iLO DVD recorders....

[Dr Mordrid]

Just a heads up about the iLO DVD recorders (+R/RW) you'll be seeing in Walmart and Sams Club. iLO is a Walmart house brand.

The iLO DVD recorders are made for Walmart by LiteOn, so they aren't a typical "off" brand by any means. Look for the model numbers DVDR04 and DVDRHD04 (this one has an 80g HDD). Both have an IEEE-1394 input. They are very affordable at $149 and $278 respectively.

One thing though: the DVDRHD04 has a bug in its firmeware that causes a buzz when recording with the front panel connectors (the rear panel and IEEE-1394 are unaffected). This can be fixed with a firmware update downloaded from the iLO help site at;

http://www.ilohelp.com

LiteOn's own recorder, the LVW-5005, can record to DVD-R, DVD+R and CD-R. PCMall has 'em for $259.

For those that are curious the Walmart/iLO LCD and Plasma TV's are made by Tatung;

http://www.digitimes.com/NewsShow/Article.asp?datePublish=2004/03/22&pages=PR&seq=202

http://www.tatung.com/prod-overview.htm

Tatung also makes displays for many other brands.

Dr. Mordrid

[cDynamics]

Liteon 5005

Hi Terry,

That LiteOn LVW 5005 is currently at Costco for $179 (no rebates).

I only have two issues with it so far:

1) it records mpeg audio (I can't get it to record Dolby Digital audio)

2) I wish it had a 90-minute setting, or the ability to set the bitrate. The issue is the 1-hour setting is something like 9500kbps, and the 2-hour setting drops all the way down to under 5000kbps. I wish I could make it do something like 6500kbps

The recorded material at the 2-hour setting is excellent (I did a 40-minute recording, and the results were excellent). A bitrate viewer on the video showed that the actual .avg bitrate for the 40-minutes was about 4000kbps.

Regards,
George