First, let me say that any opinions or help is most appreciated... I bought a LiteOn LVW5005 a while back (I already have a TON of video and audio and was in radio broadcasting 25 years, so I am not too much of a rookie to electronics. Everything I record to DVD R+/- at ALL quality settings looks pretty bad. I suspect the tuner just cannot lock in the signal..it is grainy, fuzzy, and just overall crappy (I have an older liteon that looks just as bad in the other room) I emailed tech support and they were no help at all. I have it hooked up directly via coax to a sat feed from my Dish box. It DOES record, but both while monitoring and playback, the picture is washed out, fuzzy, color bland...like a worn out bad 15 year old vhs tape. I have considered buying another DVD recorder but am worried I am going to end up with this same quality. should not a dvd recorder tuner produce a sharp clear picture before and after recording??? is it possible I have a firmware issue (it is the original firmware) would it help (instead of running it between the sat and tv) to hook up past the TV and use the tv'x rca outputs????? any ideas??? thanks again!
Hi ruger22, behind the Dish Box you should have different outputs (RCA, Coaxial and S-Video). I would try to use the other outputs from your Dish Box, especially if there's a S-Video output, coax feed is the lowest quality of the three. Good luck. Let us know how it worked out. Cheers CC
Let's first determine what your firmware version is ... turn your recorder on, Tv on .. press the 'setup' button and a series of numbers and several letters will appear in the upper right hand corner of the picture ... example: SN:0102-1840-0098-B20B(013-010D) this will tell us what firmware you have, what drive is in your machine, whether you have disabled copy protection recognition, if your machine can record in 3hr mode etc... Probably my main 2 complaints about the LVW5005 recorders are the cheap drives that they put in them and the low quality tuner. I use the VCRs that my recorders replaced as tuners. I connect them to the DVD recorders via RCA cables (I connect to the front jacks since I have the DVD players connected to the rear jacks). The coaxial connectors are, as you've found out, are pretty much useless All DVD recorders have their drawbacks, it's still a relatively new technology and I'm sure that it will improve as time goes on. A couple of the LVW5005's strengths are the facts that they are easy to hack, disabling the macrovision (good for backing up that copyprotected VHS collection, or recording certain stations like HBO that encrypt their signals) and adding a 3hr recording mode, which is handy for the extra long movie that one occasionally encounters. It also is very simple to replace the drive and a standard LiteOn PC drive will fit/work and improves the recording quality dramatically. Click on my user name and read my blog for step-by-step instructions ... When you figure out your number, post it and we'll go from there Good Luck Victor
@catfreak, If one replaced the drive with a standard PC drive, would the remote still be functional as before? We bought a LVW 5115GHC from Costco Canada, using +RW discs did not play in my older Toshiba. I used what burning programs I had, ie: XCopy RF and CloneDvd2, booktyped to dvd-rom, but still had playback issues in my Toshiba. If I fastforwarded, I lost the sound. This did not happen on newer players. Interesting was the fact that CloneDvd2 identified the LiteOn as a Philips drive?
Yes, the remote will still function as normal ... inside the set top recorders are a normal 40 pin IDE cable and a standard power cable just like you'd find inside your PC For some reason Toshiba DVD players don't seem to like DVD+R discs even if you booktype them to DVD-ROM ... very picky .. you need to stick with the DVD-R discs if you are going to play them in a Toshiba player
Thanks for the info Catfreak. I will pick up some -R's and go from there. Don't know if my Toshiba (model year 2000) will play them, never tried. I definitely know they won't play +R without the booktype changed. I did have a firmware update years ago. I'm using Sony +RW's (RicohJpn) that are 2.4X speed in the LiteOn. Does media speed have any effect to the quality of the recording?
I've used OfficeDepot branded 2.4x +RW discs (RicohJpn coded) in my LiteOn successfully .. I don't know if the disc speed has any bearing with the set top recorders .. maybe some of the newer 16x stuff .. I usually use either made in Taiwan Sony 1x-8x +R or Verbatim 4x +RW discs in mine ...
