Any opinions on the Sharp DV-HR300?

Manny, how's it going? A friend here at work brought up a question. "Unfinalized" discs, do you think they're playable in different brand dvd burners? i.e. Sony, Sharp, Panasonic, etc. Perhaps another approach might be... can different brand dvd burners add programs to the "same disc"? i.e. You own two different burners and want to add programs to the same disc from each burner?

Will try some different discs/brands to look into my finalizing issue. Have a good day buddy, Don

 

No Erikk, the titles were edited before I put them in the playlist, I just deleted them after copying the playlists on a DVD. I had four playlists and now these empty playlists are impossible to delete, it is even impossible to create new playlists the machine just hangs as soon as one option (new or empty playlist) is selected. How did you get rid of your playlist with altered titles?

Anyhow, it feels good not to be alone with this type of problem. Thanks.

 

Pilchard,

I just deleted the altered original title, and then the related playlists were gone automatically and I could reuse the Sharp normally again.

So far I have used only very simple playlists. They are all a segment of an original title. I've never tried playlist spanning several original titles for example.

 

Regarding unfinalized DVD ...
It would be nice if it existed a PC program capable of recognizing those unfinalized DVD and finilizing them

 

Hi guys, hey Don! Unfortunately the burner that created the unfinalized disc is the only one that can alter it. It's alot like starting a disc on a PC with one program an then trying to add or alter it with a different program. So far I havent found this to be possible. In most cases the files won't even appear on another PC.
In regards to playlists. Yes the playlists you create with the various recordings you make are directly affected when altering the originals in any way. And yes sometimes the unit freaks out if you all of sudden change or delete the original files. But I too havent found this to affect any other playlists associated to other video files. Naturally I refer to anything burned to the Sharp as files....again remember this is more like a PC and less like a VCR. No wave form with magnetic properties in this beast. Pure text files which are read and interpreted by the Sharp. Which explains why you can pop it into a PC and either play the files or even copy them to your PC to create copies...clones of the original.
kind regards, Manny

 

Thanks Erikk and Manny. It looks like I am stuck with my Sharp that freezes each time I try to use the Playlist function again. Is sending it back to Sharp the only option?

 

Hi Pilchard, first try setting it back to the factory settings. To do that you will erase everything on the HDD hard-drive. So make sure you burn anything you don't want to lose. The method is refered to as "Intitializing" Go to the main menu and look for that option. Once you start this, there is no turning back. It will go back to its original factory settings.
Manny

 

Thanks Manny. I'll try that, but first I'll have to go and by plenty of DVD-RWs! I'll keep you informed.
Pilchard

 

Very good, good luck. Sending things back can be a real adventure
Manny

 

Pichard,

You could also try this if you haven't already.
Just after you turn on your Sharp, press on "Original/Playlist" to switch to playlist mode. Then press "Start menu", then select "Edit/Erase", then "Erase all titles".
It might work if the Sharp hangs only when you try to display the whole list of playlists.

 

Erikk, you had a great idea! It worked! Since I did not know that after pressing "Erase all titles" as you recommended I would be given the choice between "originals" and "playlists", I was affraid the originals on my HDD might be erased and I first saved all my recordings on DVDs. This took me the week end. Meanwhile, I got an answer from Pixmania where I bought my recorder and to whom I had written to explain my problem. The answer was: "send the machine back. Repairs will take four to eight weeks". I am really glad you had the idea of this short cut!

Thanks again to you and Manny

 

Erikk, you had a great idea! It worked! Since I did not know that after pressing "Erase all titles" as you recommended I would be given the choice between "originals" and "playlists", I was affraid the originals on my HDD might be erased and I first saved all my recordings on DVDs. This took me the week end. Meanwhile, I got an answer from Pixmania where I bought my recorder and to whom I had written to explain my problem. The answer was: "send the machine back. Repairs will take four to eight weeks". I am really glad you had the idea of this short cut!

Thanks again to you and Manny

 

Great going Erik, Pilchard so glad things are working again. Yeah thats the only answer these companies have, is send it back. Then its weeks before you will see it again.

cheers, Manny

 

Hi BayuTiger,

on July 5th you wrote an answer to MarkGil that the Sharp DV-HR300 does support AV Auto Rec, means that it can be setup to be controlled by an external receivers timer for recording purposes. You mentioned to press a button on the remote called "AV Auto Rec", which I can not find on my remote. Any hint from your side ? I tried "Direct Rec TV" and "Rec" so far.

