Any one have a ilo DVD Recorder With 80 GB Hard Drive, DVDRH04, from Wal-Mart,is it a good recorder?

I am thinking about buying the ilo DVD Recorder With 80 GB Hard Drive, DVDRH04 , any one have one ? Do you like it?

 

 ... If you read the iLo threads, it seems that most people are having trouble with them ... WalMart DOES have a good return policy ... If you don't like it, I think that you have about 30 days to take it back for an exchange or refund ... Save all of your paperwork and packaging ...

 

Hello All.

I just took back my Ilo DVDR04 and picked up the Ilo DVDRHD04. Recorder with the 80 Gig hard drive. (Walmart $278.00)

I found the tuner on the DVDR04 had lots of hum in the audio. (Picture carrier with the sound.) I tired two units to make sure I did not just have a bad unit.
I also compaired it to my TV's tuner and my old VCR's tuner. (which are both quiet.)

This units is much more quiet. Some hum but only about 20% of what it was on the DVDR04 unit.

Recorded a few TV shows on the hard drive and played them back. Video quality looks good. Audio drops out for 1/8 seconds every 10 minutes or so. Some video noise but not too bad.

It's tuner is mono only like the other unit. The front panel ilink (IEEE 1394) port is input only like the other unit.

I could not copy some material from a normal DVD to the units hard drive. (this was stuff I placed on a DVD+R disc that has no copy protection from my computer.) The recorder just says swap the disc. Seems like it can only copy in files that it wrote. The recorders output discs have a VIDEO_TS subdirectory and a VIDEO_RM subdirectory.

(I wanted to make some titles etc for a recorded movie.)

MP3's on a DVD work. JPEG's on a DVD work also. Both very good quality.

I did the testing with the SP mode. It has the regular modes. (HQ, SP, EP and SLP) which equate to 1,2,4,6 hours of recording time on the DVD or 16,32,64,96 hours on the hard drive.

My computer reads everything the unit wrote.
(Sony DRU-710A)

The DVDRHD04's hard drive is a Seagate ST3800012ACE.
The DVD drive is a Lite-On DDW-451S (a 4X DVD write speed drive.)

There is a firmware update that I have not yet installed.

If I need to record something nice, I will need to plug in the old VCR with its stereo tuner and feed it in to the recorder via the back side jacks.

Quality looks the same recording on HD or DVD.

Dave

 

I wouldn't recomend this device(DVDRHD04) to anyone, even with the price at $240. Although the recording quality seems fine to me and the supposed features seem great for the price, it never seems to work properly. In particular, every time I have tried to "split" a large video to remove dead-space, commercials etc., the "current completeness" progress indicator locks at 60%, while the front display shows done. At this point the machine becomes a paper weight as it will only respond to unpluging it from the wall. After restarting the device and rechecking the harddrive, the recorded video will not play, and usually will re-lock the machine. A large part of the reason I purchased this device was as a "Tivo" with a recorder, so far I have spent more time messing with the poorly designed gui or corrupting the videos I hoped to catch while I was at work. Just my experience, but I will be returning mine later tonight.

 

Yep goin back ta wal-mart,,,
did the firmware upgrade @ www.ilohelp.com,,,
now it locks up at 99% completeness, oh, and you have to record a brief segment before anything previously recorded will show up on the video list.

 

Yes. I am taking my unit (Ilo DVDRH04) back as well.

I knew some of features would be not up to snuf. I have been successful in editing space out of some recorded TV segments.
But it has crashed on my at least eight times in four days of use. Just pushing the wrong remote buttons.

I though something by a large company like Lite-On would be somewhat ok. Their DVD drives are real nice. (internal units)

I think the price of other table top units. (Sony, Pioneer, Panasonic etc.) will come down in price over the next few months.

I now plan to build a computer and place it near the main TV and install some kind of MPEG encorder in it to record with. Or put in a tuner card into the computer so it can tune the channels. (and record)
There is some pretty nice software out there to make your computer a PVR. (see links below.)

I guess you need to spend $499 or more for a nice stand alone recorder.


