ILO DVDR05 Anyone bought one yet???

Yes the disks are finillised. 1Click gives you no choice. Only 8X dvds show this problem and only on older players. The people at ILO are sending a firmware uopdate. We will see what that does and I will start to 'pester' the folks at 1Click.
I don't think this is a problem with the ILO or with the PC. It could be a problem with older players. I'll let you know what panasonic has to say about it.

 

Okay, so I just got an iLODVDR05zu. I tried to play Star Wars: Ep. III and it was all green! I got on here and was reading tons of reviews about it being bad. "Oh no! What have I gotten myself into with this thing!?!?!" So I tried "The Hobbit" on it and it was green, too! So I got back on here and started reading more reviews...updates, flashes, oh my! What do I do?

Well, let me tell you. I left it on for about 30-45 minutes while reading this and then decided to try it again, with "the Hobbit". It works great and looks beautiful.

So I thought, I wonder how the recording will work. Since tons of people are having problems.

I put in a blank DVD+R (imation 8x). It formatted it, or whatever it does to it. I recorded about 3 minutes of "The Fresh Prince of Bel Air off of my digital cable in 2-hour mode. I stopped it, finalized it, and took it out. I put it in my Phillips DVD Home Theater system and it didn't really work out so well. It played it, but it snagged every few seconds. No big deal, I'll try the PS2. It worked perfectly. I tried the iLO for the playback on it, no problems there either.

I don't know what all the fuss is about...so far, it's been flawless (other than the green tint that went away on it's own. Might have been my component cables. Who knows?)

I'll keep you all updated if it decides to take a turn for the worse!

*EDIT: UPDATE: It also plays great on my computer (homebuilt in November). Still don't get all the hositility?

 

is that a new ps2 or the old one.

 

Old one. And it also played the second time on my Phillips. No problems at all. I'm watching Terminator 3 on the iLO right now. Beautiful picture and sound. I'm very happy with it.

I'm attempting to copy a VHS now. I have about 50 minutes left. We'll see how it works.

UPDATE: Well it worked perfectly. Like I expected it would. Looks pretty good (VHS Quality after all.) Works on every player I have. Still no complaints. I'm copying some homevideos off now. I'm very happy with my iLO.

UPDATE: I just did a 7 title dvd from home video clips (about 1 1/2 hours worth). It plays fine in the iLO, and fine in the computer. However, the PS2 doesn't like it and the Phillips sort of likes it. Chalking it up to it being a 7 Title DVD I'm not concerned about it. I plan on using the iLO as the primary player anyway as it has component cables hooked up to the television, so it looks the best.

UPDATE: 2 VHS backups with no problems, not counting the sensitive multi-title DVD+R. Maybe they've realized their errors and have put out some good units?

I'm extremely glad I bought this!

 

Hi all

I have a new ilo DVDR05ZU that I got a WM a few weeks ago. The first hour I spent with it worked me up to a rage. I went through the process of trying to initialize a brand new Verbatim DVD+R 6 times and could not get it initialized. Then I tried a few more with the same results.

It would get to 99% and never go any further. I waited a few minutes the first time and couldn't cancel or eject the DVD so I pulled the power. Restarted and tried to initialize again. Waited a few more minutes and never got past 99%. The most I wated was around 30 mins for it to finish initializing. It never did.

Then I tried a Memorex DVD+RW. It initialized it and let me record a few shows but could not finalize the DVD. I treid several times but it gave the bad disc error every time.

Since every other DVD recorder at Walmart recorded to DVD-R I wondered if the Koreans just made a major typo and tried a Verbatim DVD-R. Ever since then I've burned about 10 DVD-R with only one failure due to recording too much and filling the DVD.

All the DVDs have worked in all the DVD players I have in my computers and hooked to tv.

I know for a fact that the TDK DVDs I used for a handful of recordings are problematic in various DVD drives. For example, my PC could play the video but not copy the VOB file due to file corruption. This is a problem with the drive not being able to read the file at the speed. I could have tried various speeds but that's only a bandaid.

On my Mac iBook, the internal DVD reader could read the TDK DVD and the vob files just fine, as could an external LaCie DVD burner.

The point is that media does make a difference. So some problems may be related to the dvd drive not being able to read the media. That's not ilo's problem or responsibility.

Now, the other thing that I believe is causing so many people problems with video playback freezing or jerking, or not playing at all is the way the ilo (and probably all the others) fits the video onto the disc.

