I bought myself a V1U on the first run, when it was first released, and I have in particular noticed the oil painting effect in the image, which has been pretty well documented in various forums. Also the audio issue, but I'm a bit more concerned about the oil painting thing, if it is indeed fix-able.

I had originally thought the problem was just part of the camera, then I found out about the firmware update. I've been talking to various Sony reps and all of them claim that there have been no posted firmware updates to the camera. Which is true, I haven't been able to find any posted stuff about it. However, I know the oil painting thing has been fixed at least at the factory and I was hoping somebody had updated their firmware since buying the camera and had the issue resolved.

Has anyone done this? If I spent the ridiculous amount of money for out-of-warranty work will it (oil painting and/or audio issue) actually be resolved? Any info is appreciated.

I didn't think there were any oil-painting issues confirmed for any V1U cameras, I've yet to notice anything like that on my V1U anyway.

I thought it was only the V1E that was affected by that issue, and I thought it had long since been resolved.

Since you seem to be experiencing the issue on your camera, do you want to post a screen shot or a video clip?

Yeah, I'll put up a screenshot pretty soon here. I was reading up on it some more and you're right, I can't find anything about any kind of a real fix. My computer is currently cocked but I'll post something soon.

My recollection is that there *was* a publicised firmware fix for this (maybe just V1E rather than V1U - not sure).

That just my recollection on that. A Search on this forum should yield the answer.

No issue on V1P as well the paint effects.