MPEG-1 DVD audio compatibility (NTSC)

[Lucien]

I'm interesting in buying the Sharp DV-HR300 as it's $400 cheaper than the JVC DR-MH30SL. However I noticed that it has no dolby digital encoding.
I found a European manual only and it seems it uses MPEG-1 audio which is fine for PAL but not officially a standard for NTSC DVD (except for fine you can also choose LPCM).

Any concerns with non-standard MPEG-1 audio and perhaps cause (future) compatibility issues? I think most dvd players can play it.

[indolikaa]

I've never had any problems using MP2 (MPEG-1 Layer II Audio) on DVDs for NTSC. There are players out there that won't play them, but I've yet to find one...

[Lucien]

Actually the Japanese web site says the Sharp does Dolby Digital encoding. Anyone has this machine and could check?

Unfortunately the US web site doesn't list what encoding the US model does. Most likely it does not do MPEG1 audio (which would be great since I'm not too fond of MPEG-1 compression anyway).

[piano632]

I don't have the DV-HR300 but I do have Sharp's first recorder (DV-RW2U) which definitely does have AC3 (Dolby Digital 2.0) encoding.

A U.K. site says the DV-HR300 does have a Dolby Digital decoder:
http://uk.pricerunner.com/sound-and-vision/vision/dvd-players/200528/details

Read a review of the DV-HR300 here:
http://www.soundandvisionmag.com/article.asp?section_id=3&article_id=604&page_number=1

[Lucien]

Thanks. The UK site basically lists it has a dolby decoder (audio encoding is not specified). The sound and vision site doesn't mention this. I've send mail to Sharp (and I haven't found any stores carrying Sharp ).

By the way do you know if your DV-RW2U recognizes 16:9 correctly from DV-in? I've tried the Philips before and it marked the recording as 4:3... You can play it back in 16:9 aspect only on the Philips unit.

[piano632]

Don't know about the 16:9 DV-in thing.

Generally speaking, Sharp recorders are very similar to comparable Pioneer models. So if Pioneer has it, Sharp most likely does too. (They both use Pioneer burners in their machines. They both have 32-step bitrates. They both have firewire in/out, etc.) The DV-HR300 should be very similar to the Pioneer DVR-510

You can buy the DV-HR300 here:
http://www.pcmall.com/pcmall/shop/detail.asp?dpno=392147

or here:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=305131&is=REG

BTW, there is supposed to be a model DV-HR350 which has a 120GB hard drive.