A single layer DVD can hold 62 minutes of DVD quality video. This actaully has a standard. DVD Quality generally refers to a video stream that is made up of jpeg images with a frame size of 720x480 and a bitrate of 6-8 MB/sec. The bitrate can of course vary but many DVD authoring software insists on only importing clips that are of this size. There are other framesizes that they will usually accept as long as they can be scaled up to 720x480 during transcoding.

The way that the ilo gets 2 hours or more of video on the DVD is by reducing the framesize and bitrate of the compressed video before writing it to dvd. It results in perfectly playable mpeg video but not all DVD players and software will accept framesizes that aren't referred to as "DVD Quality". For example, when I record at LP to get 3 hours of video on a disc, the resulting video stream has a framesize of 352x480 with a bitrate of 3MB/sec. Let's see, that less than half the normal DVD Quality bitrate of 8MB/sec and less htna half the DVD Quality framesize 720x480. That's how it gets more video on the disc, not because it records "faster" like a VCR does.

That video file looks more like it was generated for a webcast or to be played on google video. Newer DVD players will play it and a lost of other framesizes. I daily created DVDs with DVB video recordings at 544x480 @ 2.5MB/sec or 480x480 @ 2.5MB/sec. But I had to go out and buy a new JVC DVD+-R/RW player in order to do it.

The point here is that not all commercial DVD players will play non-standard video streams like this. Just because it is on a DVD disc doesn't make it "DVD Quality". However, computers use software to play DVDs and are much more adept at scaling video to be full screen no matter what the original framesize is. So you should nver have trouble playing ilo recorded DVDs on a PC providing the media is readable.

After the first hour of busting my head , I switched to DVD-Rs and have not had a single problem since.

GooberSB

 

That's a good tip, thanks. I've copied another VHS over and still have not had any problems with Imation 8x DVD+Rs. I have yet to try a DVD-R.

 

Media used does seem to be the key for this recorder (or maybe any other recorder) to work properly. I got the ZU model three weeks ago. Brought Memorex +R/+RW at the same time from WM (Memorex is one of the two available DVR+R brand at WM). Had numerious problems with the Memorex disks. Can not finalize recorded disks, a few finalized didks later became disk error, etc. After some research (including reading this thread), found that Memorex is not on ilo's recommended list of DVR +R/+RW. Returned the Memorex to WalMart and brought Fuji film DVD +R/+RW at Best Buy. Haven't had a single problem since.

If one finds success with a particular disk brand, just stick to it.

On the plus side, the playback capability of this unit is so superior to my other two DVR players. MP3, JPEG photo file, IEEE fire wire, it even plays back PAL-based DVD's. Because of all these, the ilo DVDR5 is now my primary DVD player (the one with its component video hooked up to my HD TV and its digital audio hooked up to the receiver). Really a great unit at bargain price. Just hope it is realiable and last somewhat longer.

 

I did exactly the same and had exdactly the same results. I also tries a DVD-RW after I found that my Verbatim DVD-Rs worked better than the Verbatim DVD+Rs. It let me record for a while but would not finalize. I tried a few times and finally got a bad disc error.

Yeserday I downloaded and burnned the Loader update and firmware update (no I didn't call tech support and wait to be told to do it as they want you to). After updating the player to the newest bins I erased the DVD-RW that didn't work 2 weeks ago and initialized it once again. I recorded 2 hours of VHS and finalized without a single problem. I inserted the DVD-RW in my computer this morning and copied the VIDEO_TS files off of the DVD with no problem and erased it again. I'm going to use this procedure when I want better looking menus and titles.

The only complaint I have about this unit is the title menus. They are terrible. It's nice to be ablle to rename them but I would really like the ability to set the thumbnail and get rid of the thumbnail boxes that aren't used. For now you have to reauthor the menus to get a slick DVD but for quick and easy this DVD recorder cannot be beat.

GooberSB

 

I've been useing imation -R and +R also RW without any problem i burn to a +RW then edit on my comp works great

 

I've said it before I'll say it again.

I think it's a bunch of BS that a DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW won't record using certain brands. You'd take your VCR back in a millisecond if it didn't record onto ANY TAPE. Just because of it's brand. It's not like you're trying to use a beta tape on a vcr. It's a DVD+RW, and it should record, and re-record over it 1000 times. EVEN 500 would be nice. NOPE!!

