Hi, I saw one of these cheap on EmpireDirect's site - £300 seems good value for a 250gb recorder. But I can't find much information about them online. Does anyone have one? What's your impression? Also, is it possible to make it multiregion? thanks, Rach
Me again. I got the recorder yesterday, and I've been struggling to get it set up ever since. I can't get the GuidePlus working, has anyone here done so successfully? I've got the sky box connected to the recorder through RF cable AND scart. When trying to setup guideplus, I specified that it should get the epg from Line 2 (the scart in from the sky box). I then turned the skybox to 410 (eurosport), put the recorder and standby, and waited. Pretty soon, it tried to get the EPG*, and it seemed to take longer this time then on previous attempts when I was trying to go through RF (although I might have just been more impatient). Despite trying several different times, several different ways, I'm having no joy. I'm still not getting the EPG. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong? Does it have to be overnight? The recorder is displaying EPG, as though it's trying to get this. * When left in standby, the recorder seems to try and get the EPG pretty frequently. Is this only a one-off, or is it likely to continue to do this constantly while in standby? Am I going to have to leave it on all the time when I want to watch tv? TIA.
Wow. I really do feel like I'm talking to myself. Well, I found out what the guideplus problem is - my sky digibox. So here's another one. A few times now, when I'm recording from tv and watching a dvd or something on the hard drive, whatever I'm watching locks up - it stops playing. If I hit stop, and play again, it starts at the very beginning, and only plays for a few seconds. Also, there's no sound. If I then try to watch what I'm recording, there's no sound there either. Turning the recorder off, and on again, seems to solve the sound problem, and the recorded show has sound throughout. However, I can't help but feel that this shouldn't be happening at all. Has anyone else had this problem with any of the Sharp hdd/dvd recorders?
Nope. It was bad timing - I sent an email to Sharp the same day I posted this message, and just got a reply back yesterday - saying that it was probably a loose connection or configuration error. Which wouldn't explain at all why it affected the playing back of dvds and things recorded on the hard drive, and why turning it off and on again fixed the problem (temporarily). So I'm sending it back to Empire Direct. I figure a machine shouldn't develop a fault like this within the first week ... although my boyfriend's theory is that it had something to do with the courier's rough handling. He was there when it was delivered - the box was ripped, and the guy dropped it from about 6 inches onto the floor. I'm going to try and get a Pioneer 530 instead. I've read loads of good things about it, and it's a lot cheaper in the january sales.
Hi Rach, I have a Sharp DVHR-400 (previously had a '300 that went wrong) and I've had no problems with it at all. The rate that new devices comes out unfortuntely means that the design is not fully bug-fixed before the marketing department say "ship it!", so you'll always get these niggles. Unfortunately, for a manufacturer to compete, if they don't ship early they miss the sales deadlines so they all do it. By all means try the Pioneer, and good luck with it, but y9ou may find different niggles rather than no niggles! As you can see from the '300H discussion thread, some people have no problems, others have loads. The courier dropping it and chucking it about could well hgave damaged the device. Anything with a hard disk in should not be treated like that.
I've found another bug with the 480 - most of the dvds I've recorded with it, or at least most of the ones I've watched, don't play right. They tend to freeze about 20 minutes from the end (very frustrating!). Empire Direct still have it (they've had it longer than I had), and claim that they haven't found any faults. And I've missed the January sales now. Oh well, hopefully they'll believe me when they get a few sample dvds. I'm tempted to just ask for a refund, and get a different model after awhile. Is the technology just too new? Or was I unlucky?
