For Doomsday Duplication, does the quality of the LD player matter? Since the Doomsday Duplicator captures directly from the RF input, do you need a high end player to get the max picture and audio quality from a disc, or will all players yield the same quality of raw RF signal?

Also, is it better to have a dedicated player for PAL discs, and a dedicated player for NTSC discs, or will a combination player work the same as two separate ones in terms of the quality it yields?

1: The chassis still matters, none of the other stuff does.

2: If you don’t *really* need PAL, and I seriously doubt you do, just forget that PAL LD ever existed.

agree with the coment above

Yes. No need to worry about downstream of RF tap, but upstream still matters. Spindle, power supply, optics.

You can use a combination player just fine, but if you truly need PAL just mod a LD-V4400. It has a good power supply and spindle as well.

The quality of everything before the RF tap matters. So pickup wear/lens damage and player calibration is very important, but if you don't already have a calibration disk they've gotten a lot more expensive lately (Donberg still has a few, for $1xx.) since Pioneer Japan (which is where PacParts' were coming from) no longer has any.

The stuff that makes PAL/NTSC combo players bad isn't an issue, but the availbilty definitely is. If you need a PAL-capable player you'll know it.