Panasonic DVD recorders as laserdisc pass-through and upconverter really disappointed me. I have now bought two different model, Panasonic brand, dvd recorders. I been reading much positive coments how great upscalers and pass through for laserdisc and analog sources Panasonics are suppose to be. No matter what sources I pass through and let the machines upconvert I get a lot of exessive sharpnes added too the picture and contrast boosting and I have my TVs sharpness set down too zero. My first bluray player also was a Panasonic that added the same excessive sharpness to upscaled DVDs. Even when I set the HDMI resolution down to 480/576p I recieve that same excessive sharpness. Too give a visual example: the picture looks like when I use my other players and turn the TVs sharpness controll up to maximum level. The models I bought are Panasonic DMR-EH49 and DMR-EH57. Have I just been unlucky or are all Panasonics like mine? Is there some hidden service menu one can access and turn down the sharpness level?

I had the impression that many used them just for the comb filter and not to upscale (so output set to 480i).

Could that be the reason?

I didn't venture into DVD recorder pass through idea but from what I remember, only certain models have the good 3D comb filter. Later models have 2D comb filters. In either case, the output should be set to 480i/576i to avoid subpar deinterlacing and scaling.