Hi Gang

Just saw this in todays flyer from BB.

LG Progressive Scan Multiformat DVD recorder/HiFiVCR Combo
*Front IEEE input and 9-in-2 memory card slot for digital camcorder and camera transfers
*1-touch dubbing and DIVX/MPEG-4 playback
Model LRY-517
Price...$399.00

I know LG has a good reputation on the pc side but I don't know much on the HT side of it.

Kenny J.

I saw it to but I wanted to pickup the LRY-516 DVD-only recorder
which is the Non DVD-Ram version. I found out later LG is
comming out with LRY-518 with a 160 HD. So tomorrow I'll pick
up LRY-517 to try out my double layer DVD+R to see if they play.
They will not play on my Liteon 5045.

JohnnyJT

AMD 3000+
Soyo KT880 Dragon2
1600 Gigs HD
2-Benq 1620

I'd recommend LG recorders with a built-in HDD. LG is both strong in standalones and PC drives. For a South Korean like me, it's cheaper to buy imported JVC or Toshiba or Panasonic than to buy "Made in Korea" LG or Samsung. (Which is why I have only Toshiba and Pioneer DVD players and Sanyo/Sony/Fujifilm cameras, but no Korean brand.) I'm sure the latest "recorder combi" products are very cheap in the States.

I tried this machine last week and the dvd recordings had a shakey picture sometimes. Playback of prerecorded dvds seemed fine.

Excellent image quality when recording in 2hr SP mode. Poor image quality with 6hr recording.

Playback while recording to DVD-Ram does not work. Only works if you use "one touch recording". So if you get home early and want to watch from the beginning while it is still recording, then you can't do that.

Won't play mpeg1 files (neither iso-mpg nor vcd-mpg). There was no ability to fast-forward thru avi's. Had to restart from the beginning if you stopped. Note, I didn't try vcd's or cd's.

Can't play videos or mp3s on a storage card. Will only display pictures.

Button layout of remote could have been better in my opinion. Confusing and complex for non-tech people.

Thumbnail index of dvd contents and ability to search thru a recording seemed excellent. Too bad you can't do this for avi files.

Disc finalizing should be easier to get to. But was fast. About 1 minute for a 2hr recording.

Unfortunately, I do not recommend this machine due to the sometimes shakey recordings. The other issues you can live with. I only tried the one recorder so someone elses experience may be different. I'd give it a try if you want this one.

Perhaps the shakes are dropped frames? Somewhat similar to Max Headroom. Again, there may have been something wrong with only my recorder and not a general problem.

Thanks for sharing your experince, but:

1. "...In addition, if a DVD-RAM is recording a program, you can begin watching the program from the beginning before the recording is complete..." (http://reviews.designtechnica.com/re...endly2805.html)

2. "...Pictures, music, or DivX movies may be played from the memory card..." (http://reviews.designtechnica.com/re...endly2805.html)

My personal remarks:

1. Owning an LG DR4912V that can not be too far from LRY-517 in recording quality, I don't quite get what the "shakey picture" of recordings or the "poor image quality" in 6 hrs mode mean in practice. I have been testing LG DR4912 for a month (daily extensive use in all recording modes) and have not seen ANY CONSIDERABLE difference in HQ and even in EQ mode, i.e. the recorded picture quality was excellent.

2. The Remote is simple to use as the button layout is logical and handy. Have you ever used a Remote of an A/V Amplifier? That has a difficult button layout!

3. Disc finalizing: it takes to enter the menu, one submenu from where you can reach the "Finalize" option. Is it really so difficult?

I was able to watch while recording if I was in instant recording mode, not timer recording mode.

I tried to play mp3s and they wouldn't play.

I have the manual that I downloaded and it says the following on page 35:
On CDs, DVDs or Memory Card with mixed content
(Audio tracks, MP3/WMA files, DivX files or JPEG files),
you can select among the Music menu, Movie menu
and Photo menu by pressing TITLE repeatedly.

I would like to take another look at this. I can go by the store and check it out. It did not seem logically to be able to only look at pictures.

On my machine, SP mode (6hr) was blocky and nowhere near the high quality of EP (2hr).

I think it was a sequence of dropped frames and not shaking actually. It was most noticeable when people are turning their heads and I see jerking and not a continuous motion. This was 2hr EP mode recording. Picture quality was excellent. Signal was excellent.

This may be better with another unit but I am leaning away from trying any more dvd recorders for now.

No.

I will say I set the bar very high. At least the main buttons could have been bigger.

Here are the steps to finalize on my machine:
a. Press Setup button.
b. Press Up to go to Disc Settings.
c. Press Right to go to Finalize. Hit Enter to select Finialize. Press Left button and Enter to verify.

I thought this belonged in Disc Menu and not Setup in my opinion.

Correction: SP mode is 2 hour high quality and EP mode is 6 hour low quality.

This was my first dvd player/recorder. They don't all do this do they?

No, not all of them.
Hopefully you will have the chance to test more and more DVD Players and Recorders. You will find out, as it is always in life, that one that combines all "cool" functions, simply does not exist.

I followed your recommendation and went for LG RH7823W (HDD/DVD Recorder with 160 GB). Everything is fine except for one thing: I could not place any title menu. DO you have any idea how to do that?
thanks in advance.
Benji

I hope you weren't talking about fast-forward and remember where it stops. I don't consider that just cool, but a must-have and don't understand why this LG recorder doesn't do it.

I am now going with players instead. I'm a little scared of recorders. But I have to say that the this LG had awesome picture quality playback for avi's. The Philips DVP642 player I am trying now has a horrible picture for the one avi that we want to watch, but it was great on this LG. It looks like its in a zoom mode where the picture is blown up, but was perfect on this LG. The avi is an xvid at 512x384. I probably need to convert my video. I probably should have kept this LG recorder as a player, or have gotten an LG player.

I recently bought an LG LRY-517 - I love it...for the most part. It's fairly easy to use & I've had no problems with shaky quality. I agree the finalize option should be more easily accessible, but it's not really a problem. I have noticed a few quirks with the disc menuing - sometimes it will place an "Empty Title" as the last menu item, sometimes it won't - can't figure out why/why not.

I'd actually VERY HIGHLY recommend the LG LRY-517, except for one main issue, that I sometimes can't playback dvd-r's that I've burned off my computer. It's been very very inconsistent by sometimes playing one disc but then not playing an exact copy of that same disc...or sometimes playing one type of media (generic brand) but then not playing other media (Taiyo Yuden) - but I've not noticed any consistencies. I keep receiving the message: "Cannot playback due to the disc error."

Just curious if anyone else has had this problem?
--bp