Lite-On 5045 first impressions

[qkholland]

I got my 5045 about a week and half ago. This is my first DVD/HDD recorder.

Keys to the description:

o Useful feature.
. Works as advertised but not that useful in particular.
- Would have been nice to have but lacking
x Does not work as advertised or documented in the manual.

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o "AllWrite". Works with +RW, +R, -RW, and -RW.

o Has a reasonably big hard disk (160GB; 66hrs at SP quality).

o Can view an earlier part of a program while it is still being recorded.

. TimeShift. This essentially is to start recording immediately and then using the "view program currently being recorded" except that the recorded program will not stay on the harddisk. Pressing "Record" to start recording and then pressing "Play" to start viewing the program being recorded would be equivalent, and furthermore you would be able to edit or copy what's recorded later if you so desire.

- Coax output from the unit does not seem to pass Line 21 closed captioning information intact. The recorded broadcast, when burned on a DVD and played on a different player, does show closed captions, so it is not fatal but still it is inconvenient not to be able to see them with the unit.

- Cannot view other recorded programs or DVD while recording.

- While viewing the program currently being recorded, skipping to next/previous chapter does not work. You have to navigate with fast forward/backward.

x You cannot move too far with fast forward/backward while viewing the program currently being recorded like so; the fast forwarding freezes after a while. Fortunately you can recover from this problem by pressing "Play" and then by doing fast forward/backward from there.

x Sometimes pressing "Record" after powering the unit up (and waiting for it to settle down) results in "Write failure" error message and the recording does not start. This is irritating when using the unit interactively but pressing "Record" for the second time usually starts recording. However the same problem is fatal when it happens upon timer recording. The unit powers up 2 minutes or so before the programmed time, and turns itself off upon the first "Write failure" error message.

x Timer recording has "Advanced" feature that lets you specify the beginning date and the end date of repeated entry. However, the unit does not seem to take these dates into account when checking the conflicts. For example, setting "Every Monday 08:00am-09:00am beginning on 2005-01-03 and ending on 2005-01-24" conflicts with 2004-12-27 (Monday) 07:00am-09:00am". It shouldn't.

x Split sometimes makes the unit hang and the program being edited gets irreparably and unplayably corrupted.

x Insert + Hide chapter sometimes does not work. Resulting movie stops when there is such a problematic chapter mark.

x Defragment sometimes gets stuck way below 100% and stops making any progress. This does not crash the unit though. Pressing "Enter" while on-screen cursor is on the "Defragmenting" seems to make it resume progress.

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I am curious to see what would happen if I did the following:

- Timer record two progrems, one starting at 20:00 for 1
hour on channel X and another starting at 21:00 for 1 hour
on channel Y.

- At 20:50, start viewing the program being recorded.

What would happen at 21:00? Will the playback suddenly stop
when the unit starts recording the second program?
Otherwise, can I continue to watch the first program, and if
so can I still navigate within the first program viewing
earlier parts of it? If I press "Stop" once and then press
"Play" to activate the "view current program" feature after
21:00, presumably I would be watching the second program.

[lordsmurf]

I think some of your expectations are unreal.

Here's a list of common ones:
- View earlier content while still recording.
- Since the 80s, RECORD+PLAY is the remote combo to start recording, not just RECORD.
- For anything beyond 4 hours to be high quality.
- To expect video equipment to start with zero-length warm-up period
- For it to auto-remove commercials
- Record multiple channels/programs at the same time.

Also, some things people forget:
- Cheap media yields bad results
- Remember to go into the menu and set up things like chapters.
- Hiding chapters only works when played back on the recorder.


Sure, some of these things are on some recorders, but don't expect miracles.

I almost miss the 80s. Back when we were quite happy with the mere fact that we could record tv shows now.

[belder]

Thanks for the post! Great information. This just confirms that the 5045 is the same as the iLO HD04 but with a bigger drive and + and - record. (which the iLO should do with the right firmware) iLO is supposed to release new firmware for the HD04 this Wednesday. Whether is fixes "everything" as they claim remains to be seen. I suspect new firmware will be released soon. You may try checking the Liteonamericas page for the latest.

[tipstir]

These dream units making the DVD recorders a good idea but look at all the problems we're all coming into.

The ones with the HDD in them doesn't it feel like you have a small PC connected to your TV?

