Any opinions on the Sharp DV-HR300?

I did no try this yet. Good idea, I'll try it tomorrow, although I have to check if it is possible to record from TV directly on to a RW initialized on video mode. However, I doubt my problem might come from a fragmented HDD since when I transfer the same "title" from the HDD to two different DVD-RWs, the crashes, if they happen, never happen on the same frame. Anyway, as soon as I will have saved all the files from the HDD I will re-initialize it, as you also suggest. And I'll keep you informed of the results. Thanks again, and please keep on sharing your thoughts!

 

Please see below.

 

I'm another not-so-happy owner of a SHARP DV-HR300. Here is my take on it.

In just under 3 Months after buying the system, I finally broke down and sent it in to sharp to be repaired because of the "DISC ERROR" problem. The tech told me it was a firmware problem and required and upgrade.

Using the SHARP instructions for returning the unit for repair it cost $75.00 to ship (round trip) and no cost for the work since it skated in under the 3 month warranty.

Since I've gotten it back it has performed without errors. (with a few exceptions).

Remembering to use only DVD"-"R and DVD"-"R/W media I've had no problems recording to pretty much ANY brand media. (I buy mine from supermediastore.com, OFFICEMAX and STAPLES without regard for brand).

DVD"+"R / "+"RW will give you an error every time!

For the problems:

The time thing hits me now-and-again. I've tried to have the time set automatically using "EDS" on an hourly basis but it still gets off by 3-5 minutes regulary.

When I burn a DVD-RW, I'm unable to RIP it using my computer to "cut commercials and create a "REAL MENU"" because the DVD appears to be "copy protected" even thought the movie is "straight off TV". Any suggestions here would be appreciated.

I absolutely HATE the remote control and onscreen menu. Anyone know if SHARP has an update or a way to "FLASH THE ROM" with better software? (Hey! Stop that laughing!)

All-in-all its not as good as my ReplayTV but has some nice features like the ability to "Exact DUB" multiple shows. It has plenty of connections and support 480x480 resolution when using the component connection.

If I had it to do over again, a PC/DVR with WIN/MCE or Snapstream BEYONDTV in a MICRO-ATX case would be my first choice.

Later

 

Well, looks like things are getting worse! This time my Sharp doesn't initialise my DVD-RWs anymore. Worse, it wrecks them so I cannot use them on any other platform. I discarded Batpants' option (only after checking on my English-French dictionary what exactly 'sledge hammer' meant) and decided to bring the Sharp back to Pixmania's shop tomorrow since I still have a few months before my two years guarantee expires. May be one reason for me to try to get it repaired is that I'd like to keep in touch with the nice chaps on this forum, unless we all decide to buy the same new recorder (I have been told Samsung is a good one) and start an other forum)

Trying various options I wrecked half a dozen DVD-RWs. Does any one know a way to recover them?

 

I've not used the machine to record for ages now. Came to copy some stuff off the Sky+ box the other night and there's no sound. Has anyone else had similar problems?
Regards
Phil

 

Is it just me, or does this box "COPY PROTECT" everything you burn? I've tried copying movies off TCM (probably the best use of this device) and when I try to copy those movies to another disc or RIP them to my HD for further Editing, I get a copy-protection error. Even tried DVD-Decrypter!

Has anyone else tried to copy DVDs created by this beast?

 

Yes I did, and up to now never got this "COPY PROTECT" box.

 

