Just used to digitize and played back with a Media Player or UHD 4K Player

So I picked up a Panasonic DMR-ES10 in good condition and have been experimenting with it; to be honest I'm feeling pretty mixed about the results.

First off I'm loving the TBC like qualities of the passthrough; adding this player to my setup finally fixes the signal dropouts I'd get whenever I used CLV trickplay features. However I'm less impressed by the comb filter.

Connecting my LD player to the DVD Recorder using either SCART or Composite, then Component out to the Onkyo, gives stronger, more accurate colours and maybe reduces the rainbow artefacts compared to going straight to my Onkyo AV Receiver. Still shots look great but as soon as there's movement things get mushy and undefined...a bit like how the Definitive Star Wars sets look (but not as bad). The "AV-in NR" setting is off, but from a bit of reading it sounds like "off" is more like a "low" setting and a "small" amount of DNR is added regardless. This looks far from small to me, with previously well defined edges in pictures suddenly becoming dithered and mushy looking. It looks similar to the low or medium DNR setting on my Onkyo Receiver.

I tried using S-Video to connect the LD player and DVD Recorder and found that the noise reduction was gone, but the rainbow effects were now slightly worse than just running composite from LD to AV. I'm guessing that because S-Video has already been split it's bypassing the comb filter and the noise reduction? The downside of this is that the comb filter in the LD player is definitely going to be worse than the ones in the DVD Recorder or my AV Receiver. The TBC still stabilises the picture for me, so that's something at least.

I thought I could just try turning the Comb Filter off in the settings but annoyingly the PAL models force the setting to be on when the recorder is set to NTSC. Maybe I could experiemnt with using the DVL-919E's PAL60 mode to allow my to turn off the comb filter, but who knows what that would do to the picture.

So in summery:

Pioneer DVL 919E ---composite---> Onkyo TX-NR626 ---HDMI---> LG C8 TV.
Solid, detailed picture, average rainbow artefacts, occasional dropouts.

Pioneer DVL 919E --- composite/SCART ---> Panasonic DMR-ES10 --- component ---> Onkyo TX-NR626 ---HDMI---> LG C8 TV.
Mushy, low detail picture, with few rainbow artefacts, zero dropouts.

Pioneer DVL 919E --- S-Video ---> Panasonic DMR-ES10 --- component ---> Onkyo TX-NR626 ---HDMI---> LG C8 TV.
Solid, detailed picture, but some pretty heavy rainbow artefacts, zero dropouts.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this with this DVD recorder or similar models? I've seen so many people rave about how great the comb filter makes their picture look that I feel I have to be missing something.

Please chip in if you have any advice.

As previously mentioned , my link to downloadable video captures from a few LD players
with the Video Essentials LD can be found here:

3D Y/C Comb Filter tests

download some of the captures and have a look which combo you like best.

If you tell me what scene from a movie you like me to capture let me know and
I'll do it, if I have it in my collection.