Any opinions on the Sharp DV-HR300?

Hi Niki745, hope all is well....
In regards to your observation:
"when I manually record then set an end time of say 1/2 time the unit records then stays on instead of switching off"
I haven't seen that in mine. It shuts off ok. As far as the unit staying on, I wouldn't worry. It shouldn't harm it at all, unless it's in a hot environment.
Your other observation, I have had happen. Yep it's usually when I set it an hour or so before the event. It will not record it. Haven't figured that one out yet. But I did notice that it will only happen when I leave the machine on. Not when I set it and power down. I havent had it happen much, I would say just a couple times. In most cases when I set way in advance and power it down, like you, I check to see if the indicator is on.
But I havent had any problems yet, doing it that way.
I will keep an eye out for any patterns in the "no recording" issue. Keep us informed.
kind regards, from Florida manny

 

JPJ 001
You asked earlier if the 300 could be "hacked" to make it suitable for multi-region DVD playback. As I am sure you are aware, lots of dvd players can be hacked via the remote. Still no joy as to a website for this on the Sharp, however I have seen a 300H's for sale on the internet in the UK as " Multi-region".
Maybe this was acheived by an internal modification but either way I don't think Sharp Electronics UK would honour their warranty if a mod was applied to a UK product.
Mannycam, How's it going? Hope you are enjoying the sunshine in Florida!It's cold and wet in Scotland!

 

Oh wow!!! that's right Silver!! Never stopped to think about that. Florida weather is perfect this time of year. Thank God the hurricane season is over as well. We had 3 come our way this time, 2 of them right over us. Mostly power outages and rain in my area.
Nice to hear from you Silver. My brother's girlfriend is from Scotland.
cheers, manny

 

Hi Again Manny. Might be cold and wet in Scotland but thank the Lord we don't get Hurricanes! I'm trying to simulate the problem Nickie is getting with the timer on the 300. I tried setting the timer to record a TV program just a few minutes ahead. It seemed that because of the time the machine needs to set-up it wasn't possible. I then set the timer (via videoplus code) for a program 15 minutes ahead and it started recording on schedule! Normally if you do something wrong with the timer settings the rec light flashes but I always make sure if after setting the timer and then powering off that the rec lights remains solid. I think that in certain sequences I have noticed that after powering off the 300 the timer on/off button has to be pressed again! Cheers Silver

 

Yes exactly, I'm beginning to think that this machine requires a certain amount of protocol to work properly. I too double check that lil red light. I do agree, setting the recorder hastily leads to the error we've been seeing. The error is usually "hard disk error" I never noticed the blinking light. I will have to look closer next time. I will also keep tracking the current issue. See if the pattern stays the same or if it's just a random thing.

stay warm, manny

 

I've found another great benefit of this lovely little machine.

Have you ever tried taping 2 different programs at the same time, by connecting the outgoing aerial to the 2nd VCR instead of the TV? It certainly works, but you wind up with heavy interference on one of the recordings. Try the same thing with this beauty, and BOTH turn out perfectly. In fact the VCR picture seems to have been enhanced by having gone through the Sharp circuitry.

Perhaps this works because the DVDR is digital and the VCR is analogue. Whatever the reason, it's well worth giving it a try.

 

Hi petomane,
Welcome to the forum. Most interesting to say the least. I will have to give it a shot. And yes it is because the unit is digital that there is an improvement in the picture. This lil gem never ceases to amaze me...lol
Thanks for the info. kind regards, Manny

 

Is it possible to upgrade the 300 to burn at 8x? I have 70 DVD's to burn & the extra speed sure would help. I'm currently using Verbatim 4x blanks, the 35 min program takes 13 mins. to hi-speed dub. Thanks all. Don at VMG

 

Hi Don at VMG. WoW! 8x recording! Seems to me you are expecting just too much from the 300 which is after all just a domestic dvd recorder with a hard drive. For the £300 UK price it does everything and a whole lot more. Despite posts to this forum with folk having problems, like Mannycam and others I am well pleased with the performance of this little beauty! For commercial duplication of dvd's I would suggest you have a look at the Hardware section of www.blankdiscshop.co.uk/ and you will find a duplicator that will copy 7 discs at once.Price £229! but it won't do anything else!!
Have a Happy Christmas, Silver

 

Hi,

I've read in a yahoo group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sharp_dvd/) 2 persons reporting that the sharp couldn't write to their 8x DVDs. They say their reseller adviced them to stock up 4x DVDs to be used with the sharp as that kind of DVDs are going to disappear pretty soon.