I still say you're better off turning your PC into HTPC install two DVD units,

1. DVD Recorder RW-+ Dual Layer 16x or higher
2. DVD Reader -+ 16x
3. RF/A/S-V/A-V Hardware MPEG2 Capture Card with Stereo dbx
4. HDD 160GB, 200GB, 250GB, 300GB and up
5. Media MVP Network Device (PC to TV)
6. GB-PVR freeware (PC Server to TV)

Yes I do agree, the 80's was great just to use the VCR to record anything on TV with analog dial twin tuner VHF/UHF wow!

[qkholland]

Funny. Most of the things you listed above do not coincide with *my* expectations. I think the way I described the "write failure immediately after powering up" problem was misunderstood by you (and probably by many other people). I am simply expecting things to just work and nothing fancier (at least not yet).

After powering up (and waiting for the unit to settle, which I do *not* mind), attempting to start recording fails sometimes. This is *not* because I am not waiting long enough. The unit attempts to write and says "write failure".

This is merely irritating when using the unit interactively (because it usually works if you retry). However this is *fatal* during the timer recording. The unit wakes up a couple of minutes before the programmed time, waits until the programmed time, and then starts recording. When the "write failure" happens at this point, it simply turns itself off, since there is nobody to press "Record" to tell it to attempt recording again at that point.

[qkholland]

Also, some things people forget:
...
- Hiding chapters only works when played back on the recorder.

Fortunately this does not seem to be the case for 5045 and my other DVD player combination. I edited a TV broadcast recorded on HDD to hide chapters and burned a DVD+RW from it. Playing the media on another DVD player worked as expected

[lordsmurf]

Ah... a HDD is the difference, I meant on-disc hiding.

Write errors are probably bad media.

[qkholland]

Ah... a HDD is the difference, I meant on-disc hiding.
Write errors are probably bad media.

Sorry to be dense, but what do you mean by on-disc hiding?

Hiding chapters works on a title stored on the HDD. Copying such a title with hidden chapters to DVD+RW and playing it on another DVD player (I have a Samsung V2500 VCR/DVD player combo) works (i.e. I do not have to watch hidden chapters).

Regarding write errors, if you are referring to the "write failure" message, it happened when recording to the HDD. The US customer support person also asked what media I was using, and my answer was "eh, I do not know. Whatever your factory puts in the unit --- I suspect it is a Maxtor."

I am suspecting that the firmware sometimes failed to spin the HDD up after being powered on, or something silly like that, but I haven't seen it happen since I updated the firmware with 191-US version found at http://www.liteonit.com.tw/DC/english/download.htm.

A note to caution others about the firmware update. When I talked with the US customer support I was told that the firmware on their international site was not for use in the US. Yes, the download filename says "191-US" but the customer support person did not even want to argue about this.

[lordsmurf]

What media, as in BLANK DVDs

On-disc hiding, as in the DVD+R and DVD+RW non-HDD units have NO HARD DRIVE and write to media. You can "hide" stuff, but since it was already written, it's there. The "hide" only works on the recorder, not other players. On the HDD, you're not hiding, you're selectively deleting parts you do not want written to disc.

If you write to the HDD, no discs, and it gives WRITE FAIL errors, take your unit back. It's defective hard drive.

[qkholland]

A note to caution others about the firmware update. When I talked with the US customer support I was told that the firmware on their international site was not for use in the US. Yes, the download filename says "191-US" but the customer support person did not even want to argue about this.

It is also worth to point out that the latest firmware 193-US which was released this week is linked from their US site (http://www.liteonamericas.com/). I take it an indication that this time around it was tested for the US market and the LiteOn customer support people are prepared to talk about problems using that version.

[qkholland]

...I am curious to see what would happen if I did the following:...

After updating my 5045 to the latest 193-US firmware, I tried the two-program-back-to-back test I mentioned earlier. The result was not pretty .

(1) Set a timer recording program to HDD, SP mode, starting at 23:15 and ending at 23:20, source from TV ch. 17. Set another timer recording program to HDD, SP mode, starting at 23:20 and ending at 23:25, source from TV ch. 24. Turn off the unit and wait.

(2) At around 23:13 the unit turns itself up to "prepare". At 23:15 it starts recording the program from ch. 17.

(3) At around 23:17, press "PLAY" button on the remote, to activate "playing while recording" feature. I can watch the program being recorded from the start, which is a very nice feature. "FF" and "REW" on the remote lets me move around, which also works well.

