Has Sony come out with any firmware updates for the V1 lately

I went to Sony's site for software and firmware downloads and there doesn't seem to be anything there for V1.

https://servicesplus.us.sony.biz/sony-software.aspx

I wonder what has happened to the promised down convert with edge crop function via FireWire?

Me too looking for the past weekends no sign of it. Some say already have the new firmware for the audio fix.

thats Sony for you, my luck with their support has been all bad

My speculative opinion on this is that Sony will have updated the firmware at least once (& prob more) since the last (I believe) "official" publicised firmware update to cure the "oil painting effect in prog-scan modes" issue.

But it seems that they're not in the habit of announcing/publicising other firmware tweaks and bug-fixes, and it's my guess that they don't want to be deluged with a "recall" situation or a load of people shipping their cams back to Sony Service Centers saying "I know the firmware has changed so update it for me for free now please!".
(for eg. there really *does* seem to be enough evidence that the audio stage has changed for the better since V1's introduction). Either that or its actually a hardware change and i doubt it's that.

What would be great is finding a way to get the cam to report the firmware version in use. I'm sure there's a Sony service menu that will do just that, but no doubt its not accessible to users.

I went to Sony's site for software and firmware downloads and there doesn't seem to be anything there for V1.

https://servicesplus.us.sony.biz/sony-software.aspx

I wonder what has happened to the promised down convert with edge crop function via FireWire?

The new edge crop modification was made to my V1E by Sony Prime Support last summer along with a fix for it not working properly with some well known lanc controllers.

Never noted any difference to the audio.

See http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=111443

Firmware updates have to be conducted by SONY under your warranty.