Personnaly I use 2x DVD-RW and 4x DVD-R, and I don't have any 8x DVDs to test with. Has anyone tried with 8x DVDs ?

Thankx

 

Hi Erikk
I was interested in your comments on the experience of some Sharp 300 owners having problems using 8x blank media. Concerned, I immediately loaded an Infiniti (8x white top disc) and dubbed a 2hr movie I had previously recorded from TV to HDD last evening. I can report that I had NO problem! Could it be the brand of media the other owners were using? I have read of Panasonic and other DVD recorders having problems with certain brands of discs but so far I have used mainly inexpensive Datawrite, Bulkpak, Budget, and other unbranded 4x discs on the Sharp and never had a coaster. Could it have been a problem trying to Hi-Speed dub or recording directly from TV to 8x discs that caused the problem. Certainly when 8x (and soon to be produced 16x) came on the scene, these were reported to be "back-compatible" with older 4x PC dvd writers.I would assume the same would apply with DVD recorders. Anyone else on this forum had a problem? regards Silver64

 

Hi Silver64,

Thankx for testing so quickly. That's what I thought as well, that newer DVD discs are back-compatible. The 8x should be the maximum write speed, not the only one.
I think the recorder in the Sharp is pretty much the same as one you can find in a normal PC. So compatibility issues with dvd media are probably the same.
Personnally I've been using Memorex, Traxdata and Ritek upto 4x and no DVD has been wasted yet.

 

Hi silver64 &JPJ 001,
Yes there is a multi region software patch, it's "official" (not a hack), and I have it
It is two small programs that you burn on to two DVD's or CD-R's, follow the load squence instructions and voila!

 

Hi EA5E,

Is this patch for writing multi-region DVDs or only for playing them?

 

Dolby Digital Audio playback problems
I have a DV-HR350X. My two problems were:
1. No multi region - solved by patch (see previous message)
2. It seems that I can either play DVD's with Dolby Digital (Region 4 does not have DTS!) by setting the Digital Audio Output to Bit Stream, in which case I have proper surround sound through my amp (connected by fibre optic), BUT no sound on any hard disc recorded program, OR

Setting it to PCM allows me to have sound from hard disk content (which is recorded in PCM), AND DVD sound, but it is then vanilla 2 channel stereo, not surround.

Now, if you do have a DTS DVD, the DTS gets through regardless of whether the output is set to PCM or Bit Stream

Anybody have any ideas? Seems like a bug-feature to me. Still waiting for Sharp Tech support to give me an answer.

 

Hi Brunnen G,
Works for both read and write

 

Hello EA5E

Where can I find multi region software patch ?

Happy new year 2005

 

Hi EA5E. I was interested in your patch for multi-region playback. However I note you have the Sharp HRDV350x. This is the latest model and has the 120GB HDD. I am a bit concerned that the older DV-HR300H with the 80 GBHDD may not have the same internal electronics. E.G. I read on a yahoo forum that some guys were having problems with the 350 dubbing to 8x media, something I haven't experienced with the 300H.
I only say this to caution 300 owners, as once you hack it Sharp Uk won't honour the warranty! Also Brunnen-G Although my UK Sharp300H will only playback Region 2 and Region 4 dvd's I would think it burns DVD " multi-region".
I will get a dvd I've made of a movie from TV and try playback on one of the DVD writers in my PC which is set-up to play Region 1 discs and report back. Regards
Silver 64 and Happy 2005 to all!

 

Hi Silver64,

My (Australian) HR300 seems to be the opposite to this. The manual says it records region 4 discs and the disks seem to be region 4 when recorded (as best as I can determine) however the unit plays regions 1, 2 and 4. I haven't tried playing any other regions but this seems to indicate that it is a multi-region player.

Also, I noted an oddity when I was checking disks created with the HR300. When I put a disk in my laptop it showed up in Explorer as "$ DV-HR350 Basis Volume $". It's interesting that it seems to identify itself as a HR350. The main difference between these units may just be the different HDD size with some minor firmware mods to use the extra disk space.

Regards.

 

Hi,

I have a DV-HR300F (french version). It cannot do multi-region playback, and it does also put "$ DV-HR350 Basis Volume $" as label on written DVDs.

I think (of course I cannot be sure) that the 300 and 350 are exactly the same except for the hard-disk. I read that people have successfully replaced themself the 80 HDD in the HR300 with a bigger 120 HDD.