Recording PAL DVD in USA: LiteOn 5104A vs Cyberhome 1600MU

Objective: affordable DVD recorder with NTSC TV tuner with capability to record DVDs in PAL standard.

I own PAL Hi8 and PAL VHS tapes I want to transfer to DVD and be able to watch it on NTSC TV. On the other hand I do not want to transcode it into NTSC because of losses in quality associate with transcoding. I also want to record TV programs in NTSC.

After making some research I found two brands that comply with my requirements – Cyberhome and LiteOn. I chose Cyberhome 1600MU because it was guaranteed to record PAL, I header 1600ZU does not support PAL. I chose LiteOn 5104 over 5006 because of sleeker design. As I understand it also is a newer model than 5006. Otherwise it is the same thing. 5005 is too old to consider and you cannot find it in retail stores anymore. I did not want to buy recorder through Internet because all recorders except of one I am going to return back.

I this post I am going to compare Cyberhome 1600MU (I call it simply 1600) which I bought in Best Buy for $89 - $10 in-mail rebate with LiteOn LVW-5104A (5104) which I bought in RadioShack for $189- $50 inmail rebate.

Both look sleek. I like simplistic design of 1600. It has bright green display – easy to read from distance. It may look annoying at first because of cheap green color and brightness, but it is practical because easy to see. 5104 is as thin as 1600 and depth also is the same, but it is wider than 1600 – has standard width for this kind of equipment - works if you put it in stack with other a/v equipment. 5104 has more sophisticated brownish red-yellow display, but it is too dim when turned off – it takes effort to see time. 5104 also has more controls on front panel – you can even choose source. But who need it if there is remote control?

5104’s DVD drive is pretty noisy. I was shocked at first – sounded like PC. Noise from fan adds to it. 1600 in contrast works quiet and does not have fan, but 1600 vibrates when drive works. Both get hot over the time, so having fan is not an advantage. 5104 loader opens with more sophisticated sound than one in 1600.

Timer is better in 1600. It is easies to set up and allows you to record from Monday to Friday. In 5104 there are only daily, weekly and once recording modes. You cannot set timer for working days only. It also requires more effort to set up, but allows to enter a TV guide codes. I did not try TV guide yet.

Menu is user friendly in both recorders. But 1600 react immediately to remote control while 5104 - with delay. So 1600 remote control is easier to use. In general I got impression that 1600 has faster CPU than 5104 because in 1600 everything is faster than in 5104. E.g. 1600 takes about 10 seconds to scan all TV channels while in 5104 it may require a minute.

Tuner in both recorders is mono. Quality of video is better in 5104. It has higher resolution than 1600. But colors seem washed out with some greenish hue. 1600 has better colors – image looks more vibrant. In 1600 recorded TV program is accompanied with some hum and audio noises related interference for working DVD drive – too annoying to me to accept. I did not notice any hum or other noises in 5104 TV records. But some time you get faint 60 Hz lines moving over TV image on 5104, but when you start recording – they disappear, I think it is noise from fan. But it does not seem to be a problem, because I never get it in TV recording.

Recording quality is much better in 5104. I made some recordings in PAL from tapes and do not see a difference. When using 1600 with the same tapes there are three problems – digital noise, lower resolution and dropping frames. Digital noise is something that you see e.g. when image is encoded in low resolution JPEG. Lower resolution you can notice by comparing original with recorded version- you can see degradation of small objects (like small letters). It does not happen in 5104. Dropping frames are most annoying – because fast moving objects become jerky. And it happens even when you watch recorded PAL in PAL.

There is no PAL/NTSC setting in 1600. If you input PAL signal – it records in PAL, but TV output is always NTSC. So while recording PAL you can monitor it on NTSC TV. In 5104 it is a different story because 5104 ihas more flexibility. You can set 5104 to one of two modes – PAL or NTSC (in menu System->TV output-> PAL/NTSC). In PAL mode it will record any input in PAL and output is only PAL. I have PAL TV so it is not a problem for me to monitor while recording. In NTSC mode the same thing– it records everything in NTSC and output is also in NTSC. E.g. if in NTSC mode if you input PAL signal – it will record only first 576 lines – so image will be cut from bottom and look stretched on NTSC TV. But color decoding is done correctly from PAL to RGB – probably it is done automatically regardless of setting.

Both 1600 and 5104 write on all kinds of media – I tried only DVD+RW and DVD-R and did not have any problems.

One advantage of 1600 is that it is less prone to timing variation in input signal. My Hi8 camera is 12 years old and tape transport or rotating head mechanism does not work very well - image can get a bit jittery, not too much to get annoyed, but still. When recorded on 1600 it remains pretty stable, may be even become more stable. But in 5104 it gets worse – to the point to be unacceptable.

Both units playback PAL stamped DVDs perfectly with transcoding to NTSC with no visible degradation. I was able to hack 1600 to work in “all regions” mode. I do not know about similar hack for 1504, but for me it is not highest priority. I think there will be hack for 5104 too someday.

So who is winner? 1600 goes back to Best Buy and I keep LiteOn. If I do not find anything better I will keep it after 30 days. LiteOn works better for me because of recorded image quality. In the end it is all about recording. LiteOn makes better recording from tuner, much better recording from PAL, has higher quality playback but costs me $50 more than 1600 after rebates. But I think it worth these $50.

You can look at MPEG2 file properties on PC DVD player. It will show you PAL standart, 25 fps, 576 lines and 9 mbs (in HQ mode).

Another difference between Cyberhome and Liteon is that when playing PAL DVD on Cyberhome 1600MU each 6th line is dropped. You can see it e.g. when title menu is displayed. You will see that small title name, time etc characters have missing lines. CHaracters are small enough for line dropping to be noticable. On PC you will not see it because PC displays in native standard. On Liteon 5104 you will not see this effect too. Liteon probably uses more expensive chipset that reduces 576 lines of PAL to 480 for NTSC more intelegently using more complicated algorithm that does not distort image.