Sharp DVHR300H

Picture quality of commercially prerecorded DVD films is very good with my Sharp DVHR300H, noticeably better than my Mitsubishi black-line DVD player, though not up to the standard of my truly excellent Toshiba DVD player.

To summarise, it is a good quality, good looking unit which does what I bought it for - that is to record programmes to hard disk for later viewing or dubbing onto DVD for the few that I actually want to keep long term.

Unfortunately I've been let down by its infuriatingly slow and awkward to use software.

Sorry but I can't agree with the first reviewers remarks on the

Sharp DVHR300H + 80Gb HDD. For me it is a great machine and no problem at all with the timer.

As usual it took a day to get to grips with the settings etc because there is so much more you can do with this than with a video recorder.

I now have only half the scart leads in the back than before. It took a while to work out what went where but eventually I got there.

When set on fine recording which I use the image playback is perfect as is the sound. If you are not recording anything fast moving then SP is good enough, still better than video, but if you choose a worse setting than SP then it starts to get a little blocky as you would expect.

I record everything onto the Hard Disk and then you can dub it anytime you want onto a blank DVD.

Even here you get all the different options for recording onto Disk, the blank disks are coming in at £3.90 for 5, dirt cheap.

It plays back nearly everything I've thrown at it, even Thai VCDs (my wife's) without problems.

Looks wise, well I think its fantastic, nice and shiny chrome and aluminium finish.

Everything I have set the timer for has been OK. It even has video plus so you can just punch in the numbers from the daily papers.

If you are considering this model then don't have any worries. I bought it on the internet for £270 and for this spec it's a bargain.

Don't buy a cheaper model for £100 without a hard drive, you will regret it.

That's all really, just to say I am 100% happy with it.

Steve

Bug report. When Timer is programed or Edit is used and then you try to Initialize a DVD it will prompt because recording is in Progress. DVD cannot be ejected and power-off to reboot the system. Overall Menu are visually unattractive and fonts are bulky. User friendlyness is 2/10.

Sharp DVHR300H + 80Gb HDD - Bought this model before the Athens Olympics to record late at night events (well, for us here in Sydney, they were late at night) - liked the fact it could do -R DVD (for our household's laptops) also had an i-Link at the front for the video camera.

HOWEVER, all this is of little use when the built-in timer loses an averge of 25 mins over 12 - 48 hours. Have now tried THREE units and all failed in this department. Useless if trying to record any program. The middle unit also would stop recording to a DVD from hard drive after only 10 secs on half-attempted.

Sharp Australia say they have only had one other similar problem.

Am about to swap over for the Pioneer 510H.

Very disappointed with this model.