Even a low end DVD-R/+R/-RW/+RW should work.

I have experienced EVERY problem with this thing that people have described on this forum.

I've had it the MU over heat ... not even record on a +RW or +R Skip all over the place. Chirping, wouldn't record shows back to back. I've had the ZU work great for a while, and then do EXACTLY what the MU was doing. PLUS THERE'S A LOW HUM NOW!!! After 2 months!

If you record to the end of a DVD, it magically breaks the DVD where you can't read it, and I can't get the thing to record on it again after that happens. No vcr tape EVER DID THIS! EVER!!!!! WTF?! Are we so used to running windows where we expect things to not work?!

The last 2 times I've tried recording with this thing it's failed. ON BRAND NEW +RW both times.

It shouldn't matter if it's maxcell, memorex, verbatium, or fuji. THE THING ADVERTISES DVD+RW it should write to +RW as advertised NO MATTER WHAT BRAND!

If it required a specific brand, it should clearly state it on the box.

Like Memorex(+RW) or Fuji(+RW) so you know hey I can only use fuji on this thing.

I've never had a problem writing to any brand of CD-R/RW with my computer. I don't own a dvd burner for my computer, but you can rest assured I would return it in 5 seconds if it didn't record to any brand.

 

"The update was also created to help with incompatibility issues with
various disc manufacturers.
In particular, our customers were experiencing problems formatting and
finalizing with Phillips, Maxell, TDK, Memorex brand +R.
Some disc brands that we have received positive reports about are Fujifilm,
Verbatim, Sony, Ridata, Ritek."

That's what customer service told me. It's funny that managed to buy Maxell DVD+RW's and Memorex DVD+R's. I guess I figured they would be better than the cheaper brands.

 

I too had a problem with new +R discs. I wasn't able to finalize a DVD-RW (supposedly not
possible) after recording to it.

Last week I installed the .76 ilo firmware update for the ZU and the 2 problems you
describe above are not a problem for me anymore.

Specifically, the update limits the amount of time you can record to avoid running out of
disc space. I have mine set to get 3 hours of video but it stopped recording at 2:54:00
while unattended. That left room for finalizing when I ejected the disc. Before I installed
the update unattended recording would continue until the disc was really full and there
was no free space for the finalization.

The other specific fix I have made the most of is my Maxell DVD-RW discs work like a
champ now. I recorded, erased, and recorded some more after the update.

There is a minor downside to the update. OTR now offers only 30 min and 60 min
recording. 90 min is gone for some reason.

I have to say that if you don't have the latest updates for your model (at the iloservice site)
then you are missing out on a great recorder overall. Since I updated I have not had one
bad disc.

GooberSB


Oh, even though the DVD-R and DVD-RW are not supposedly possible I have had 100%
success rate buring DVD-R from the beginning and now enjoy 100% success rate with
DVD-RW. As for the DVD+R/RW requirement, these are the ones that I had trouble with.

 

The customer service rep told me that installing the new firmware will solve the finalizing problem. I tried installing it and the machine wouldn't read the CD-R disc I put it on. I tried several different brands of discs.....Just an Unknown Disc Message....Customer Service is mailing me a copy, but I doubt it will help.

 

How did you download the firmware updates? The download site (http://www.iloservice.com/services.htm) will not work for me. I tried three different browsers, and I just get error messages or "site contains no data."

 

The customer service rep sent them to me but theyre different from the ones at their website.

 

For the ZU model
go to http://www.iloservice.com/downloads_zu.htm

perhaps at the time you were trying to go through the site the web server was not working properly.

GooberSB

 

Ive got the MU model? Is the ZU model newer?

 

For the mu model go to
http://www.iloservice.com/downloads_mu.htm

I don't know the difference between mu and zu. People seem to desire the zu model though.

GooberSB

 

I have tried that though. It installs on my computer normally, but my DVD Recorder won't read the disc.

 

Don't know what you mean about installing.

You aren't supposed to install the files on your computer. The downloaded files are Nero images. If you don't have Nero you can either buy it or locate a utility to convert from Nero .nrg files to ISO images (.iso files). Look for MagicISO or ISOBuster on the internet.

You must then burn the ISO images to CD using some software package. I use EZ CD Creator. If you are burning the .nrg file to a CD then that's why it's not updating. When the CD is ready it will have a group of files with names like update.exe and 1341234.bin

If you CD does not contain .bin files among other things it's not ready.

GooberSB