ILO DVDRO4, $150 may be good deal.

[telemike]

I jsut picked one up. The region free menu works. Hopefully an mv-free firmware will be available soon. Seems to work ok so far. 4 hour mode looks good to me for recording off the tv-tuner.

[lordsmurf]

Is this unit true VBR or CVBR?
Can somebody run it through BV (Bitrate Viewer) on a PC and post some images of the scans?

[lenti_75]

I jsut picked one up. The region free menu works. Hopefully an mv-free firmware will be available soon. Seems to work ok so far. 4 hour mode looks good to me for recording off the tv-tuner.

how did you do this? is it a regular menu or a hidden one?

[D.A.R.J.R.]

You change the region in a hidden menu, you can access it using the same code as the liteon 5001.

Lordsmurf, here is the scan. Its not directly from the ilo though. I didnt have anything right here to scan but this is video captured with the ilo then added a better menu with tmpenc dvd author.

EDIT: for some reason I can never upload anything here..

anyways here it is:

[kabanero]

Looks like CVBR, cause yellow line is straight.

PS

Here is the scan from mpeg file recorded with my JVC DR-M10 in SP (2hr) mode:

[JasonK]

No stereo tuner? Gee, they really are cutting costs.

How about playing back video.....

Can you quickly skip through commercials like a 3 minute jump?

Same question for hard drive (on the relevant model)

I checked Walmart, but no HD model available.

How many scheduled programs can you schedule?

[lordsmurf]

That's not even CVBR... it's pure CBR. Barf!
Thanks for doing the scan.

[D.A.R.J.R.]

ummm I think tmpgenc dvd author messed with that other chart.

here is a scan of something right off a disc:

[lordsmurf]

Is there any way for you to scan a 4-hour mode recording of 4-5 minutes long? If that's not too much to ask. That'll reveal a lot to me, as I've studied recorders most at this spec.

If I'm reading this right (adam, if you're reading this, input please), then where the yellow crosses the green is a "problem" area more prone to artifacts and blocking. You see this often on CVBR or low bitrates of any variable type.

[NightWing]

Thats about right. It follows with the bitrates that PowerDVD displays.

You will see some squares on somthing like a welder spark or somthing with a lot of a particles flying.

[NightWing]

Just for giggle here is a split screen of the DVDR04 and the orginal capture by PowerDVD.

[lordsmurf]

What are we supposed to be looking at?

PowerDVD is simply DVD player software, one that adds on-the-fly deinterlace filters, I might add. As well as filters to adjust for the RGHB/YUV colorspace conversion (makes tv black still look black on PC monitor).

[NightWing]

Maybe should have added this to the picture.

After you subtract the simular extraction method to derived a single frame from both. It a crude way to simply shows the difference between the orginal DVD clip vs the output after passing through the Composit input / pipeline LSI chipset in the DVDR04. Not exact due to creating a 2nd gen from the first gen. But close enough for a simple quickey test.

I picked PowerDVD since it avaiable for a lot of people. And its a very simple test to run and repeate. Not perffect. But fits for the lower rez pic I woud post. For more objectivity would have done a more exact exaustive test.

Also one thing not shown from the picture is the DVDR04 capture is short a few lines at the top. Actualy a set of Color bars would proabbly have been better. But the car looks nice.

This recorder fits the market it was designed for. A cheep few frills recorder. It seems more solid than the Cyberhome unit without needing to fix things like adding a fan to correct a very poor thermal designed.

[nightliner]

D both models have the hidden menu to make them region free? I did a search to find the code for the Liteon, but couldn't find it. Could someone please point me in the right direction?
Also, according to customer service at ilohelp.com, the cheaper unit does have a stereo tuner. They first told me it was monostereo. I had no idea what that meant, so I asked them again. I asked if it would record stereo shows in stereo and was told "yes, it would".

[overloaded_ide]

Well I geuss the way you find out for sure is make a DVD with a cat meowing on the right speaker and dog barking on the left. Then copy that to a stereo VHS tape, play it back and record on the ILO as you would from TV. Then play the disk and change the balance to left and see if you hear only the dog then fade the balance to the right and see if you only hear the cat. If you always hear both on both speakers, that's probably what they meant by monostereo it mixes both channels together but plays it all on both stereo speakers. If you only hear one on each speaker like you should then it recorded stereo.