The cable company is broadcasting flags in their signals. (I have Comcast.) There are 3 kinds of flags: copy once, copy never, and copy always. HBO is sending copy once flags. I have gotten a decent recording once by recording straight from cable to dvd-rw in regular dvd mode, not vr and using dvd fab decrypter to copy the files to my computer. Also, I have noticed that sometimes there is simply 'error on hard drive' and a scheduled recording doesn't happen. I think this is due to the cable company. Also, and this is what I cannot understand: on my recorder, I can copy video from the hard drive to dvd-rw dvd video mode, finalize the disk, and play it back on other players. When I attempt to copy the files to my computer, the copied files skip even though the disk plays perfectly. If I go further and burn the skipping files, there is a pixelated look on the dvd-r similar to what you see when the cable box decodes a channel. This began in the fall because many of my recordings are that old. Also, if you are copying files to your computer to edit the finished product, check for root kits. There could be something on your computer added without your permission to prevent copying: http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html. You can download their program to check your computer. I am going to try erasing everything and reinitializing. If this fails, I will try an external capture hardware solution to get the video off. If I cannot make my system work again, I will disconnect the cable and quit being a customer. I would also like to add that I purchased a dv-hr300u, but after having sent it back to Sharp 2x, the firmware is for dv-hr350. Also, it seems people who have tivo can see these flags on their system.
3-7-06
Sharp decided to fix my unit and it definately does seem like a hardware issue. I have been able to fix some of the pixilated and skipping disks by re-ripping with the anydvd program and creating new ifo files with ifoedit.
4-8-06
I received my unit back from Sharp 4-4-06, about a month after I shipped it to them. They replaced the hard drive. As far as I can tell, they did not replace the burner. The unit does seem to work better, and I have been able to make my first dvd-r that worked! On very cheap media (KHypermedia 4x R4.7)from CompUSA @ $2.99 for 10 disks. I will try some higher quality disks next. I bought some other dvd-rw disks from verbatim datalife v1.1 that had no mention of supporting CPRM, but after writing to them, they showed CPRM copy protection in both modes. (vr and video). This seems odd because I thought CPRM was only for vr mode. Also, I could not copy them to my computer for editing. On the other hand, my old Imation dvd-rw 1.1 does not show CPRM when writing the same video. Wish I could find more of those disks! They also copied to my computer for editing.

 

Hi all,

I'm in Australia and I bought a DV-HR300X refurbished (i.e. second-hand) and it's been fantastic! It's got good build quality and a great feature set. Personally, I think simultaneous play-and-record is the best feature and the major reason I moved away from VCRs. I would not even consider using another system that didn't have this feature (some HDD/DVD recorders don't!). Not having to change or rewind video tapes is a pretty big advantage too

Just wanted to comment on some bugs/features that others have mentioned (I recently read through all 28 pages of comments spanning the last couple of years!). Sorry for making this post soooo long, but I wanted to group all my thoughts together.

RE: clock problem

The first thing I noticed after buying the machine was that the clock was losing about 1 minute per hour. A test timer recording I did after 1 day was about 20 minutes behind...clearly unacceptable. I took it to a local Sharp service centre and they did a flash upgrade at no cost to fix it. It's been almost perfect ever since (maybe a couple of minutes variation over the last year).


RE: no audio

I also noticed that in some situations I got no audio from the system. It seems to be different for watching TV directly from the tuner, playing back a DVD and playing back from the HDD. It appears that the audio is actually output through different output connectors depending on what is being played.

I now have both the optical digital output and the RCA outputs connected to the amp. My setup *should* always put some audio through the TV speakers as well as the big front speakers connected to the amp, but in practise sometimes the only audio is from the TV. At least it's better than no audio at all. As I understand it, fiddling with the audio output options (i.e. bitstream, pcm, etc) makes a difference, but I haven't studied this in detail. I'm comfortable living with this workaround.


RE: high-speed dubbing

I have definitely used high-speed dubbing on timer-recorded programs that were several hours long, although I did hit one or two hiccups that prevented high-speed dubbing. Can't remember the exact details, but I think I either changed an option in one of the menus or I used VIDEO mode instead of VR mode on the DVD.

Anyway, it definitely works for me (maybe there's a difference between the 300X variant and the H/S/U variants?).

Update: I've checked my settings. In the menu ""Other Settings 1"", under ""Adjustments"" and ""Option Setting"", there is a ""Hi speed dub priority"" which I set to ""Yes"". When initialising a DVD-RW, I choose VR mode and the hi-speed dub works for any of my programs (I currently only have timer-recorded programs on the HDD varying in length from half an hour to about 4 hours). When initialising the DVD-RW to VIDEO mode, the hi-speed dub doesn't work (it says upfront that it can't be done).

As mentioned above, the 300X only takes DVD-RW Ver1.1 (i.e. 2x) discs. Ver1.2 (4x) discs definitely don't work (I had the same issue with my laptop's DVD-RW drive until I did a flash upgrade). Not sure if a similar flash upgrade is available for the 300X. I wish there was a manual override for the version numbering in the discs/drives, so you could just whack in any disc into any drive and just use it, regardless of what it thinks its compatible with. Some shops don't even sell 2x discs anymore, just 4x and above. Glad I stocked up when I saw the last batch on sale


RE: timer record mode going off

I have noticed a couple of times that when turning off the system with the remote (putting it into standby mode), the timer record mode goes off as well (definitely did not press the timer off button!). Can't put my finger on what conditions cause this and I've only seen it three times in the last year of usage, but it did annoy me because I once missed a week of TV programs while I was away and not able to check its status.


