing DVDs, all my current DVDs (not a lot I must confess) play fine, this includes my region one DVDs. I got my Liteon from SVP and it looks like it was multi-region out of the box.
Some people on the Liteon User Forum have mentioned some problems with widescreen switch when playing DVDs, but I have not had any such problems with my player.

The DVD recorder works fine, though I have only used it with DVD +R media and CDs (to produce a VCD) without any problems. The DVD interface is very basic, so don't expect to be able to create fancy DVD menus, you will need a PC for that. This is a single layer recorder, so you can expect about 2 hours of video using standard Play quality, more if you reduce the quality.

The HDD recorder is simple to use, if you want to record the current program, just press the record button once after changing to HDD mode of course, this will set the recorder to record for 30mins, so 2 presses of the record button will give 1 hour etc. Pausing live TV again is just easy, press the timeshift button once and live TV is paused, as the recorder archives the current program to disk. You can also set up timed recordings, but note the recorder CAN NOT control a satellite or freeview receiver, this is not a problem for me, as I have SKY, and the receiver has an autoview function in the personal planner, so I put the required program in the personal planner with autoview, set the Liteon to record from the scart, and it works. If you have child protection on SKY you will need to disable this if recording a rated program other wise you will have a recording of a blue screen with enter your PIN. I don't have freeview so can't advise on how to use the Liteon LVW-5026 to do timed recordings with freeview, but you can go to the Liteon Users forum where you should be able to get some help.

One thing that I've noticed with timed recordings, is that expired recordings are not automatically deleted, something that Liteon needs to address, as one would expect this from a machine of this calibre.

Apart from the 2 negative points I've mentioned, I'm pretty happy with the machine, and I'm sure I will get to love it the more I use it.

Any questions leave a comment.