I had a strange problem this weekend. I recorded 3 DVD +rws the same way. Was my kids vactation tapes. 2 play great, the other DVD doesn't load! My Norcent plays anything, all disks are the same Memorex and have worked fine. I recorded onto them each already then copied to the PC and erased them, so I know the disks should play fine.

Why only 2 out of 3 play I don't know yet. The 3rd disk does play fine on the PC though. All 3 were recorded in the same mode and everything.
That's the first disk that has failed to play on the Norcent so far from the ILO. Been recording, playing, erasing the same 5 +RWs (all I have). So I have sort of gone though about a dozen movies now (on 5 disks) and only 1 failed to load. Tried it several times.

Also I found the kids baby movies, 13-11yrs old tapes. Been a busy weekend! How do I clean her VHS-C camcorder heads now???
I have about 8 tapes to go and all I have is snow and sound now, and she ain't happy either cause she wanted to record the deer in the yard and me working on my truck and such.
Since I had recorded VHS-C tapes when she was a baby and the adapter did a lousy job in the VCR, I used her camera to play the old tapes.
They played really good too, till the end of the last one I did, now none play

[NightWing]

Also, according to customer service at ilohelp.com, the cheaper unit does have a stereo tuner. They first told me it was monostereo. I had no idea what that meant, so I asked them again. I asked if it would record stereo shows in stereo and was told "yes, it would".

Hum... Usualy with a stereo tunner they have a menu or setting to switch between Stereo/SAP/Mono.

Wonder if they just set it for stereo? Would be nice. To prove it would need an RF modulator with MTS encoder. Those are not cheep. Most of the 20 to I think 100 dollar ones are summers only. Could be wrong. The only one I know that have MTS encoding are about 250 and from Channel Master I think.

Else could check on the part number of the tunner and see if that model is a stereo one.

[D.A.R.J.R.]

Here is a scan of a 5 minute clip in 4 hour mode:



Here is the Information DVDmax gives for the clip. Notice it says mpeg surround audio... I didnt even know that existed

[telemike]

Since it is VBR, does that mean the maximum time per disc can vary?

Here is some info on MPEG audio:

http://www.mpeg.org/MPEG/DVD/Book_B/Audio.html

[D.A.R.J.R.]

mpeg audio is part of the Euoropean PAL dvd spec, thats whats wierd. In the manual it says it records in Dobly Digital audio which should be ac3 not mpeg.

[telemike]

Does the Liteon DVD recorders do Dolby Digital or MPEG2?

[NightWing]

Odd. The cipset spect sheet says it does Dolby Digital CE and Mpeg 1 Layer 2.

It looks like its locked doing Mpeg 1.

[leebo]

VCRs have ALWAYS been like this, timed recording must be "off". Different agreements force MV protection on VCRs/recorders.

We've always done it that way so why change?
Maybe we should go back to living in caves.

[lordsmurf]

Interesting. The bitrate allocation is a bit low.

[lordsmurf]

Cannot find ANY if these "ILO" products in any Walmart around here.

[Tersanyus]

Did you look up on a high shelf? One Wal-mart I went to only had them up high.

They should all be getting these units by now. They all probably do have the iLO's but got them stuck in the back. I mean, come one, the iLO is Wal-Marts brand item.

You might be able to ask an employee. But I bet you'll get a wierd look since I bet no one there has ever heard of that brand.

[NightWing]

Went to a supercenter and their pile was up on the shelf along the whole length of the shelf! About 3 boxes tall! Have not seen any displayed except for a pile of boxes.

I would guess for 150 its flying off of the shelves.

Looking for the HD version right now but non so far in my area.

[gshelley61]

Both types are in my area Wal Marts...

[soundforbjt]

Both types are in my area Wal Marts...

What part of country?

[gshelley61]

Rochester, NY

[NightWing]

Just the base one on the left coast!