Any opinions on the Sharp DV-HR300?

mannycam, the first times, I waited for at least 3 hours to make sure it's a bug and not because the operation takes a long time. I did this for both dubbing and finalizing.

 

Hi Erikk and Peyob I am in the UK therefore have the Sharp 300H, I guess you guys are across the Channel and are using the 300F model. So far I haven't had any of the problems you have experienced. I have a feeling that a lot of the problems exist only with the "F" model(maybe wishful thinking on my part) Could it be SECAM broadcasts you have. We have PAL in the UK. The finalization "problem" Peyob has experienced I can understand. It does TAKE a LONG time to do sometimes but remember on a PC it also takes a time to write the closing of a dvd! The antenna/tuner noise suggests a sound "feed-back". Peyob, Have you an amplifier/ 5.1 sound system also connected to the Sharp? Re poor picture via the tuner. This isn't a problem with me. The picture on hdd or dvd from TV is excellent and leaves VHS way behind as far as quality is concerned.

 

Woe!!! That is crazy. If you don't have to much on your hard-drive, it might be a good idea to start over. Put it back to it's original condition. Re-intialize. I'm thinking the software should have addressed these issues, if not be the very reason they're happening.

 

Hi Silver64,

Yes in France the model is DV-HR300F and it can handle SECAM. I don't think the bugs exist only on the French models, as from the forums I visited, dutch and spanish users have problems with the sharp as well, mainly the timer problem.

Regarding the finalizing and dubbing problems I have, the sharp does really hang, it's not because the operations take a long time to complete. As I mentionned, the first times it happened I waited for hours before reseting the machine. And anyway after resetting and doing a finalizing or dubbing in exactly the same conditions (same title, same DVD ...) it just works fine in no time.

- The finalizing hangs after the screen with the DVD menu is displayed. Then the progress bar never shows up.

- The dubbing hangs usually after 9 or 10 seconds. The counter just stops at 9 or 10. The LCD display is then still orange, but the counter is just stopped at 9 or 10 seconds. The current image is frozen in the screen. Then if I press REC STOP, the usual message is shown on the screen asking if I am sure I want to stop dubbing. After I select YES, the message disappears and nothing happens. Then I cannot even turn off the machine. Sometimes even after pushing on the reset button (several times even), the sharp just remains in the same condition (LCD display is orange as if it was doing some dubbing, the same frozen image is shown on the TV screen ...). The only thing then to do is to unplug the machine !

The brands of DVDs I use are RIDISC for DVD-Rs and TRAXDATA for DVD-RWs. I always use VIDEO mode.

I have noticed that if before finalizing the DVD, I play if first, then it's less likely that the finalizing process will hang. Actually by doing so, I haven't run into the problem yet. So that's might be a way to circumvent the problem.

Regarding the dubbing problem, I'm trying a "method" to circumvent the problem: Playing the title to dub before dubbing. I haven't made enough tests to tell yet, but so far it seems that there are less problems like that.

Hope it wasn't too long to read and too obscure, but I guess it's worth giving all possible details etc.

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BTW, regarding a previous post of mine, can anyone confirm if this is the same on your machines ? that programs that have been timer-recorded cannot be high-speed dubbed : they don't have that high-speed dubbable icon when you look at them in the title list page, contrary to the programs that have been recorded manually. (of course the high-speed option has been set before and etc.)

Thankx

 

OH Der Erikk, Seems like you guys on the Continent have a lot of problems. I can only hope you got the Sharp at a good price! I bought mine on offer online at half the store price and as I say I haven't had a problem to date. Mannycam know a lot about this machine but I don't think he records a lot from TV. I have never tried Hi-Speed dubbing of a TV program from HDD to DVD.In fact most of the TV programs I record are movies and I just dub them at normal speed on to DVD. I know it takes a while but the quality is excellent as I always use fine mode on to HDD. I am sure you will get an answer from a forum member. We seem to be setting up a "United Nation" of Sharp users. I am in Scotland! Silver

 

Been having problems with the H model to. My machine only a couple months old and I had "hanging" problems (3 times now) and the only way to get round them is to unplug the machine. First time I had recorded from video onto the hard drive, no problem, then after it had finished went into the edit menu to put a title on and the machine froze. The time stopped. Left it for 10 minutes come back and was in same place totally ingoring all buttons on the deck and the remote control. Ended up having to reset but my program was still there and edited fine after reset.

