I think the picture banding problem during playback may be a compatibility issue with certain brands of tvs. My Sony wega will not play recorded programming correctly, but when I hook the same video outs to an RCA or Magnavox the problem is gone - perfect picture during playback. I hooked an older Sony up to the 522 and got the same problem as my newer Sony TV. Help me out here tech guys. There should be a few of you out there are smart enough to make sense of this. Please refer also to my other posting from hawk today for more details and a specific description of my problem which seems to be common to other users.