Sharp DV-HR300U DVD Player/Recorder with 80-GB Drive
See it at Amazon.com for $799.99Average Customer Rating
(3.0 out of 5)
Amazon Customer Reviews
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(4 out of 5)Sharp DV-HR300U review
After searching near and far to replace my Panasonic showstopper 2000 (problems with over heating hard drive) I came across an article in Sound and Vision that reviewed the Sharp DV-HR300U. They gave a very good review of the Sharp and I completely agree with there assessment. The actual recording on the hard drive looks 10x better then the my old Panasonic.
There were only a few quirky things to get used to. One was that fact that this DVR does not have a menu like Tivo or Replay. You will get a grid very similar to the Tivo and Replay but there is no listing of the shows. For me personally it took a little getting used to, kind of had withdrawals. But, once I got past it I was just fine. The Sharp DV-HR300U comes with its own tuner so you can watch your own TV and record on separate channel. BUT **BIG BUT* if you have cable as I do and your premium channels are 99 and higher then you need to get a little creative. I had to keep in mind that Sharp made the DV-HR300U more like a VCR then a PVR. So on my cable box I used the component out for the component in on the Sharp DV-HR300U and record directly off the cable box. I leave the Sharp DV-HR300U on channel three and my cable box on the channel that it needs to record. Sounds like a pain in the but.. HUH! Well I would agree with you. and I was ready to return it, until I discovered that my cable box has a channel timer. Now I simply set the cable box to switch to the channels I want, at the time I want and set the Sharp DV-HR300U to record at that time and I have my personal clone of Tivo/ Replay type of user friendly menu.
Like I said if it were not for the fact that my cable box would switch channels for me I would not have kept it. And that would have been a real shame, because this thing puts out some awesome pictures. I also like the fact that I am not paying Tivo and Replay the $200.00 life time or $14.99 monthly service to record. It's a give and take. =)
One last thing to review is the dvd recording. Simply put its looks great. Don't expect some of the older dvd players to be able to play the DVD-R or RW. I nor any of my family or friends had to worry about it because we had dvd players that were fairly new and played the whatever I had recorded. The software is bit technical but once you understand it you will have no problems. I have even uploaded home movies that I recorded on my sony digital camcorder. It's a nice touch to be able to put those home made movies on dvd..
I hope this review helped and with these parting words I recommend it highly as long you can meet the same needs that I had. good luck ....
(3 out of 5)This ended up being a nightmare that won't end
I posted a favorable review of this unit about 6 months ago. Granted there were some catches, but one day the DVD recorder just stopped working for me. 20 DVD-Rs later, Sharp had me ship the unit to them (at my expense). One month later, the unit was returned to me and SURPRISE! the DVD Recorder still doesn't work for me. Livid, I call back saying that this time the shipping is on them. They agreed and it was returned to them using their Fed Ex account. Two months go by and I don't hear anything and finally, the unit arrives back at my doorstep in a box that's 50X larger than the unit (way to save on materials, guys!). SURPRISE! the unit still doesn't work. I returned it once again, sure that they would just replace the old unit with a new one. Apparently, not surprisingly, they stopped making this piece of garbage and agreed to reimburse me for the cost of my unit. That was two months ago and still no check and every time I try to get someone on the phone over at Sharp, they either don't have answers for me or I get disconnected.
My advice... avoid Sharp products at all costs - they clearly don't have the resources to take care of their customers and I'm out $300.
(5 out of 5)AWESOME A NO BRAINER
Aside from the 860 Canon printer I recently purchased, this is the best purchase Ive made. Amazon, as always shipped this out sooner than soon. Great service. For the actual deck itself.. its fantastic! No lie, as the other customer said. "Right out of the box" Turn it on and youre ready to record from TV to disc, to harddrive, from hardrive to disc, from disc to harddrive..This gem does it all. Great menus, layout is superb and easy to understand. Made my first recording last night and guess what...no DISC ERROR death screen on this beauty. I set the timer to record Tripping the Rift on both a disc and the harddrive 2 hours apart and went to bed. I really expected to see some error, or a no go, but NO!!! this thing did it without so much as a burp. I am totally thrilled with this device. Thank you SHARP for making our dreams come true. I finalized my new disc and popped into my Sanyo player and Vavavavoom, I was soon enjoying Tripping the Rift, in superfine dazzling quality. This was to replace the lemon I bought from Philips...the 985. What a joke, after one year the damn thing shows errors on DVD+Rs almost everytime. Dont know how many coasters Ive created using it. As mentioned in the online reviews from other customers, it worked for exactly one year flawlessly. I didnt want to believe the reviews but folks 1 hundred customers cant be wrong. And they werent. So now it sits on my entertainment center as a DVD player, and an occasional DVD+RW since it does do that for the time being. Im not one for sending it back for service and pussyfootin with customer service, I chok it up as a complete loss and move on. Thats my way of ending a bad experience. I am really bummed out on that purchase. But hey, I came out winning with this baby. It does what its supposed do and much more. So check it out for yourselves guys. Its a no brainer. I love my new sharp!!!! And Amazon I love you, great reliable service!
(5 out of 5)Good experience so far...
I got this recorder about a week ago. I was originally thinking about Panasonic, but didn't want to have to buy the top of the line or last year's model to get the ilink for dubbing from my camcorder. Was a bit concerned since Sharp wasn't such a well known brand to me, but so far so good and this deck is a great deal. Haven't had any major problems, one DVD-RW failed to initialize, but others are working okay. I have noticed you can't interrupt the deck and try to do something else during initialization/finalization. Manual is very complicated (and I am an EE), BUT, I'd have to say I don't see how it could be simple considering all of the functions. Overall, I'd recommend it (especially at the $379 price I got it for including shipping and no tax!)
Few other things...I was also successfully able to use 4x discs (see the next reviewers comments), have not seen the flicker problem another reviewer mentioned, and also the black level seems to be fine (Toshiba bug)
(5 out of 5)Best deal going.
The DV-HR300U is a fabulous product. VERY easy to setup and use. The manual can look a bit intimidating at first, but it is fairly well written for as much as it's trying to cover and if you are at all comfortable just diving in and pressing buttons, then the manual becomes more of a reference book since the on screen prompts are pretty much self-explanatory. Sharp isn't usually known as being the best in home A/V, but I have to say this unit seems to be built quite nice (the remote is absolutely hideous though) and it's features and performance are on a par with any of the "higher end" manufacturers. I haven't had any trouble recording to HDD or DVD, everything works just like it should, right out of the box. I suspect that if you are having as much trouble as some seem to have you might have a bad machine, as everything I have tried so far (recording from satellite, and camcorder to HDD then dubbing to DVD) has worked flawlessly and the picture and sound have been spectacular. It will not copy commercial, copy-protected DVD's (or VHS, I suspect) by itself...if that is your intention, you'll need one of the devices by Sima to bypass the macrovision (or one of the old APEX DVD players), or use your PC for copying DVD's and keep all the menus and extras. I bought this when the price was $379, but even at $449, it's a heck of a deal, especially when compared to the similar Panasonic models or the TiVo with DVD-R and there is no monthly fee. Easier than most VCRs to program to record. If you think you want/need it, get it, you'll probably like it.