Laserdisc Enthusiasts>Helpful Tip:)

[Monteman]

...Well, at least I didn't have to pay anything for it.
Guess I'll look for another one to replace it.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

[Big Tuna]

Originally Posted by Monteman

Hello-
It's a Pioneer CLD-S201.
I am using standard red/white/yellow cables in the correct sequence.
They are cheapies I had extra around the shop, but do work.

Yes, I did notice that in the early chapters the playback was fine, then in the later chapters noticed the degraded picture quality.

What was the fix?
The very first Pioneer LD player I bought from a "divorce" sale crapped out on me. I was fortunate to come across this one for free as part of a vintage audio equipment purchase. The seller just wanted it gone.
Since then I have purchased some rare movies, some no longer in print, some extra high quality.
If I have to, I'll buy another player!
Thanks for any suggestions.

The degraded pic quality towards the end of the disc was in fact a defective disc. There were alot of "bad" pressings on LD. It was a warpage of the plastic during the pressing of the disc and it would be picked up by the laser during playback. The disc slows down as it reaches the end, and the laser picks up the warpage. The laser reads it from center to edge and when the disc slows down, it is able to pick up minor imperfections in the clear plastic, making them show up on the screen. It resembles a analog TV station broadcast with poor reception, with wavy, curvy distorted lines rolling across picture much like the waves in the ocean. I have a few LD's with that problem. When I forst noticed that I thought it might be the player as well, but it was in fact, the discs. If you look closely at the outer edge of disc you can se the same wavy lines in it, not the lines of info on the aluminum, but the foggy, curly lines in the plastic on top of that.

[Big Tuna]

for my LD playback, I use S-Video. With my experience of LD playback, I found that the best picture is obtained with a 30 to 40 inch widescreen TV Flat panel CRT with 1080i or 1080p capability. The picture of my DVL-909 and my Samsung 30" 1080i widescreen flat panel CRT TV was absolutely breathtaking. The clearest LD picture I have ever seen!

[Fred Sanford]

Originally Posted by Big Tuna

The degraded pic quality towards the end of the disc was in fact a defective disc. There were alot of "bad" pressings on LD. It was a warpage of the plastic during the pressing of the disc and it would be picked up by the laser during playback. The disc slows down as it reaches the end, and the laser picks up the warpage. The laser reads it from center to edge and when the disc slows down, it is able to pick up minor imperfections in the clear plastic, making them show up on the screen. It resembles a analog TV station broadcast with poor reception, with wavy, curvy distorted lines rolling across picture much like the waves in the ocean. I have a few LD's with that problem. When I forst noticed that I thought it might be the player as well, but it was in fact, the discs. If you look closely at the outer edge of disc you can se the same wavy lines in it, not the lines of info on the aluminum, but the foggy, curly lines in the plastic on top of that.

That's interesting- for me, it was the player. Discs that played fine on my other Pioneer DVLs would have this symptom on the bad DVL player, and I could walk to the next room & the disc would play fine again on another DVL player. This was when I was setting up a system to dupe the PCM audio off to an Alesis Masterlink in my studio's control room, and had a 909 in the studio itself, plus a 91 upstairs in the living room.

Didn't notice if it was a CAV- or CLV-specific issue.

Never did get it fixed, sorry I can't give you a simple answer.

je

[Pyrrho]

Originally Posted by Monteman

...Well, at least I didn't have to pay anything for it.
Guess I'll look for another one to replace it.
Any suggestions?
Thanks!

Here are a couple of sites with recommendations regarding laserdisc players to buy (as well as other useful information about laserdisc players):

http://www.mindspring.com/~laserguru/digitalage.html

http://www.moesrealm.com/hometheater...isc-guide.html

If you want cheap but good, you can often get one of the players "Moe" calls "average" quite inexpensively. They are much better than most of the older players, yet they often cost next to nothing to buy.

My first laserdisc player was an old Sony (I don't remember the model number). I replaced it with a Pioneer CLD-D505, which was a vast improvement in picture quality. I later upgraded to a Pioneer Elite CLD-79 (but still have the CLD-D505 for backup). I believe that there are only two Pioneer players made for the U.S. market that are better than my CLD-79 (though they did make better models for the Japanese market). The difference between my two Pioneer players is not dramatic, unlike the difference between my lessor Pioneer and the old Sony it replaced. Basically, any Pioneer made with an AC-3 output that will play both sides without you flipping it over, if functioning properly, will give a decent picture, though some are better than others. (The reason I say, "with an AC-3 output that will play both sides without you flipping it over", is not because that output and feature will help with the picture, but because that way one will not be getting a very old player or a very low end model.) If you want greater precision for advice, look to the links above.

With laserdisc players, since the picture is analog, like other analog devices, the player makes a significant difference in the quality of the output. The differences between different DVD players, though real, are generally much less than the differences between different LD players.

Really, though, if you are planning on buying a laserdisc player you should go to the links above and read each of those two web pages thoroughly. You should also ask yourself why you are getting a laserdisc player, as most people would be well advised to stay away from it, as the picture is not as good as DVD, and the sound format options are the same (excepting only the original, inferior analog sound). [Of course, just because the format options are the same, that does not mean the makers of the DVDs used all of the options, as it is much more common to have 2 channel PCM on a laserdisc than it is on a DVD, though it is on some DVDs. The downside to 2 channel PCM for soundtracks is that that means that the center and surround in a film will be matrixed via DPL, instead of being discrete DD 5.1.]

The reason I use a laserdisc player is because of the fact that there are films, and versions of films, that never made it onto DVD, so this is the best consumer product to see those films. But if they were all on DVD, I would go with DVDs because the format is capable of a better picture, and because there are not side change breaks every hour like a laserdisc.

Naturally, anyone who has had a laserdisc player since the late 1970's might have a substantial LD collection, and for such a person, it would be quite expensive to replace all of the discs with new DVDs, even if all of them were available. Such a person might want to pick up a good laserdisc player instead, unless they already have a couple of them.

As for S-Video versus composite video, read the links above, as they give excellent advice on that subject. Before I replaced my TV last year, I was better off using the S-Video output of my CLD-79, but with the new TV, I am better off using the composite. Evidently, my CLD-79 has a better comb filter than my old TV, and my new TV has a better comb filter than the CLD-79.