Last night the unit was recording 7 hours from TV and during a program (I was watching a DVD and just switched back to HDD) it stopped recording and then when I tried to turn it off it froze. After reset the information section told me it had stopped recording due to "hard disc error". As it was a concert it was recording I quickly got it to record again and it did that fine. I dubbed hard disc to DVD fine no problem. Really don't want to send this back as know that the company I brought it off (comets) probably won't have anymore and I really like this machine. I use it a lot for recording to hard drive (from TV) and only had three freezes though it does have little "bugs" that are annoying and don't make sense. Lovely machine though and it has changed the way I watch TV.

I read earlier in the forum about reformatting the hard drive. How do you go about this.

 

Hi Nickie 745. I also bought mine from Comet. Just remember the Sharp is a bit like a PC and sometimes PC's "Crash" or need re-booting. Maybe switching for DVD to HDD mode when recording caused that problem. I don't know but as you got it recording again and didn't miss your concert just forgive and forget. As for reformatting the HDD I can only assume it means INITIALIZE the HDD whereby it erases everything you've recorded and takes the Hard Drive back to a clean condition. I am not sure but maybe someone else on the forum can help. Best regards Silver64 ( VHS IS DEAD!!)

 

Thanks for the advice appreciated. Just worry about "damaging" the hard drive when rebooting or resetting. It's a funny little machine with it's own personality and little quirks!

 

I understand your concern, Nickie745. I also baby this sweet lil gem as well. But as long as you follow the manual closely, you shouldn't have any problems putting it back to its original condition. I've yet to have to do that to mine, but wouldn't hesitate if I needed to. It's a lot like re-formatting a PC's hard-drive. Keep us informed. Manny

 

Hi Erikk
I do have the same HR300F, and EXACTLY the same issues (10s hangs in dubbing, lost of timer rec). In addition, clock is sometime lost, unless the clock update using teletext info is activated.
In addition, when a timer recording ends, the unit does not go in power down immediatly (it goes after the 3 hours of auto power off function).
About the 10 sec hangs in dubb, you may try to switch off the unit before dubbing each time you want to copy to DVD. It woks all the time on my side.
One other point on time lost, this phenomenon increase as available size on HDD decrease... strange and not easy to explain.
Does anybody know how to check firmware rev. and where to check known bug/corrected bugs ?
Rgds.

 

Hi daleroux,

What you said about the auto power-off after 3 hours is very interesting, because I also came to realise that the timer-recording lost was somehow related to that auto power-off functionality. I had a hint when I noticed that sometimes, when I turn off the sharp, the timer light goes off ! So I suspected that between two recording timers, if the gap is more than 3 hours, maybe the sharp turns off and doing so accidently turns off the timer as well. So what I used to do is that whenever I have a gap of more than 3 hours between two recording timers, I add an artificial timer in between so that there is never a gap greater than 3 hours. I didn't miss any recording doing so.

I was very anxious before going to the shop to have my sharp flashed with the new firmware, because I've heard some poeple have a clock shift problem after they had their firmware upgraded. I didn't know what version of firmware they had though, so I decieded to take my chance and had my sharp flashed.

Anyway, now I don't seem to have the recording timer lost problem anymore, so far. The machine still automatically powers off if under timer mode which is weird because I specify no auto power-off and also it doesn't do so if it's not in timer mode. But at least it doesn't remove the timer light when it auto shuts down now.

Regarding the time shift on the clock, I haven't had the problem fortunately, because it's even more annoying I think, and would make the sharp completely unusable. But I do use automatic clock setting, so .... maybe I should do some test with no automatic clock setting ...

For the duubing hang after 10 seconds, I was actually considering doing as you said, turn off and on the sharp before proceeding, as my test consisting of playing the title prior to dubbing does not work all the time. The only thing is that the sharp is quite slow when it starts ...

I don't have any information on how to check the firmware version installed on the machine. The only thing I know is that on the CD they use at the shop to flash my machine, it says:

version 1.11
- that the image quality for dvd playback is improved
- timer dysfunctionning problem under timer mode solved (it wasn't very clear what specific problems were solved exactly)
- backlight problem under timer mode solved.