Thanks oh great catman and others (I used to breed Maine Coon Cats Myself).... I moved the lite-on to my computer room last night, figuring I would have better luck hooking it up direct to my dish box (bought a new toshiba player for the living room where it used to be)...then discovered the old tv in that computer/dish room only has a coax input....so I am on hold waiting for a modulater I ordered last night, then I can figure out what the firmware is (right now I cannot hook it up). Back in a few days...thanks! Bob aka ruger22
I finally got the modulator, hooked it up, and realized I still need to split the coax from the satillite into 2 lines to make everything work...but I did get it hooked up enough to get the firmware...which is: sn:0102-1840-0101-G2BD(100-101D) does this tell you what you need to know? would a hacked fw help the tuner quality situation? I may get a second rf modulator to convert the signal from the satillite coax to an rca or s-vhs signal into the lite-on..(thus eliminating coax altogather in or out of the liteon). do you think this also might help? p.s..can you believe a neighbor of ours has a beautiful pure bred bengal whole male she lets run loose in our neighborhood? sure gonna be some fine looking alley cats around here! Thanks catfreak!
Thanks catfreak! I finally hooked it up using the turner from an older VCR and the difference is amazing. god, the tuner in that lite-on is an absolute piece of junk. Now I am getting razor sharp recordings (in 2 hour mode)onto dvd's from my sat's digital recorder. Thanks so much!
I too am having a bit of a problem with my LVW-5005 LiteOn DVD recorder. In general I have had great success with it. For over a year it has performed flawlessly recording TV from my cable box. Suddenly it has developed an inability to prepare the disks. They are exactly the same manufacture of disks that I have been using in it for over a year. (TDK DVD-R printable disks) It loads the disk, tries to prepare it and tries and tries and tries and then says "failed". But from time to time it will succeed. From the beginning I have been running it with the "hack" I got from Mr. Wizard to get the 3 hour recording capability and it has been working fine. It still plays fine, but won't format the blank disks to prepare them for recording reliably anymore. Is there anything can be done about this, or is it now downgraded to a simple DVD player?
catfreak: In your message dated 26. April 2006 @ 10:48 you wrote "It also is very simple to replace the drive and a standard LiteOn PC drive will fit/work and improves the recording quality dramatically. Click on my user name and read my blog for step-by-step instructions ..." I clicked on your user name and couldn't find the blog entry with the step-by-step instructions for replacing the LVW-5005 drive. Also, you wrote that "a standard LiteOn PC drive will fit/work." I have looked online at the photo on the box for those drives (ddw 411S) and it looks like a standard drive case--a box with screw holes on the side. The drive in the LVW-5005 is in a very different kind of case; the screw holes are vertical through the plastic. A regular drive (they are all rectangular boxes cases with screw holes horizontal through the case) won't fit inside the LVW-5005. My LVW-5005 worked fine for 2 years. Now the problem I have is, I think, a mechanical one with the drive. When I press the open/close button on the unit or remote, the drive clicks like the tray is trying to open but it doesn't open. I have, with great difficulty, removed the drive. Following someone else's advice I hooked it up to my PC's cables and clicked "Eject" in Windows Explorer; same non-result. I took the drive apart as much as I could and can't see what the problem is. Can you recommend anyone, particularly in Northern Virginia, who can repair the drive, or tell me how to repair it? I tried hooking up a Pioneer 8x DVD burner drive to the cables in the LVW-5005, but the open/close button on the LVW-5005 doesn't open the drive tray. I put a couple of different disks in the drive (blank and previously recorded) and the Guider says "Change Disk." Thanks, David
Is there more than one hack for the LVW-5005? I saw one from Mr. Wizard ILO/LiteOn Firmware Hacker - Version 1.5 Are there others? Any comments on which is best if there is more than one? Also I seem to be getting "off colors" tends to be greenish in the shadows instead of black? Would this be from the hack? And my first LVW-5005 (I have two) is acting up, won't "prepare" a disk anymore, just tries and makes some clicking noises and says "failed". Any ideas what to do? Its way out of warranty of course! Great tip on using the old VCR as a tuner! Thanks!
this is what happens i put disc in fine it prepares disc for recording (sometimes i have same problem as some others here it just keeps preparing until failed comes up when it does prepare one )it records disc fine, than i playback disc its fine i finalize disc ,that works good . i playback disc after finalizing it plays fine,until i take disc out put it back in wella invalid disc or no disc comes up so cant play it back they work fine on other dvd players on the pc even on the xbox and playstation 2 i have tried laser cleaner no help i have downloaded latest firmware from site did this on the 26/5/2006 still having same problems my drive makes some loud noises but think its always been a noisy player loud hum even when not in use eg left on standby
@NOJINKS - The green tints could be caused from an old f/w version. Updating the firmware should fix that. It fixed my green tint problem.
