Just got one of these multi-region from PRC Direct. Quite pleased overall - not perfect by any means but by and large does what I want it to do rather well - RGB passthrough, good quality, discs play fine in my portable, nice OS.

One curiosity though, not sure if anyone else has experienced anything like this. Picture from RGB Sky on passthrough is perfect. When the recorder is switched on though, something weird happens to vivid reds - a kind of mild strobing, like a visual delay from one frame to the next. I checked that the rather bizarre sounding Sports Filter isn't on, and it isn't. Can't notice any other side effects.

I know it's weird, not expecting an avalanche of "me too"s, but... is there anyone else out there at all that recognises anything like this?!

Have you got RGB selected as the output signal in the setup menu? It sounds like you have a composite signal going into your display, and hence the dot-crawl which is usually more noticeable on red.

BTW the 'Sports Filter' is something that allegedly reduces the edge-effect blocking associated with the MPEG2 encoding of pictures containing fast-moving objects (what I call 'sparkly footballers' syndrome). However I'm pretty sure it's only activated on the M3 (LP) recording setting and below. It should tell you in the manual.

Thanks Musukebba, all RGB settings are correct. It's not typical dot crawl or other composite-like effects, it is a bit more like the sparkly footballer syndrome, as you call it! Or perhaps juddery Saving Private Ryan action staccato stuff, like a video camera on fast shutter. I think on closer inspection it is on all colours (which would be logical), but only really noticeable on vivid reds.

???

Hmmm... does this tend to reduce when recording at a successively higher quality.

No, that's the thing. This is visible just through the tuner, let alone any recording settings. If I turn off the recorder so it goes to RGB passthrough, the effect disappears...