(4) Just before 23:20, I was still watching an early portion, approximately 2 minutes into the program, and was running the playback at 2x Fast-Forward. The TV screen showed the message from the unit saying "Turn me off to let me do the recording." Trouble starts here:

* The playback resumed to the normal speed, although the "Display" area at the top of the TV screen was still showing 2x.

* The unit stopped responding to buttons on the remote. The playback did not stop with "Stop" button; none of "FF", "REW", "Pause" worked. Worse yet, "Power" did not turn off the unit. The unit kept playing the program that was recorded from ch. 17.

* When the playback of what was recorded finally ended, the unit froze. The last frame from the playback was on the TV screen without sound and the unit still did not respond to the remote, nor the Power switch on the front panel.

I had to yank the power to reset it.

[Hihu]

If you write to the HDD, no discs, and it gives WRITE FAIL errors, take your unit back. It's defective hard drive.

- Or you might have damaged file structure in the HDD and you can fix it your self by erasing the drive!

Bug, causing the file structure error, is fixed in firmware 193.

- Scandisk causes folders become files, and then record will fail.

(wild guess)

[qkholland]

If you write to the HDD, no discs, and it gives WRITE FAIL errors, take your unit back. It's defective hard drive.

- Or you might have damaged file structure in the HDD and you can fix it your self by erasing the drive!
...

Thank you for your comments. After I posted about the problem, I picked up 191-US and then tried your suggestion (https://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=251355#1176942) of reinitializing the HDD and configuration. Ever since I haven't had that problem. Also recently I updated to 193-US and I have not seen the unit freezing problem while splitting titles so far.

[qkholland]

Here is a tip about a feature that was not explained in the manual.

What does using "Just Fit" quality when recording to the HDD do?

Especially I usually have more than 100 hours worth of free space left on my HDD, it would be quite funny if recording a 150 minute program at "Just Fit" quality filled up the rest of the HDD at ultra-high quality .
I've tried this a couple of times and what happens seems to be to record at the same quality as if the recording was made with "Just Fit" to a 4.7GB DVD.

[Wile_E]

"Just fit" is meant to to fit the recording to 4.7GB DVD, not the HD. It would be cool if they offered ultra-high bitrates, but then you couldn't burn it to DVD without re-compressing.

[johnahl]

Deleted. Sorry, I don't know how to really delete this message. When I hover over the edit button it says edit/delete message. But, I can't find anything on the page to delete a message??????????

[Wile_E]

I was just reading more about "Just Fit". It seems you can't use it to record first to HD then fit it to DVD. Because the 5045 doesn't have an option to re-encode video. The only option you have is to split it to fit multiple DVD's. That sucks.

What if a show is 1-1/2 hour long? You can't choose HQ(1hr) mode. SP(2hr) mode bitrate may be lower than what I want. I would like to maximize quality. The only solution is to "just fit", but it records directly to DVD. You can't choose the HD to record it to. So the problem is, you can't select a variable time to record in 5 minute segments? Pioneer has this feature.

[FulciLives]

I almost bought the 80GB HDD Lite-On at WALMART because it was on sale for someting like $228 but instead I bought the 80GB HDD Pioneer for like $100 more (it was $337 now it's $296) and I am SO glad I did.

Too many people are having too many problems with these Lite-On units.

My Pioneer kicks ass and works correctly as it should

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[Wile_E]

I don't see any Pioneer recorder with HD for that price at Walmart. The 533 is listed for $368 but is out-of-stock and online purchase only.

[FulciLives]

I don't see any Pioneer recorder with HD for that price at Walmart. The 533 is listed for $368 but is out-of-stock and online purchase only.

What various Walmart stores carry VS what is on the website ... well ... it ain't always the same.

There are like 4 Walmart stores that are "near" me and of the 4 I've only seen the Pioneer DVR-531H-s at 2 and even then it is always out-of-stock except for 1 store (which is the largest of the 4 stores).

You gotta go take a look.

When I bought my 531 it was $337 and this was around August or September of 2005 ... very shortly thereafter it went down to like $296 or so and last time I was at the BIG Walmart near me (2 or 3 weeks ago) it was still $296.

The 533 model has DV input ... the 531 does not ... so it may be "worth" paying more for the 533 if you want DV input.

BTW back when I was considering the 531 I noticed that a lot of people were selling them (brand new MIB) on eBay so you might want to check that out if you can't find any at a Walmart but I'm sure they are still there you just have to find the right store (and the bigger the store the bigger the money and the greater the chance me thinks).

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I noticed the same thing with Televisions at Walmart. I saw models in the store that I never saw on the official Walmart website.