Page 1 of Wharfedale 750s brightness problem?

I recently traded up my Samsung 809 for the excellently reviewed Wharfedale 750s - via a very cushdy deal with Woolworths on the former (they couldn`t provide a firmware upgrade, but they did refund the full £250 after 18 months, even though I originally paid just £200, plus a voucher from HCC!).
Despite the 750s rather crude appearance, I am very happy, although I have encountered what I think is a problem. When I hack the machine for R1, I notice a distinct drop in brightness levels. I can counter this by adjusting the brightness of my set, which does reveal most of the detail lost in the blacks, but renders them rather grey. Has anyone else noted a similar problem? Is this normal for an NTSC signal, because it wasn`t the case with the 809? I have already taken the machine back once (which wasn`t a complete waste of time, because they replaced the 750 with the 750s - bargain!), and am reluctant to get a refund coz I know of no other lo-end deck with so much to offer. Please help!
Tom T.

I certainly havent noticed this myself, however I do use the RGB connection so perhaps thats why I dont see it. What type of connection are you using? RGB, S-video, Composite?

I`ve tested it on a Sony set, through a SCART connection, with both composite and RGB output, and noticed the same problem with both. I`ve also run the deck through an NTSC video projector, and when I set the wharfedale going on NTSC output, it was a nightmare - I could barely see a thing! And yet if I set the player to PAL output, the brightness levels were fine, although the edge of the picture was cropped (by 40 pixels, as it would be) and it began dropping frames in an unwatchable fashion. The Samsung I had was fine on all settings. I know it had this `pseudo-PAL` function that smoothed out the effect of droppped frames from an NTSC signal - and it worked pretty well, meaning that brightness would not have been an issue had I been able to put up with a cropped picture. Does the Wharfedale have any such option that you are aware of, or do you have to have an NTSC ready set? Cheers for the advice!

The NTSC is irrelevant to me since I use RGB as I mentioned. The 750s does have a couple of different PAL settings like the reverse setting, try changing these to see if one works better in the setup menu. Other than that maybe its just faulty??