RE: channel 55-60 recording

Haven't hit this problem. On our free-to-air TV the highest channel is 31 and I don't use the recorder with any cable/satellite/pay TV systems.


RE: hangups

Nothing dramatic and it only seems to happen when my HDD is almost full. I chose a recording for playback, but it didn't do anything for a couple of minutes. In one instance it just started playing afterwards and in another instance it stopped playing (maybe I also hit the stop button and it took a while for it to respond). A second attempt on the same program had no problems with playback. Otherwise I've had no problems and certainly haven't needed to re-initialise the HDD or reset the system. Never thought that I would need to defrag the HDD (just hoping it knows how to take good care of itself).

Also related to hangups is occasionally when I enter the menu, it fails to respond to any other buttons so I can't select any items, but I can exit the menu. After re-entering the menu everything seems OK again.

I've never had a problem with a timer program failing to record and it goes into standby mode reliably after 3 hours of idling.


Major (but very occasional) annoyance: Some of my (timer) recordings in EP mode start off with quite reasonable quality, but after about 20 minutes, it inexplicably becomes very blocky, as if it's gone into an extreme-even-lower-quality mode (also similar to a low-res video that's been upsized too much during playback). I've only seen it on a handful of recordings (out of hundreds) and I'm not sure what causes it. I guessed that maybe I was watching a program at the same time and the system couldn't keep up, so it recorded a lower than usual quality, but then it didn't happen on dozens of other recordings done under similar situations. It could be poor atmospheric conditions reducing the TV signal, or perhaps it was the HDD getting too fragmented??? Funny thing is that it starts OK and subsequent recordings from the same day are OK too. Once it degrades like this, it doesn't get worse, but it also doesn't get better. This remains a mystery.


Minor annoyance: I once changed the sorting for the list of titles on the HDD and it stuck as a default but I can't change the default back! It used to default to showing oldest recordings at the top of the list and newest at the bottom, but now it defaults to showing newest at the top and oldest at the bottom. Annoying since I usually want to watch the oldest recordings first. This also appears to be the opposite order to the thumbnail view (which is always oldest to newest). I think it used to remember what sort order was previously used, but now it doesn't remember it after I change it.


Wish list for the 300X (does anyone know if these have been addressed in newer models?):

I wish it could accept more than 16 timer programs (for those extraordinary times when there's lots of interesting programs or if you're on extended holidays).

I wish its timer programs could take title names and automatically put them on each recording (especially useful for my weekly recordings of favourite TV shows). I saw a JNC recorder that has this feature (the rest of the JNC package was disappointing though).

I wish it had two tuners for recording different channels at the same time, or for recording one channel and watching another one live.

I wish it wouldn't lock out certain features in the minutes leading up to a timer recording (it's of no real consequence since I can just do something else for 5 minutes before trying again).


Love my 300X and now my friends want one too

 

hey keongl,

I'm inerested in you high speed dubbing. My recorder won't dub with a timer recording. Could you please post your setting so I can try. I live in Europe and mainly bought this machine to record Baseball games which are (for us) in the middle of the night. High speed dubbing would be a bonus for me.

For the rest....I love this recorder. I'm not having any trouble at all (owner for 10 months)

 

ti1075,

Sorry to repeat myself, but after I updated my previous post, I thought I would extract this bit about the hi-speed dubbing to make it easier to find.

In the menu ""Other Settings 1"", under ""Adjustments"" and ""Option Setting"", there is a ""Hi speed dub priority"" which I set to ""Yes"". When initialising a DVD-RW, I choose VR mode and the hi-speed dub works for any of my programs (I currently only have timer-recorded programs on the HDD varying in length from half an hour to about 4 hours). When initialising the DVD-RW to VIDEO mode, the hi-speed dub doesn't work (it says upfront that it can't be done).

I've gone back and forth a couple of times with VR mode then VIDEO mode and I'm pretty sure this makes the difference. I don't use VIDEO mode any more, but someone else may have a good reason for using it (is it really more compatible with other players than VR mode?). I use VR mode exclusively and it seems to work fine for all the players I use.

As for "hi speed dub priority", I assume this affects the way programs are recorded. I haven't tried this, but you might want to experiment with some programs recorded with the priority set to yes and and some with priority set to no, then check if hi speed dubbing is possible.

Anyway, I've found this combination allows hi speed dubbing for me and I hope it works well for you too!

