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

Nick2,

Replace the old drive, go to tools, and do an erase.

 

here is a guide to replacing your hard drive... you can replace it with any size hard drive you want, just don't try erasing it after you've installed it - it will format it back to the 80gb size..

http://www.techolio.com/forums/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=997

 

After giving me about 24 hours of glitch-free service my Ilo couldn't contain itself and had to hit me with an entirely new one. The last two shows I recorded today ended up with perfect audio, but no video. The screen is completely green with two ghost thumbnails from the program just before them. I'm currently running (yet another) disk defragment but it's presently hung up at 89%, and has been like that for more than an hour. I'll give it a few more minutes then I'm pulling the plug. I'm thinking about running a police-type sting where they send letters to known criminals telling that they've won a non-existant prize and need to show up at a certain place to claim it and are then arrested. In my sting, I send letters to all of the top management, programmers, and marketers at Lite-On informing them that they have won a chance to roll around naked in Bill Gates' personal vault and get to keep whatever sticks, then when they show up I lock them in a windowless room and precede to pummel them with a frozen turkey leg going by seniority.

 

Nick2

Sounds to me you have some HDD issues. Try replacing the HDD and see if it fixes the problem.

 

I'd love to, but my budget doesn't really allow for it right now. Besides, after reading about the numerous problems others have encountered with swapping out the HDD I'm not sure I'd be any better off.

 

Nick2,

"I'd love to, but my budget doesn't really allow for it right now"

You need not buy the same drive. Try locating a smaller spare drive, any drive, you might have and see if the original drive was at fault. I've used my 12GB drive,for example, for the exact test.

"Besides, after reading about the numerous problems others have encountered with swapping out the HDD I'm not sure I'd be any better off."

I have exchanged my HDD many times and have not experienced any problems.

 

I'll end up changing it out, but if I'm going to do that it'll probably be a 200 or 250Gig HDD just to make it worthwhile. Right now I'm going on the assumption that the HDD in there is crap, so as soon as I record something I want to keep it goes to a DVD blank immediately.

 

AHA! I have sort of figured out my problem. Some of the movies I want to move apparently were not recorded at SLP. This means they take up more than 1/3 of the disc. (My math does not allow me to determine what the actual percent of a disc it would be at the various definitions, but I understand that a 2 hour movie at ELP takes up more space than at SLP.) So, my question now becomes -- Is there any way to alter the format from which a program was saved? I realize you could not go from SLP to ELP and get ELP definition. But can one go from ELP to SLP when transfering from HDD to DVD or vice versa?? I have looked through the manual and at some of the menus but do not find anything that indicates if or how to do that.

 

I've tried the same thing and don't believe you can do that. However, you might try copying the program onto a dvd+rw and then back on to the HDD after changing your recording quality settings on the recorder.

 

Hi there. I'm blind, and I am wondering if anyone could give me a step by step guide on how to update the ilo hd04. I'm sure you're wondering why a blind person has one of these devices, but I do author my own dvd's. Of course it's nothing professional, just to get movies off of two or more dvd's on to one. Anyways, I'd like to latest features that come with 1195, so a step by step guide would be helpfull. Do i just keep pressing play and listen for the cd to stop spinning?

Thanks

I'm a big Star Trek fan.

 

I just got a firmware disc from ILO 10 minutes ago in the mail. It says upgrade for DVDR04 and it's the WMEA1098.ES5 It says on the sheet it will enhance application performance. My ilo is working pretty kick ass right now and i'm not sure I should use this. Actually i'm scared it might screw up the hacked version i have. What do you all think?

 

If your iLo is working the way you like it right now, then I'd wait for it's performance to nosedive before I'd mess with it. Trust me, if your DVDR04 is anything like my DVDRH04 then you won't have long to wait.

 

I want too trade my drw recorder for one with a hard drive can you record a program on a disk at the same time too the HDD.

 

wolf123,

No. You can only record to one at a time.

 

I cant really get it yet no money because no job

 

Well I think I'm glad I purchased the dvdrh04 before discovering this discussion thread. Otherwise I might not have. But so far thanks to input on this thread everything seems to be working ok. I especially appreciate Gtrman showing me how to read the firmware version

>If you go to the setup page, you will see the serial number. It >will look like this:
>xxxx-xxxx-0185-xxxx

>The third set of numbers is the firmware version.
>0185=1185
>0191=1191
>0193=1193

I wasn't sure since I just purchased the unit what version would be on the machine. It had 1185 so last night I upgraded it to 1195 with no problems. I am also able to watch other channels while it is recording to the hard drive simply by switching over to the television tuner. I used the cabling that came with it the red,yellow,white and hooked that up and then hooked my cable from cable tv up to the unit and then ran one from the unit to the TV.

I did lose previous recordings when I did the Firmware upgrade, but since I had only been experimenting with it so far didn't lose anything important.
I haven't actually burnt a dvd yet but will soon. I think worse case senario I can take it back to Wal-mart but I really hope it works.

The thing I like most is that I can set it to record various shows and not have to think about putting a blank tape in or anything.

 

I was wrong about losing previously recorded shows. They showed up this evening along with what I had set to be recorded this afternoon.

 

One thing to make sure to do. ALWAYS after doing a firmware update, go to the menu and do an "Erase All". This will reset the file structure on the HDD in case there were changes in the new firmware. Make sure you back up your recordings first to a DVD+RW/R because you will lose tham.

The reason for doing this is in the past, after a firmware update that changed something in the HDD file structure, recordings that were on the HDD bacame unplayable or unable to be copied to the DVD after the update. So be safe and back up your recordings before the update and do a "Erase All" (which re-formats the HDD) before recording new recordings on the machine after the update.

 

Are there any improvements to the new ilo firmware besides the tint being gone?

 

philli,

The 1195 firmware has a drive update with it also.