Lite-On LVC-9016G

After contacting Lite On and receiving my second 9016G, it was just as bad. Slow response, won't work with any of the $80.00 worth of DVD's I've tried. Now it won't even play a DVD. The company was very difficult and would not replace the second one. Paid $200, biggest mistake I'v made. Stay away from this product.

I will never by another Lite On DVD anything. DVD's in general are horrible, and this device just makes the experience worse. It's the most basic system I have seen, and if you want to use it for simple tape to disc transfers then take the time to learn it's little attitude problems.

If someone gave me this unit as a present for free or for what ever reason, I WOULD NOT TAKE IT. Stay away from this unit. Cannot depend on this unit to do timer recording.

Do not buy one!

After wasting a couple of weeks of my spare time dubbing VHS tapes to DVD's, I took the Lite-On LVC-9016G DVD/VCR Combi back to Costco, and got a Panasonic DMR-EH75VS, which I should have bought in the first place.

The Lite-On LVC-9016G is a VHS-DVD combo unit that can record DVD's from VHS tapes and VHS tapes from DVD's. It has a very good user interface and is easy to use. However, the VHS tape functions are limited, and so are the DVD functions. Although the unit performs well as a copy device from one media to the other, it is not as good as having a separate VCR and a separate DVD recorder.

A major flaw with this unit's copy function (from VHS to DVD) is that you cannot use the OTR (One Touch Recording) function once you have started copying from VHS to DVD. The problem is that you have to stop the recording manually instead of, for example, setting the OTR to stop the recording automatically after 1 or 2 or 6 hours. This is a real pain if you want to transfer only 3 hours say, of a 6 hour VHS tape. You have to hang around for 3 hours to stop the thing when you want, which is a real pain in the neck.

You are much better of with a $50 VCR and a separate $150 (or less) DVD recorder and a simple A/V cable. At least you will have a full-featured VCR, and if one unit fails you can replace it easily.

Another, and perhaps more serious problem with the Lite-On LVC-9016G (and with other Lite-On DVD Recorder models) is that it records DVD's with a very strange and troublesome format. Basically, when you look at the DVD on a computer with Windows Explorer (and other programs) you will see more than 8Gb (yes, 8 Gigabytes) of files on a 4.7Gb single layer DVD. It appears that Lite-On records extra stuff for some unknown reason that fools most Windows programs. The bottom line about this crazy format is that you cannot ever re-author or edit the DVD! The only thing you can do is make an image copy (say from DVD RW to DVD R), but the copy still shows 8Gb of files that you cannot re-author. This is the main reason that I rate the Lite-On LVC-9016G as NOT ACCEPTABLE and it should be avoided.

By the way, the same unacceptable recording format was found on the Lite-On LVW-5005 and the Lite-On LVW-1101HC1 models, and these are also NOT ACCEPTABLE.

Paul Holliday (May 2006).