Customer Reviews
Piece of junk - very poor product 
2006-11-11
Mine shutdown often when trying to put in a movie. Then had to unplug to reset. And during movies would skip and freeze up. Ilo wouldn't help. Then finally broke down completely and just does a low hum without turning on. The fuze is sodered in and can't simply be changed if that is what it is. No help from Ilo, supposed to be under warranty yet, but they don't want to fix it. Still arguing with reps, resending my receipt - 3rd time. Will sell it when/if I get it and hope to get $10 out of it. Piece of junk - stay away. I have a LOT of high tech products and 2 other DVD burners and this is the worst product I ever owned with the poorest support.
Abolutely not worth buying - Class action suit in the making 2006-04-02
I'm sorry to report that I had nothing but problems with this product.
1. My first ILO broke afer 2 days. It suffered the freeze-of-death, a very common issue with ILO recorders judging by the thousands of comemnts in tech forums. Basically the machine freezes on boot up and cannot be repaired. The only solution is to replace it.
The replacement came and it lasted all of two months... More about it:
2. Recording delivers a very audible hum that is very annoying in quiet scenes such as talking etc.
3. Disks previously recorded by this machine are no longer functional (Unreconganizeable disks).
4. DVD engine no longer recognizes blank DVD+R disks and is determined to treat them as DVD+RW disks. Tries to prepare them as such and ruins them in the process.
Called ILO tech support and was told I must purchase new drive. I said !@#$%^? This machine is only 2 months old and is under warranty! Not so! ILO played a pretty shrewed scheme. When they replaced my first recorder, they sent me one with a serial number and production date that was over 1 yr, hence it is no longer covered by warranty.
Just so you know, ILO is manufactured by LITEON. ILO is a re-branded LiteOn, so beware of both names.
I am researching class action suit agains the manufacturer and walmart for putting out and selling this piece of junk.
Do not buy ILO. You've been warned.
Great recorder for a beginner. 
2006-03-12
This unit has been of a great help in organizing my family videos and converting them from other video sources. Especially the digital video input. This has a fantastic quality that copying with rca cables will not allow alone. I am very happy with my purchase.
Excellent DVD Recorder with plenty of video recording space. 2006-03-12
I found that this unit is an excellent item. I have owned 2 of these units and have been thoroughly satisfied with my purchase. I converted all of my camcorder and VHS tapes over to dvd and now enjoy watching my family videos on chapters instead of rewinding and fast forwarding the video tapes....plus I have copies that will never degrade in quality if I want to make extra copies.
Recommend this unit for ease of use alone. I did alot of reading before I bought these units and I found that if the firmware was not updated then there were problems, but if the updated firmwares were put in then the units work fine. Mine ALWAYS worked fine.
Beware of this cheep product 
2006-03-10
Had it since last summer. This is the second Ilo unit we got, after the first one locked up beyond repair and had to be replaced by the manufacturer, after only 1 week of use (by the way the replacement they sent us was also used!).
About the operation. It is very simple, with no frills. We use it mostly to record shows to hard drive, watch and delete. Pretty cool as vcr replacement, you will never go back to VCR after using HD recorder!
Issue: you cannot record something off TV and watch a different program at the same time - there is no such thing as a switch between TV and Ilo. What you record is what you have to see. How obsolete is that? For crying out loud, my first VCR had this function some 30 years ago!!!!
Good things: you can start recording a program and then watch it from the start, simultaneously, as it is recording.
Now for the BIG PROBLEM. Several months ago we bought a MiniDV video camera and began backing up our holiday movies to DVD+Rs. Recently we wanted to view them with our family, and... Not a single one of our 55 dvds is recognized by this machine! Oh my God! I thought my husband was going to have a heart attack - all our home movies gone! Just like that! They played fine at first and now zilch, nada, gone!
I won't repeat what we told Ilo techs, but there is a happy ending to it: turns out the DVDs play just fine on two of our other DVD players, but are no longer recognized by Ilo. What gives?! I guess it's dying.
