Sharp DV-HR300U DVD Player/Recorder with 80-GB Drive
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.  <BR>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. <BR>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.  =)<BR>One last thing to reviewis 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..<BR>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 ....