I currently own a CLD-2850. Don't get me wrong I enjoy it but I have the chance to now purchase a DVL-909. I understand its not the last word in laserdisc players but if it were decent money do you think it would be worth upgrading to?

Biggest difference I see is AC-3 support on the 909. The 909 also plays both PAL and NTSC if I'm not mistaken.

I have the 919E which is give or take a little same as 909. I am happy with its PAL playback. NTSC is OK but because I have seen better. If it's not too expensive, I would take it. Newer machine, it's one of the best multi format machines, if not the best. If you only care about NTSC discs and its more than $250, you can probably get a Panasonic LX-600/900 shipped to you from the US for a little more.

Yes - the electronics in the 909 are a lot better.

Dvl-909 is not a bad upgrade, if you think about future repairs and parts. Don't know if the european model has a pure ntsc-output, though!
The player is much easier to maintain, if you are a little bit techy - you can do the most with it yourself. Picture is about average in terms of quality and build quality is a !
I use it on a regular basis and can't say I'm disappointed!

I've got a DVL 919E which has a NTSC/PAL/AUTO switch at the back. If you switch to NTSC or Auto it will output NTSC discs correctly, otherwise it will convert. I always hear that the PAL/NTSC players don't do a good job with NTSC discs but on my setup I've never noticed too much difference (I've never owned a NTSC only player though). The DVD side is rubbish but a fun extra to show off.

All the Pioneer PAL/NTSC players below the 925 have a crazy analog circuit board for NTSC->pseudo-PAL conversion with an analog/1D comb filter and a 3.2mhz (~250 lines!) low pass filter for luma. This cannot be disabled even when watching in pure NTSC mode.

The 925 has it's own severe PQ issues with NTSC disks, which leaves the DVL's as (probably) the only sane Pioneer PAL/NTSC players.

Unfortunately Pioneer never made a great PAL player, there's definitely a lot more on the disks than almost anyone's seen.

Thanks for the info. Think I'll have a go at getting it.

The most of my discs are ntsc but I do have a few pal ones that I also watch regularly so could do an ntsc only player.

What's wrong with the 925's picture with pure NTSC mode enabled? (I haven't tried my NTSC discs on it yet, so I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm just curious as to exactly what the issues are).

Ghosting and low resolution, per megapixie's reviews (he thinks the player might be misaligned, but it looks like analog issues) That said, it's proabably still better than most of the other PAL/NTSC players.

If ones has a lot of NTSC disks (which you don't aparently) a NTSC-only player is a good idea.

Hmm, I haven't noticed anything in particular wrong with the picture for PAL discs, at least nothing that couldn't be put down to poor quality of the source material! (I've mostly been watching old British TV episodes which were recorded on tape in the first place...). But then again, I'm not really used to how Laserdiscs are supposed to look, so perhaps I'm underestimating a little how it's supposed to look.

(I don't have a lot of NTSC discs, and I only just bought my first player, one of these, last week so I haven't had a chance to watch everything yet!)

I will create the definitive absolute best PAL player if somebody sell me a Theta Voyager:) only then we will be able to find out how PAL discs could look like.

Despite slow loading time on the DVD side, I find it a neat feature even though it is not up to today's standard. Works good enough for my foreign imports.

Downside on the CLD-2850 is that it can't playback older PAL analouge discs, only the newer PCM ones. There are modification boards that can allow the player to read older PAL analouge that was carried out by Videotech in the UK, not sure they still do that or have boards with instructions on how to install?

It can playback older NTSC analouge as well as digital PCM of course.