Page 1 of Lite-On LVW-5045B DVD recorder with 160 GB Hard drive for £345

E-buyer are selling a set top DVD recorder with 160 GB hard drive (model LVW-5045B) for about £345 including postage

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=4576022611&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=79374

It looks like it will record DVD +R/+RW and -R/-RW

The quality may not be up to Panasonic & Sony, but at this price with a decent sized Hard disc drive it could be worth going for.

www.savastore.com (Watford Electronics) also seem to be advertising it for £350 in magazine adverts

Errrm, LiteOn are one of the biggest manufacturers of optical drives in the World. In actual fact, Sony use LiteOn to make their drives so how it can`t match Sony and Panasonic for quality is beyond me! The quality of the drive is down to the encoder chip. Many companies use the same chip, be it Sony, Panasonic or even the 3rd largest manufacturer of optical drives in the World - LiteOn.

Also hard discs are relatively cheap these days. Why manufacturers have to add £200 to the price of DVD recorders for the privilege of hard disc recording I do not know!

This item was edited on Saturday, 15th January 2005, 20:05

I`ve had one since Christmas (got mine from www.svp.co.uk - 350 quid with free postage). It`s a reasonable unit, but the latest firmware release is buggy as hell. Luckily, the next firmware release is due before the end of this month and you can read user comments about the 5045 at a new forum that`s been set up:

www.liteonusers.org.uk

Oh and if anyone tells you "160GB hard disk - I`ll never fill that up", don`t believe them. It`s only 33 hours of TV at DVD quality !

Update: New firmware (version 193) is out, but the "saturated RGB blue" bug I had with the previous firmware is even worse now. Too soon to see if I can crash the unit in my usual manner, but I`ll have a good go...

This item was edited on Monday, 17th January 2005, 23:22