Your "shiny top" question has been answered in its own new thread. See
http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/show...disc-1766.html
The last Elite Video BVP4+ that I had was certainly capable of PAL signal processing. It was sold off quite some time ago, to somebody in Europe, who now uses it for his transfer studio, for mostly PAL videos.
My current unit did PAL last time I checked, but today it is only putting out a B&W signal from my PAL VCR. I don't understand it. It definitely processes PAL, but not reliably, I guess.
I have another proc amp here too, a rack-mount TBC+proc amp, and it's NTSC-only for what I can tell. It won't even pass the PAL through TBC like the AVT-8710 does.
This isn't the first time this has happened. I recall testing this unit 3-4 times in past years, each time coming up with a different answer. I always reach for the same retail PAL tape for my tests.