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The reason for my now extreme disappointment with the Liteon LVW-5005A DVD recorders is based on several really bad properties of this recorder.

First, most (if not all) of the DVDs written by this recorder cannot be read on a PC or edited by any of the currently available video editors that I tried. One reviewer mentioned that you could use the "VOB Blanker" software program to clean up the DVD files for editing. Sadly, this is not the case with the current LVW-5005A and its latest firmware update.

The other editors, fixups, and conversion programs all get confused by the non-standard format used by Liteon to write their DVD files. Although the files have standard names (.IFO, .VOB, etc.), they are different enough internally so that they confuse or hang up most video or DVD processing programs.

Second, the LVW-5005 may or may not record on a disc, and after a few days of this, you start to lose confidence in the device and are almost apprehensive about using it. Let me give you an example.

You set the timer to record something important and you use a DVD+RW that you have recorded on before with no errors. You record a 10 second clip with introductory info and then play it back to see if it recorded ok. Everything looks good so you turn off the unit and wait for the timer to start the recording. The timer turns the unit on at the prescribed time and it starts recording. You can see this happening on the monitor and on the LED display. So far so good. Two hours later you watch as the timer record time elapses and the unit stops recording and the unit shuts off as expected. Now turn the unit on and check on the recording just made.

Nothing is there! In fact, even the short clip you recorded previously is gone! The disc is effectively erased and you have no clue as to what happened. You look at the timer recording status screen and it shows "OK". This is most frustrating if it happens only once in a while but this happens erratically and very often.

In short, I rate the Liteon LVW-5005 DVD Recorder as NOT ACCEPTABLE and unless you have extreme patience and unlimited time to spend dealing with the idiosyncrasies of this unit, I do not recommend purchasing the LITEON LVW-5005 DVD Recorder.

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