DO NOT BUY IT! 2005-08-10
Preserve your material on long-lasting DVD R/ RW media, the new standard in digital recording Record programs from any television, cable or set-top box source Recording is as easy as turning on the ilo DVDR04 and pressing the 'RECORD' button Hook it up to a VCR to transfer aging video footage or VHS movies to long-lasting DVD media For videophiles using digital camcorders (DV or Digital8), it couldn't be easier: just plug the camcorder in via the DV Link interface (IEEE 1394 jack) for real-time recording On-screen menu system Easy-to-use design Records on (plus) discs and plays both or - (dash) recorded discs for complete convenience Equipped with a TV tuner and integrated progressive scan technology High-end Dolby digital output signals
The good and the bad 
2005-07-05
I'll start with the bad: my Ilo broke after 1 week of use. It freezes on power-on and nothing can be done to make it work (as confirmed by Ilo tech support). The unit has to be sent back at my expense (no walmart nearby) for exchange. Ilo is aware of the problem, and if you'll browse the Net you'll see that it is quite common: DVDRHD04 freezes on HELLO welcome massage.
The recorder is so nice, that I opted for a replacement rather than refund. That takes me to the good part: Ilo DVDRHD04 is very easy to use. Unpack the box and it is ready in minutes. Picture quality is excellent, sound is good too. The harddrive recording beats VCR and TIVO. Records from mini DV camcorders, and several other sources. For those having problems watching movies purchased overseas, or having problems with copying own movies from vhs tapes, there is a way to make the unit region and macrovision free.
The things that need improvement on the manufacturer side:
Remote is small, and it is very easy to press a button by accident, screwing up a recording in progress. Recording (as well as other functions) is a matter of pressing a single key, which is a nice feature but because of the size of the remote, it can lead to problems. It is best to stay away from the remote while recording or defragmenting or running any other functions.
Out of 15 recorded DVDs (Ridata/Ritek) four were coasters, for no apparent reason.
Splitting titles (editing programs recorded on HD) can lead to hang-ups. Did two edits of removing commercials from movies recorded off of TV - one went fine, the other caused the machine to freeze and the movie to be unusable (file had to be deleted from HD).
The unit will not copy movies from hard disk to DVD if movies are longer than 2 hours. Anything over 2 hours has to be split, and recorded onto multiple DVD+R disks, even if you choose a 6 hour rocording mode for the DVD. A terrible shame here!
When recording through the front panel RCA inputs, there is a distinct echo, or a thumping sound in the background of recorded material. This is common too and should be fixed.
All in all, DVDRHD04 is a lot of fun, easy to use, and thanks to being manufactured for the World's largest retailer, the tech support is quick to respond and help.
Pretty Cool Technology - Don't Be Afraid to Buy 2005-03-08
I bought this unit after reading a number of reviews. So I knew to expect the need to perform a firmware upgrade. And it was necessary as out of the box there were a number of issues with even basic hard drive playback (forward and reverse never stopped where it should even). However I am happy to report that after flashing the firmware, which was very easy, the unit has been flawless. All in all it seems to be a very good value for the price.
Somewhat buggy, but firmware updates have helped 2005-03-05
I bought the unit because it was somewhat reasonably priced for a unit with a hard drive in it. My first unit i bought off of ebay - i tried updating the firmware and the unit froze.. I returned it to Walmart no questions asked, and got a second unit. The second unit had a couple of small issues which were promptly fixed by a firmware update. Since then i have recorded countless shows and recorded 20-30 dvds without a single issue. I am very happy with the unit once things started working correctly.
My recommendation - get one, but update the firmware right away.
UPDATE: I've owned this unit for several months now - and I love it! I don't know what i did when I didn't own one of these. This second unit hasn't had a single problem - i think my original one died on me because i updated the firmware wrong.
After the most recent firmware update (08/22/05 firmware update) the unit will also allow you to copy your mp3's and pictures to the hard drive to use it as a media playerr. Great unit - must buy!
P.S. Most of the people who have had problems with this unit have NOT updated the firmware. Most if not all of the problems with this unit are fixed with firmware updates including the freezing on hello issue, not recognizing certain discs, etc.
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Beware ilo will not play all DVD movies 2005-03-01
Spoke to ilo tech support today, 2/28. They have a bug in the unit that it will not play DVDs using a type of Sony copy protection. When you play one of these moves that players locks up to the point you must unplug to reset it. Before you ask no current firmware update will fix this. When I called ilo tech support they confirm the issue. The tech even had a list of movies the player would not play. Must be something new from Sony as only new releases are affected. Problem is ilo has known about this bug since December and still does not have a fix or a date on when it will be fixed. Scary that we have a DVD player that will not even play store purchased movies and is still be sold.