I have an external DVB-T Receiver Philips DTR 1000 connected to the Sharp DV-HR350S (same as 300S only more HD space). It supports modes called "Record Link" and "Easy Record / Prepare Record". I have selected Easy Record so far, but will not get the Sharp to listen.

Thanks for any help!
Dirk

 

I got my DV-HR300 over a year ago, and love it mightily, except for its really sluggish response to the remote. I took people's excellent advice and applied the multi-region patch successfully, and today I replaced the HDD with a 160G unit.

More through luck than planning, my new HDD was a Hitachi Deskstar, the same make and model (but double the size) as the one I removed.

I wouldn't recommend it to clumsy people, but if you've installed a HDD in a PC you might stand a chance. Just be careful, and have a magnetic pickup handy for when you drop screws into the case

A tip: check the jumpers on the back of the drive. My new drive wouldn't work, but I realised the jumpers were in different possies to the one I took out. Once I moved one jumper, all worked well.

Now I have a spare 80G HDD to play with, and my Sharp now has double the recording space! Ahhh! Time for a nice Cab Sav, I fink.

Mark

 

I've bought a 350 two weeks ago. I'm realy pleased with it as it is a major step up to my vcr. I started reading this tread and it's realy helpfull for a newby like me. Thanks to everyone who posted the info and tip's.
The second day I tried burning a DVD from a recording I made on the HD. No probs there. Yesterday I tried dubbing onto a brand new Verbatim DVD-RW. I first got the message that it was an unusable media and my Sharp opened the tray, so I tried formatting the DVD-RW on my PC. The message then said it could not play back the disk so I initiated the disk in video mode (I want the disk to play on a stand alone) My unit started initiating but with about 4 block left on the progress bar it stopped. I waited for half an hour and unplugged the machine because it didn't react to anything anymore. After a couple of minutes I restarted my Sharp and re-tried to initiate. Now the progress bar frose with one block left. I went to bed leaving the machine running because I didn't want to be inpatient but this morning there was still one block left on the progress bar so I unplugged, took a shower and plugged it in again and came to work. The Verbatim is a 4X. I'm using Verbatim-R's for years on my PC now and I have never encountered problems with them. The only coaster's I had where my own stupid mistakes. That's why I went for the Verbatim RW's.
Did anyone encounter the same problem? Is there something I'm doing wrong here or is this a media problem (4-speed or brand)? If so can you share some tips on buying DVD-RW's.
Tony_1075.

 

Hi Tony ( ti1075) If you look back many months ago in this Forum you will see that the Sharp 300/350 doesn't seem to like 4x DVD-RW's and certainly I would'nt spend money on expensive RW's like Verbatim for the Sharp. R U in the UK? If so you can find lots of cheap but good brands ( 2x) on http://blankdiscshop.co.uk that work fine on this great little recorder.
Hi again to Manny and old fiends on the Sharp 300 forum. Have been away again on my travels and have missed the recent posts. Good to see the Sharp brotherhood is fit and well Cheers
Silver

 

Thanks Silver,

by now I had dug in and read the entire tread. I've bought Fiji 2X and these are working fine.

I've found that if I use the timer recording there is no way I can dub in high speed. This seems a bit weird. I use this machine to tape night showings of Baseball games and want to save some on DVD-RW for later viewing. Now I have to use the normal dubbing which takes me somewhere between 2 and 3 1/2 hours. From what I read the dubbing flag is set to false when timer recording and there is no way to put it back to true. Who at Sharp had the bright idea to make the software behave like that? I mean, they should now that this machine is most likely use as a VCR and people make timer recording on that and then they don't allow you to high speed! A pity since that is the feature I was looking forward in using.

Tony

 

HI SILVER! Ole buddy! Hope you're doing well my friend. It's been a while. One gets busy in life's daily chores. Still keeping the shiney side down though Nice to hear from you again. Yeah this thing about writing speeds will become more and more revelant in the years to come I'm afraid. Hopefully they will still produce the slower speeds.
cheers, Manny

 

On the subject of faster DVDs, I was lucky (???) in that my '300H broke and by the time they realised they couldn't fix it, it had been discontinued in the UK. They shipped me a '400H instead which supports up to 48x discs, although I guess only CDs can go that fast at the moment. I'm not sure what the fastest DVD it can support is, but it writes to my 8x discs no problem at all.

To conclude, it is possible that a DVD drive exchange may be a potential upgrade path for '300 users, although whether Sharp will offer it seems highly unlikely to me.