Anyway, thankx for you input.

 

Hi Erikk
Thanks for info, I will updte the firmware of may 300F. Did you bring back to your local dealer, or to sharp (in other words, does your local dealer had the capability to update by himself the firmware ?).
One other point, are you still unable to have hi speed dubb when you use timer based records ?
Thanks,

 

Hi daleroux,

Yes I brought it back to the store where I bought it after they sent me a letter telling me to bring it back for a firmware upgrade. They could do the upgrade themself, just need the sharp along with its remote control. The instructions were written on the cover of the CD they used to upgrade the firmware.

Yes I still can't high bub timer recorded programs.

 

Thanks Erikk for info. I will now have to take my unit back for update.
Anyway, even if this recorder do have unacceptable bugs, it remains a very good video machine, as far as video quality is concerned.
Dal.

 

You betcha Dal, do what you have to do to get it fixed. A unit that requires very lil space and has the capabilities that this has, is to good for to be true. I love my Sharp.
Manny

 

I'm a UK user and I've had the Sharp for about 6 months.
I also have some Region 1 discs that I can't access.
Does anyone know of multi-region hacks for the DV-HR300?
Regards
Phil

 

Hi JPJ
Like you I am in the Uk and have had the Sharp for several months. I was initially disappointed that this machine couldn't be hacked to multiregion playback. I had to resort to my PC and convert my Region 1 DVD's to "all region" back-ups which the Sharp has no problems in playing. I have seen your question on other forums but so far I haven't seen an answer. Keep looking and if I see anything I'll get back. Meantime I hope you are enjoying this excellent recorder which ( touch wood) I haven't had a problem with. As I have stated on this forum before, forget VHS, unless you wish to transfer old tapes to dvd but just remember it's more like a PC in operation. It takes a little time to get running, finalisation etc, etc but be patient it makes VHS as dead as a doornail! Cheers Silver.

 

Hi all. I'm in Australia and about to buy the HR300 after much investigation. Given what has been said in this thread I am confident that the machine will do what I want to do. I have been importing VHS tape through a digital camcorder (to digitise the video) into my PC via a firewire port and then processing this on my PC before burning onto DVD. The HR300 will allow me to simplify this process by eliminating the camcorder. The only concern I have is the amount of control over menus. Currently on the PC I have a choice of styles that reflect the content of the DVD. Does the Sharp have the same feature? If so, how many different menu styles are there? This is not going to stop me buying the machine but I'd like to know what limitations I'm going to have. Thanks in anticipation.

 

G'Day Brunnen G. As far as I am aware The Sharp will process analogue into a digital image to enable burning on to DVD but that's about all. You can transfer on to the internal hard drive and from there edit out unwanted scenes but really in my opinion the only way to successfully make movies is to do the processing via a PC using a program such as Pinnacle studio or Roxio. Transfer from analogue(VHS) tape to the Sharp is via S-video or RCA plugs at the front of the recorder and there will be a slight degardation in quality. Digitising analogue won't make the picture quality any better though once you have it converted into a digital image you won't get further degradation when making further DVD copies. Otherwise it's a great little machine and if you had a digital camcorder the transfer to the HDD is via firewire and no picture degradation. Mannycam (a US forum member) may be able to add to what I've said and I know he has done a lot of camcorder transfer to the Sharp, Cheers Silver

 

Strange my unit powers down straight away after a timer record and has no problems if timers are more then 3 hours apart though I always make sure after setting the timer and turning unit of that the timer record light is up. I do have a annoying problem that when I manually record then set an end time of say 1/2 time the unit records then stays on instead of switching off and I get up in middle of night for nature calls to find unit is still on, does this harm the unit at all to leave it on? Do people in this forum leave thier unit on all the time?

Another strange thing was I set a timer record the other night, turned unit off and when got up the unit was on and hadn't recorded the program. Seems even though my unit is told to switch off after 3 hours it sometimes doesn't and sometimes decideds not to record a program, saying that recorded it next night on a repeat and it was rubbish so maybe it was trying to save me the bother of watching it.

Can u get firmware upgrade in UK?