 

Just for general note. When you load your movie, tv show, etc into DVD Shrink or other program on your computer for editing.(I like to watch the shows without the commercials and without having to fast forward through them)and get a copy protected message Run AnyDVD in the background when loading. Problem solved

 

Keongl wrote:

> Some shops don't even sell 2x discs anymore, just 4x and above.
> Glad I stocked up when I saw the last batch on sale

When shopping, look for DVDs marked (e.g.) "1 TO 16 speed" instead of just (e.g.) "16 speed".

I got some TDKs like this and they work fine in the Sharp.

Mark
nylon.net

 

Hello,
I have a problem with my DV-HR300F.
Since my last record, I cannot erase any record on my hardrive. When I go to the EDIT/ERASE menu, it's display UNABLE TO MOUNT DISK(sorry,I translate from french!).
Is there any solution or workaround for this problem?
Thanks for your help.

 

Cedricw
Unless you have several recordings on the HDD that you wish to keep I would suggest you "INITIALIZE" the hard drive. This should clean out any bugs such as you are having.INITIALIZING the hard drive should clean the hard drive completely. Was your hard drive almost full of recordings when this happened? Seems from previous posts that whilst you have an 80 Gbyte hard drive, the machine requires a few Gbytes left empty on th hard drive to carry out some editting processes. "Bon chance" Silver64

 

Thanks for your support.
I send an email to the support. I hope Sharp will propose me an other solution.
But I think there's in no other way.
Cédric

 

Cedricw, please keep us informed of the reply you will get from Sharp support (if you get one). I just brought my DV-HR300F back to Pixmania hoping the Sharp will fix the various problems I had with it. However, I would have preferred to get some support directly from Sharp . Could you please give me the address of the Sharp support for France?

 

I send them a mail by the web site from www.sharp.fr by clicking the contact button (because when you call sharp on phone, they said to me that they have only the same manual as the customer and that the technical support don't speak with private customer).
Hope this help

 

I must say congratulations on being able to keep a thread going on a single product for such a long time! There is a lot of good info in here!
I have a DV-HR350 that I bought in late '03 (in Japan where I live). I read and re-read this whole thread, and a few other pages related to this recorder that I found, but I still can't seem to get some of the answers I need. I read in this forum that the firmware update is good for only the HR350S, and later in the forum somebody asked the question about just an HR350 (no S). The reply said that the S should be on the serial number in the back of the unit, and probably theirs is an S unit. I checked mine and there is no S in the serial number in the back. Using the cool channel up + Record stop trick I learned from this forum I got this info:
Model 0350 R 02 Date 03/12/11 Ver000f0111 Tuner 1.0 ILINK 003abf00 CPRM f48ad6f97f3cc19e DIC0x0100 S/N 000a00453b HDDDSK 883134410000e763
Does this mean I have an HR350(R)? I saw some older posts that also said model 0350 R. Did the update work, or does this even matter?
Anyway, my prob is that I have never ever had a successful DVD copy from my machine. I tried a few times shortly after I got my unit to burn some of the movies that came preloaded (Pirates of the Carribean wouldn't play at all from the HDD it came pre-loaded on!) but it didn't work. I got too busy to check what was wrong, and now of course the warranty has long since expired. About a week ago I decided to try again, and found I had been trying on the wrong DVDs. I got the DVD-RWs that Sharp recommended, but now they won't even stay in the machine. After I put one in and wait a minute, the drive spits it back out and says it's a disk the machine can't use. I've tried several different kinds of DVD-R and RW's, but it won't accept any of them for reading. Also after I try, all the shows I reserved for recording get ignored. They are still on the list, complete with their times, but it doesn't do anything. After pulling the plug, it goes back to normal (of course the reset doesn't do the job).
Anyway, I'm trying to get the wife and kids to finish watching whatever they have recorded already so I can initialize the HD as was strongly suggested in this forum. Maybe that will get rid of my problems? Either way, I'd like to upgrade if the download from the www.sharp.de site will work on my unit. Everything works except recording in any format on any kind of DVD. Any advice is greatly appreciated, including the advice I already got from reading all this stuff! Someday I'd like to try to flash the region, but I can't get the region flash to download. I tried being patient, but it really doesn't download. Anybody got a copy? I made disks for the upgrade and am hoping somebody out there has already tried it and lived to tell the tale.
If you read all this post, thanks!

 

I tried initializing the hard disk, wiping everything out of the HDD, but it still won't accept any blank DVD's. Any suggestions? I'm just about ready to junk this thing, but don't have the cash to replace it yet.