Moth3r said:

I don't know about the early players, but I think the quality of DVD recorders peaked around 2005-2007. Users then moved on to DVR-type devices (e.g. Sky Plus in the UK) or on-demand (catch-up) services.

Interesting, do you happen to know if some of the newer players have worse comb filters/recording quality than the older models of the same brand to cut down on cost or something? I really hate the rainbowing and dot-crawl I'm seeing on most LD captures, and the avisynth filters to reduce those artifacts always destroys the picture in some ways no matter how effective they are.