I have the HD04, I am happy with it for the most part. My only complaint would be the occasional locking up and the loss of captured video when doing a Split. I am not interested in 3-hour mode as I would rather do 2 hour to keep the original quality and MV is not an issue. All I use this recorder for is to transfer my 8mm, Hi8mm and now DV family videotapes to DVD. I have not used any of the firmware updates yet, what would I have to gain by updating my firmware? The cons I read to me seem worse then what I already have!
Outofline, It all depends on what firmware you have installed. If your recorder has 1178, then you will want to upgrade to at least 1185 because, when copying the video from the HDD to the DVD, it wouldn't transfer the audio. You end up with a DVD with no sound. You can tell which firmware you have by going to the setup screen and looking at the serial number. It will look like xxxx-xxxx-0185-xxxx. The 3rd set of numbers are the firmware version. 0185 stands for 1185, 0191 would be 1191 and 0193 would be 1193. The 1193 firmware has proven to be pretty stable. It takes care of the freezing during splitting issue and the ff/rew control is a lot smoother. 1193RevA also has a drive update that will make the burner more compatible with newer discs. 1193RevB was just release to fix a problem with the ILO playing ARCCOS copy protected movie discs and is only a system update. I would suggest updating to at least the unhacked version of 1193RevA. It will fix some of the bugs and keep you from losing video while trying to split. As far as the hacked versions, it is a matter of choice. The 3-hour mode is nice if you are recording something that a little more than 2 hours. You don't have to drop the quality all the way to 4-hour mode just to make it fit. And the MacroVision part is a plus because there has been a lot of complaint of the MV protection kicking in while people are recording there old home videos. If the video quality is starting to fade, the recorder sometimes misinterpets this as a copy protected tape and will not let you record it. With the hack, this function is bypassed. I hope this helps in your decision.
Thanks for the info! I have not read to date that the 1193 solved the splitting freezing problem or I would have upgraded already. I just upgraded to the 1193A and am in the process of putting the 1193B-Hacked on the player. Thanks again and we will see how she does from here on out!
OK, I just got done with all the upgrades. I am glad I already backed up my video content from the HD cus it's all gone now. The thumbnails are still there with all the recording times of what was there but the thumbnail picture is gone and when selected it jumps to the tuner and will not play back the stored video content of that thumbnail. No real big, but I was not planning on erasing it so soon.
Outofline, That is because part of the update had to do with cleaning up the way the HDD is formatted and laid out. Before recording anything, go to the tools menu and use the "erase all" command, even if it's empty. this will reset the HDD and reformat the file structure. Also run the Defrg tool just to be sure. After that, you should be able to move the recordings back to the HDD if needed.
Hey guys I"m new to this but ihave some information. I just purchased the DVDR04 (no hard-drive). To copy VHS & DVD's do the following and it doesn't require you to update firmwave. 1. Enter "Setup" menu on the screen. Scroll down and highlight "Exit". While "Exit" is highlighted enter 2,9,6, and 0 and press "Enter". A hidden menu pops up and you can select your region. Select Free Region 2. Now if you have a dvd player insert the dvd disk into your player. Go to your DVD recorder ( start recording without playing the copy-protected movie). Hit pause on the dvd recorder. Now, start the dvd movie and it should continue to record..
lcmalone, The 2960 remote hack is to only make the recorder region free so you can play discs from other regions/countries. It has no influence on the MV sensing circuits in the recorder Unfortunatly, starting the recording before playback doesn't work for all MV discs or tapes and most of the time, the recording will error and stop at some point during the recording. It will depend on how strong the MV signal is coming from the tape or disc. The only (cheap) way to assure that MV will not be detected is to disable the MV sensing circuit in the recorder and that is done through the hacked firmware. Plus, the hack also gives you an extra 3-hour record mode to use, outside if the fact that the firmware upgrades are to fix problems in the recorder and to update the burner for more and better compatibility with recordable media.
Hi guys, I'm writing from Brazil. During the trip that i did (USA) in the beggining of this year, a purchased one DVDR04-Ilo. I read the instructions and started using the equipment as a VCR (recording from TV channels and making some copies of some originals dvd's). But now , some problems appears. When i try to record some programs from TV, sometimes one message appears on the screen " Protected content". Does anybody knows what's happening? Is it necessary to download a new version of a firmware? Is it easy? (I'm not so good with computer programs) There's other problem that appears when i make some DVD copies (bothering sound during the reproduction). I would like to insert the option of 3 hours. Does anybody recommend me? What i have to do ? (Step by step) So the last question is: " Is it possible to copy one original DVD movie, including the options of the menu? (Of course using this equipment) Thanks a lot. Note. Sorry for my poor english and knowledge in this area.
