Review on 📼 Enhanced DVD Recorder with TV Tuner: Lite-On LVW-5115GHC+ by Eric Kim

I have had the LVW-5115GHC+ for a few months now. I also have an LVW-5005, both purchased from Costco. I like the 5115 because it can play almost any video file you throw at it. The discs don't even have to be formatted as video DVD, VCD or SVCD. If the video file is on a CD or DVD, the LVW-5115GHC+ will normally play it. Unlike the 5005, the LVW-5115GHC+ has no S-Video input or output. The cable box I plugged mine into only has RCA jacks. Both only record in mono when using the built-in tuner. I never use the built in tuner. I use a tuner in a cable box. Recordings made in this way are in stereo. My LVW-5115GHC+ crashes while finalizing; often it will start reporting that it is 95% complete and then just stay at 95% until it is actually complete. In other cases, it starts at 0% and then reports that finalization did not complete properly. However, discs will also play normally on other devices or a computer. I was very frustrated until I found out that discs reported to be badly finalized still work fine. I still hope LiteOn comes out with a new firmware update; the one that came out in January had no impact on this problem. The 5005's firmware can be modified if the original video is incorrectly identified as copy protected. I didn't have this problem with the LVW-5115GHC+ anyway, but I don't know of any firmware hack available if that was a problem. Overall I'm quite happy with the LVW-5115GHC+. If it had S-Video input and output and a fix for the finalization error, I'd give it a 5.