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If a company has faulty product, that's one thing. This company also has horrible customer service. To say the least I was surprised that they would carry something of such low quality. They send out generic e-mails which have nothing to do with what you e-mailed them about. It took at least 2 weeks of waiting on hold over many phone calls for a least 20 minutes just to talk to a real person so we could get warranty service. The bottom line is this company has no interest in customer service and standing behind their products. After we got the unit returned to GOVideo, we are still waiting 2 weeks later to receive the the replacement.
The first one would not recognize its own discs. I know when we finally get our 3rd unit that it will probably only last a couple of months before something goes wrong again. I have tried e-mailing which is just as worthless. I bought this product through a company I work for. The second one locked up and the tray would not open up. To put it bluntly, this product is not worth the plastic it took to assemble it. As I write this, we have gone through 2 units already.
I would not recommend this product or any other product from this company.
However, it die after 6 months. I had a good time with it. And I need to pay $70 to get a replaced one.
It does (when it was working) what it says it does, and the video is high-quality. Oh, one more thing: the GoVideo had an annoying 60hz buzz on the audio coming from the RF (Tuner) input. On the plus side. If, at 11:05, you give it instructions to time-record from 11:00 to 12:00 (because you want to leave the house), it starts up, but records for a completely random period of time, and stops well before 12. You can't let the machine record to the end of a disc, because that disc will become unreadable. All in all, the LiteOn people seem to have expended far more effort in making this machine feel like a VCR replacement, and I think they succeeded. That doesn't sound like a big deal unless it's the World Series you were watching.
My replacement is the LiteOn LVW-5005. A user interface that looks like it was created by apes, for apes. Even cheaper than the GoVideo, and while I can't yet swear to its reliability, the software and the general usability is 10 times better. And I can record to the end of a disc, and leave the house with it recording. And I can do things like add chapter stops and give titles to my tracks, something the GoVideo interface wouldn't let me do. From the moment you hit the "Open" button, the program you're watching disappears, and is replaced by the GoVideo logo screen, which cheerfully takes about a minute to figure out that you've just put a blank DVD into the machine, and give you back to a screen where you can go back to watching TV. Never mind that the thing broke down after 4 months and couldn't even read its own discs, because GoVideo support was nice about it and would have repaired or replaced it (I brought it back to the store for a refund instead).
Examples: You're watching a show, you decide you want to record it, so you put in a disc. The minus side. Huge. I had to use the A/V input instead to get rid of it.
DVD+R's need to be stopped before they run out of space or htey don't close the session properly, but DVD+RW's you can hit record and let it run til it is out of space.the longest is around 6.5 hours. Most modes will record 10-30 minutes past their 1/2/3/4/6 hour specs.Not many reviews on this DVDR, and if you read the R6530 reviews it is unsettling. I chose between 3 DVDR's and mainly chose this one because I had no DVD Compatibility issues. I was going for the name and got lucky with this model.I wish this price range afforded for Component input and Decoded Dolby 5.1, and had a USB for cameras and storage devices, but for the price I am content. There is a contender out there (probably a *****) that I think would satisfy all the above in the same range, but I'll let you find it. One of the other recorders had to be unplugged when it licked up reading certain DVDs.I have not updated the firmware and am content thus far.Recorded DVD's play fine on any of my players. I have it's little brother player (*****) and am quite happy with every aspect of its performance.
The DVD+R media will NOT play on any other machine besides the unit it was recorded on, even when finalized. However, the DVD+RW's (rewritables) will play on other machines but the unit is quite fussy about the brand of media you use, as I've had some problems with recording DVD+RW's giving me the "Write Fail" error message. The DVD-R/RW media is much more compatible with other players, so be forewarned. I don't actually own this particular model but I do own a GoVideo R6740 DVD recorder. Here's the major thing potential customers interested in getting their first DVD recorder should be aware of (I bought one not knowing the following): the GoVideo units (as well as other lower-cost brands) only record on DVD+R/RW media, as opposed to DVD-R (notice the dash instead of the plus symbol). Otherwise, it's a fairly decent unit as a DVD player and as a recorder if you can live with the limitations I've mentioned.
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