Hi, Marquis64, Yeah, I like you hacker people who are here to hack for the good, rather than the bad, of mankind! Hey, this dumb guy at iLO tech. told me that the hard disk drive was made with some special connection that's hardwired in so that if we knew that, we wouldn't try to open our case and then have warranty problems. BOGUS! What a liar! But after I read your post here about rescuing a video from a bad split, I was like, "YEAH! I need to do that, too!" So I went ahead and opened my case, sure enough, it is just an IDE drive like you implied, and now I've seen the files on my computer. Thank goodness the drive format is Windows compatible! But now I'm still left wondering how to convert those files that the iLO machine may have damaged (hoping they're still okay enough that they'd work on the computer all right) into a format that I can pull into my video editor program and then output to from the disk to a disc or tape (like MiniDV). I've tried to figure out how to do it with my DVD editor program, but I still haven't managed to figure the right way to use the program so I can pull those files in. I guess you've seen that these ones on the hard disk aren't even as crypticly semisimple as those .ifo, .bup, and .vob files--although I do see VOB folders with "Content1"-dot-nothing in them. Oh, and not only do I need to pull them into something where I can convert them, this particular video is one that's too big for a DVD unless I either split it to 2 discs (less preferred for this program) or compress it more than it already is and keep it intact as one video. I could recompress it on the computer, maybe, or I could just output it to tape and then rerecord it to the DVD with the standalone recorder. So how did you rescue your badly split video--completely, so you could actually use it again? Thanks, Mike
Subject: OH! Found it, but... Hi, guys, Mike here. Ohh, you know what, right after I wrote this, I noticed the link that was added on VOB, and it tells me what those are--the video object files. So I tried copying one from a DVD--even a commercial DVD--and then renaming it as an .mpg or an .avi, and sure enough, that's the picture from a video on the disc! But how does that help my iLO HDD problem? Well, I notice that there are VOB folders but no files labeled .vob. Not so much of a problem yet, though, because I just opened one of those folders and found--like I said before--those files called Content01, Content02, etc., without extensions. If you rename one of those as an .mpg or an .avi, you can open it just like any regular video file and see the video and hear the sound right there! So I found my video that was corrupted in the iLO language by the partial split. But... BUT...! This is where it gets bad, unfortunately. The video I want to recover starts out right, but then at the point where the first split would have been, or right around there, anyway, the content jumps to that of another show--stuff that I thought I had erased (though I can't remember for sure). I don't know how it could have done that. Anyway, dang it, I got so close, yet still SOO FAR, and still have not reclaimed that precious video! GRRR! It's not going to be exactly repeatable, either! I recorded it on the HD instead of a DVD in case the meeting went over the 2 hours a little (and since I didn't want to lower the quality below SP), and I was planning on trimming it down a bit somehow if that happened, and THEN copying it to a DVD. So much for that! This was a multicamera shoot for the overflow video feed for a local church meeting that happens twice a year. So yes, there will be another meeting kind of like that that I can make sure I have a backup recorder for next time, but not really the same content as before! That'll for sure teach me to have the new firmware copied in ready for next time, and also a backup recorder just to make extra sure! Thanks, though, guys, for all this info you've put up on this cool forum. I'm so bummed! Screw you, iLO!! Mike
Hi everyone, I am new here and have been browsing the forums. I recently bought an Ilo dvdr04 and installed the firmware update on it to remove the macrovision protection but still whenever i try to transfer one of the tapes it still says "copyprocted" and it will not work. Can anyone please help me out with any suggestions maybe i am just doing something wrong but the update installed and completed. Thanx!
freebird1, If you got the firmware from my site, make sure you got the HACKED version. I have both posted. The hacked firmware is towards the bottom of the page. It sounds like you got the unhacked version.
gtrman, i realized that's what i wasn't doing wrong i didn't get the hacked version the first time. But after realizing the mistake i installed the hacked version and it worked perfectly! thanx for sharing that with everyone it really comes in handy for those of us with a large vhs collection!
Hi all, can anyone see a problem with me using this firmware on the UK version of this machine, do you have a scart socket on the back of yours, the front seems the same, my serial number is 2201-****-0098-B20A(203-C10D) so i assume I'd need the 1098 version if it will work, the input options we get in the UK are TV tuner, AV1 (front) Scart(rear) and DV in (front) what options do you get in the states? Cheers legs