Tuner card links:
(http://www.ati.com/)
(http://www.aver.com/)
(http://www.hauppauge.com/)

PVR software. (Personal Video Recorder)
(http://www.sage.tv/)
(http://www.snapstream.com/) (http://www.mainconcept.com/pvr.shtml)

Later
Dave

 

I got the ILO Dvdr04 (dvd burn only) unit about 2 months ago at my local Wal Mart (they didn't have the hard drive one at the time). I thought it was ...OK...especially for the price. A couple of weeks later the hard drive version was in....I went for it too. Yeah, it had some problems...audio dropping out, it would occasionally lock up during fast forwarding, during defrag, etc. I was upset, but I still thought it was a good deal since the next available type recorder was several hundred dollars more. When the firmware upgrade was finally posted to the ILO website, I downloaded it, burned it to a CD, put the CD in the ILO DVDRHD04 and let it update. Now it seems very stable. I have had no more lockups, no audio dropout, etc. As others have mentioned, the tuner isn't the best, but if you have a good clean signal, the recordings seem fine to me. Besides, with audio/video inputs on the front and back, use your VCR's tuner, etc if you really think you need to. The timer functions are extremely flexible for allowing recording from different inputs, etc. All in all, to me, it was well worth the $278.

 

I purchased the ILO DVDRH04 a month ago fro $278 and I was pleasantly suprised at the features for the price. It has frozen up a couple of time when I fast forwarded a recording, but I just uplugged it and it reset it self. For the price it is a good deal I had looked at purchasing a pioneer DVD recorder and it was $300 higher.

 

rob730...get the firmware update from their website ...http://www.ilohelp.com/download2.htm

this will stop the lockups, etc.

 

What are you guys talking about My ILO with HARDDRIVE and DVD Recorder is PERFECT!!!!!!!! And way better than a TIVO. I got rid of my tivo for this.......Besides the fact of the TV Guide thgis blows it away.

Disk Defrag<<Big plus Tivo doesnt have this option and tends to slow down.

Very STABLE, Mine has NEVER CRASHED!!!!! Tivo is only better because its easier. But this is so much better in ever way.....Guys when i got mine i installed new FIRMWARE right away without trying the old firmware installed......

 

My ilo works good, too. If you worry about overheating, just put the ilo on a cookie rack to let more cool air through. My only trouble is I can't seem to record the closed caption on the movies. Anyone know how to turn on this feature?I did "Hero" but all I got was the chinese talk. What happened? Tnx

 

I just got mine for Xmas after reading this thread... Upgraded the firmware. It works sometimes...very unstable when spliting recordings... gets to 99% and freezes half of the time. Then only solution is to unplug the unit and loose the recording... frustrating.... Will not recommend for now. Maybe if ILO fixes the software to make it more reliable, I would, since the rest seems to work as advertised..

 

I know it might be a pain, but, you might try to get to a point where there is nothing on the hard drive you want..(i.e. backup up anything you might want to keep to a dvd or dvd-rw), then tell it to reformat the whole hard drive (it's somewhere in the menus). When I had problems with mine before the firmware was upgraded, just like a PC, I backed up all shows I wanted to keep, then wiped the hard drive clean and let it reformat and rebuild it's OS. I wanted to give mine the best chance of working...so far it has done OK since then. Give it a try

 

The New firmware to fix all problems will be released on JANUARY 5th!!!!! It will fixe SPLITTING LOCKUP at 99% for sure!!!!!

 

DonnyDon, what's the source/ link to your update?

Thx

The New firmware to fix all problems will be released on JANUARY 5th!!!!! It will fixe SPLITTING LOCKUP at 99% for sure!!!!!

 

HELP i know about the region free hack for ilo dvdr04 but i need to be able to switch between pal and ntsc can i do that with that hack if not how please help

 

I spoke to a guy at ILO and they emailed me with ABSOLUTE cetainty that the new firmware will be out on the 5th. It will FIX ALL PROBLEMS. They said it already finished but wont be released till the 5th.

 

Let's see if it happens.

 

I spoke too soon about my DVDRH04. I had high praises until I tried to burn a dvd from the Hard drive to a dvd and play on another dvd player (not the DVDRH04) I tried 8 other dvd players and none would play the audio portion on the dvd. I called ilo hotline and they advised me to use certain brands of blank dvds I was using memorex. I purchased the Maxell brand (one of the recommended blank dvds) and it still did the same thing. Has any one else had this problem. If the new update does fix this I'm screwed.

rob730

 

The Ilo DVD recorder with HardDrive is basically the same as the LITE-ON LVW-5045 but with a 80gb harddrive instead of 160. Has anyone tried there firmware? I tried it on a cd-r but it wouldnt accept the disc it would keep opening. Anyone have an idea?