Digital Trends

LG LRY-517 July 5th, 2005 | by Mike Bell

Setup and Use

The LRY-517 comes packaged with a manual, remote, batteries, AV cables, and a 75 ohm video cable. 

Connection to the TV and stereo receiver was straightforward.  There is a single AV output, S-video output, and component video output that are used by both the DVD recorder and VCR.  There are both optical and coaxial digital audio outputs.  The AV input on the rear panel does not include an S-Video input.  The front video inputs (S-Video, DV) must be used for the best quality video from external sources.

The front panel display visibility is good, but the font could be friendlier.  The initial setup was very easy, showing a clear on-screen user interface.

We first tested the DVD payback quality with The Chronicles of Riddick.  When the disk was inserted, the player displayed “Reading” for several moments, but the disk did not play.  When the unit was powered off and back on, the disk began playing properly.  This behavior was never repeated with this disk or the others that we played.  The video quality was very good with the component video output connected directly to a Hitachi 42HDT51 plasma TV.

The DVD player was tested with a DVD-R, DVD-RW, and DVD+R DL that had been recorded on a Sony VRD-V20.  All played correctly; however, one of the two DVD+R DL discs caused the LVR517 to display “Writing Menu” followed by “Disk Error” when attempting to eject the disc.  This required turning the power off, then back on in order to get the disc to eject.

All of the discs, including DVD+R DL discs that were recorded on the LRY517, played correctly on a Sony DVP-NS700P single disc player.

The Sony DVD+R DL discs used in the tests are not on the LRY517 recommended disc list, so we suspect that this might be the source of the playback problem with one of the discs.

Digital Camcorder to DVD Dubbing

A Panasonic PV-GS200 digital camcorder was used for the digital video dubbing test.  With the LRY517 input set to “DV,” it detected the camcorder and displayed camcorder and DVD recorder controls on the bottom of the TV screen.  This provided a convenient interface for cuing both the camcorder and LRY517, using the LRY517 remote.

When the DVD+R DL was inserted into the LRY517, the type of disc was identified and the disc was formatted.  There was no indication that it was a DL disc; however, in XP record mode (highest quality), “1 hour and 55 minutes” was correctly displayed as the disc capacity.  Once the disc is ready and the camcorder has been queued to the first scene, camcorder playback and DVD recording begin when the Record button on the remote or on the front of the LRY517 is pressed.  DVD recording will stop when no signal is detected from the camcorder.

Video quality of a DVD recorded in XP mode matched the original digital camcorder recording very well.  Video quality in DVD SP mode was of noticeably lower quality, but still quite good.