Anyone have experience with CDM-831T(R)?

[MrPanda]

Long story short I've been tracking through hardware to see how alternatives to the established list might fare in converting tapes. At the end of the line of succession from Cypress' lauded CTB-100 (see: AVT-8710) stands the CDM-831 (having replaced the earlier 640). While still a bit tricky to track down due to officially being discontinued, these later units under certain marketing names price new at or below the going eBay rates for green 8710s these days. In addition to having on-paper specs that meet the bar they have the advantage of warranties (and for whatever reason, they even route audio). Anyone have any prior dealings with these units that could comment on use experience (often listed under variations of "Multi-System Converter")?

[lordsmurf]

There are both good and bad CDM-831 units, and you're far more likely to run into the bad than not (ie, black AVT-8710 performance). This model was released right around the time that production supplies changed to the bad Cypress chips that causing freezing and frame sticking (and other issues). To date, I think I've only ever seen one 831TR that was good.

I know that several are/were still being sold new from a supplier in New Zealand, but I've already confirmed those are bad units. I've mostly seen it for sale "down under" (Australia, New Zealand), and sometimes imported/used in some Asian locations.

This was a PAL-native unit, and the NTSC performance is generally bad (but not always, maybe 1 out of 10 times?). The PSU didn't seem to like 110V in most cases, probably a QC issue in R&D where it wasn't well vetted (ie design flaw) -- not surprising, given the chipset failings.

The default values were also off, and needed tweaking. That can be hard to do when you're new to this kind of gear.

I've been seeking TBC alternatives for years. Found some good options, found many more failures.

[MrPanda]

Thanks for the heads up. If I end up with one I'll report back.