Sharp DV-HR300U DVD Player/Recorder with 80-GB Drive
Not a Bad Value...If It Works
I seldom purchase extended warranty options for items under $1,000, but I did on this one. Register it online and Sharp will prompt you with an extended warranty offer. Hm; wonder if they know something? If you buy the HR300U, part with the extra $40 for a year's extended warranty. You may need it. <br /> <br />I bought mine May 20, 2004. Happily recorded shows--mainly sporting events--to the hard drive, then dubbed them onto DVD. Worked great for about four months...and the original factory warranty is 90-days parts, 12 months labor. It still records to the HD like a champ, but after creating about 35 DVDs, that was all she wrote...literally. It won't dub a thing to DVD, presents a generic \\"an error has occurred\\" message that isn't documented, and the best Sharp customer service could suggest was to clean the laser lens. I don't even use this machine for DVD playback; I have an upsampling Samsung for that. So the unit has had very little actual DVD-in-drive time and, of course, cleaning the lens did nothing. Three different brands of blank DVDs and about a dozen in the trash now following failed recording, and my only option is to package the unit up and ship it off for \\"repair.\\" Of course, I have about 20 hours of can't-be-replaced material on the hard drive that I can't move to DVD, and I'm not confident that will survive the shipping and repair. <br /> <br />Out of all the electronics purchases I've made the past three years, this is absolutely the one I regret.