Hi, owners of Lite-On 5045 GDL+, please read this message, as it will possibly help improving a future firmware:

I would love to receive feedback from other Lite-On 5045GDL+ owners on whether you have problems playing certain encoded material. To make a long story shorter: I bought three of the 5045 recorders as I wanted to use them as DivX/Xvid playback machines more than recorders, since the players were cheap. Then I discovered that the playback didn't work well on Divx or Xvid. Certain resolutions work and other don't work. (See list at the end of this message).

And yes, the machines I bought all have the newest firmware. The newest firmware was on all the players when I bought them, but I anyway also tried to (re-) flash one of the players with the newest firmware which I downloaded from the internet.

Since I tested my findings on two of the machines I have access to and both displayed identical errors on DivX/ XviD playback, I severely doubt that it is a hardware error but naturally a firmware error, but Lite-On customer service didn't resonate the same way as I did. Here's their typical standard response, which I received to the rather extensive bug report about the DivX playback:

Dear Sir or Madam,
Thank you for contacting LiteON IT Support.
Sorry for the inconvenience we caused.
In general, LVW-5045GDL+ can support the Divx format file.
Based on your information, it seems the unit is defective, and the latest firmware can't solve these problems.
First we suggest you send it back to store for service.
And you could contact our local service center for further help.

(And of course the customer service person responding to me wouldn't write his or hers name on his/hers response to me).

Well here's what I wish: I would like it if other owners of this DVD Recorder would check out whether the resolutions I have analysed will work or not on their players? If so, you can reach me on " solarborne#gmail.com " (change the # symbol to the correct symbol)... and I can through email send you a couple of clips with examples of resolutions I have found the 5045GDL+ having problems reading, and then you could confirm to me whether (or not) you can play the selected resolutions on your own 5045GDL+ machines. If it shows that the 5045GDL+ indeed has a bug on the firmware regarding DivX/ XviD playback, then Lite-On's Customer Service perhaps will listen if several people report the same error.

Well, here's the analysis on different DivX/ Xvid resolutions that play or don't play on the 5045GDL+, and the following resolutions is PAL and fullscreen. (NTSC has different resolutions working or not working, and the different widescreen resolutions appear to work better on plaback, but not good enough.)

I didn't started out on the lowest bitrate but started with:
368x272 (No = Not working on plaback)
384x288 Yes = working on playback)
400x288 Yes
416x304 Yes
432x320 No
448x320 Yes
464x336 Yes
480x352 Yes
496x368 No
512x368 Yes
528x384 Yes
544x400 No
560x416 No
576x416 Yes
592x432 Yes
608x448 No
624x464 No
640x464 Yes
656x480 Yes
672x496 No
688x496 Yes
704x512 Yes
720x525 Yes
736x544 From this bitrate and above the player only come with an an error saying: ("At least one of the following formats is not supported by the DVD decoder.. etc)
752x544 and 768x560 abd 784x576 and 800x592 (and higher than this) shows the same "unrecognisable format". (But then the highest of these last resolutions aren't really used much anyway).