OK, I probably deserve the trouble I'm having. I got a Phillips 3575H and the Mag H2080 and they've both been flawless. Saw a great deal for the Polaroid 1601A and couldn't pass it up, despite the complaints. So here's the problem, which others have noticed too...

when the recorder is getting a signal from my DTV sat box, there is a thin horizontal white line that appears for a split second across the screen. It flickers across once in a while, every few miniutes, or sometimes get longer in between. Sometimes they cluster, with a short burst of couple of lines. It looks like what you'd expect if a connection was loose. What sucks is that these lines get recorded!

I've checked to see that connections are tight, tried multiple different wires, I've tried the front/rear composite and Svideo jacks and all are affected, though a little less in the front. I hooked up my Mag and recorded at the exact same time as my Polaroid, from the same sat box. No lines on Mag, but lines appear on Polaroid.

Anyone have any ideas as to what this is or how I can get rid of these lines?

I'm definitely steering away from Polaroid in the future.

Thanks in advance everyone.