Lite-On LVW-5045 Review – Standalone HDD+DVD Recorder

These are the specifications of this drive, found at the Lite-On webpage:

Let us first start by taking a look at the retail packaging as well as what the drive ships with.

The following images show the retail box this drive shipped in.

Front – The drive we received came in a cardboard box, similar to the boxes most VCRs come in.  This is the top of the box.

Front & Rear sides.

Left Side

Right Side

The contents of the package are as follows

The retail bundle consists of

• HDD + DVD Recorder
• RF Aerial Male to Female Coaxial lead
• SCART Male to Male Lead
• 3 x Male Phono to Male Phono Lead
• Power Lead
• Remote Control inc. Batteries
• Blank unbranded DVD+RW
• User’s Manual
• Recommended Disc List Sheet
• Quick Start Guide

This bundle seems to have everything one could want to get started, including a blank DVD+RW!  Note that the included leads will vary depending on where this drive is purchased from.  For example, TVs in the US do not have a SCART connector, so chances are that this drive will be bundled with an SVHS lead for the US market.  Phono leads are also known as RCA leads in the US.

Now, let us take a look at the Recorder itself:

At a first glance from a distance, the drive looks similar to a DVD player, however upon looking close up, there are a couple of things that clearly indicate it has much more to offer besides playing DVDs:

The logos shown above consist of

• HDD ‘“ Hard Disc Drive
• DVD ‘“ Video
• Compact disc ‘“ Digital Video
• Compact disc ‘“ Rewritable
• DOLBY DIGITAL
• WMA (Microsoft’s proprietary audio codec)
• DoMiNo ‘“ Visibly Superior (More about this on the next page)

The following image shows the controls on the Recorder as well as the inputs on the front of the drive:

Like most VCRs, this drive comes with a few basic controls on the Recorder itself:  Eject, Play, Stop, HDD / DVD selection, Record and Video Source.  While the Record button may come in handy if someone is in a hurry to start recording (but not enough time to locate their remote), it does lack the channel navigation buttons, which means the user would still need to grab / find the remote if they need to record off another channel first.

The small left rectangular input is a DV Link for hooking up a DV compatible camcorder and the three connections to the right are phono inputs for composite video and stereo audio.

The right of the display shows Lite-On’s ‘All write’ logo along with the model number.  A blue LED lights to the left to indicate whether the Recorder is in ‘DVD’ or ‘HDD’ mode.

Now let us take a look at the rear of the drive:

Again, at a first glance, this looks similar to most other DVD players, although most do not have a fan or RF aerial connections.  The following image shows a close up of these connections and which each is for:

The rear of the Recorder has the following connections:

• Tuner
  • RF Out ‘“ RF Coaxial out to the TV
  • RF In ‘“ RF Coaxial in from an Aerial or Cable TV
• Digital Out
  • Optical ‘“ Digital out for an amplifier that has an optical in
  • Coaxial ‘“ Digital out for an amplifier that has a coaxial in
• SCART (May only be available in certain regions)
  • SCART IN ‘“ Audio & Video input from the output of other equipment such as a VCR or satellite receiver or to connect up a decoder.
  • SCART OUT ‘“ Audio & Video out to TV (supports RGB, composite and SVHS out).
• AV Output
  • Video Out ‘“ Composite video out for legacy equipment that does not have a SCART or SVHS input, yet has a composite video input.
  • Audio Out ‘“ Stereo audio out for connecting up to a stereo, Dolby surround sound amplifier or to supply the audio when used in conjunction with the Composite or Component video outputs.
• Component Out
  • 3 x Phono component video output for higher quality video on displays that have component input.

As with any other set top box, probably the most important gadget to operate the unit is the remote:

The following image shows a close-up of the top section:

The main channel selection buttons are in this section, along with the power and Eject buttons.  We’ll discuss about the Setup and Display buttons later.

The following image shows a close-up of the lower section:

The Guider & Browser buttons at the top allow for quick navigation through content on either the hard drive or on disc.  The navigation controls and options in the middle work in the same way as with other DVD players, although in this case the navigation can also be used to navigate through the menus.  Finally the two rows of buttons at the bottom mostly consist of shortcuts.  We’ve seen ‘SHOWVIEW’ in the place of ‘Video Plus+’ on another LVW-5045 remote; however it performs the same operation.  We’ll discuss more about these later.

The record button to the bottom right works just like on a VCR.  As there is no issue with having to fast forward to a blank spot on this Recorder (unlike a VCR), there is no safety measure to worry about either, such as having to press record twice or along with another key.  Those days of accidentally overwriting a tape are gone!

Finally for those of you who are interested in the printed information plate and the various other labels that can be found on the rear of the drive, these are shown in the following images:

Drive information plate

Dolby and patent use info

Laser and ‘Do Not Open’ hazard warnings

Serial # and date of manufacture