I had been holding off on purchasing DVD recorders because of either high prices or poor reviews. I took a chance on this model, because of good reviews on the internet, it being at the right price point, and the fact that I filled up my PVR. It has exceeded my expectations. The recording quality at SP (two hours) is virtually indistinguishable from the PVR recordings from my dish. Four hour LP mode still exceeds a mid quality VCR, with no annoying flicker or color bleeding. The burner worked first time, every time. The controls, even timed record, are intuitive and simple, with an excellent system menu that makes all the features easily accessible. Pop in a disc - it is immediately recognized and formatted if necessary. You can easily set the time for chapter marks and append new material.
Amazingly, the burner accepts every type of media - DVD + or - R and RW, as well as CD-R and CD-RW, although I have not tried making a CD-V or audio CD. The instruction manual is well done and... Read more

This is just the thing for transferring VHS/miniDV to DVD. Also, with the ability to use it as a DVD "VCR" and the DV-link, it's a no-brainer at the selling price. Similarly-featured units list for hundreds more. The variety of supported media is good. Operation is easy and intuitive. The quality of recordings from standard cable signal is quite impressive. I was leary of some of the concerns other people had, but the newest revision (LVW-5005) seem to have corrected most of them. Overall, I think this is an incredible product for the price and will hope for the best on long-term reliability.

I did notice a few things that are annoying, but not critical:

-No RF modulator on the cable input (can't monitor on ch3/4 like a VCR). You have to use the RCA input on a TV or other device to monitor the unit (No big deal, most TV's have RCA input).

-I found it best (for quality) to split the incoming cable and send separate runs to the TV and LVW-5005... Read more

Somewhere around your 100th-200th disc or 5-7 months it won't read blank discs anymore or record on them. This is due to the short lived cheaper lasers they put in them. They get weak over time. Also if you leave the unit on when not using it, even when there's no disc in the machine, the laser stays on. So just by leaving it on, forgetting to shut it off, you're killing the laser by shortening it's lifetime. I have 2 of these units, plus an older one they made for the AKAI brand name from the year before, but it's almost identical. They all suffer from dimming lasers after a few months or 100-200 discs.

I'm an electronics seviceman & a videographer. Lasers do wear out, & cheap ones go dim sooner.

The machine performed great before the laser dimmed.

So you'll have to ask yourself if it's worth the price to burn only 100-200 discs or only last 5-7 months.

How long your Lite-On machine (ANY MODEL) lasts will depend how much you use it & how... Read more