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happycube · **Posted:** 30 Apr 2013, 06:37

(more edits coming: Go to page 10 for more current info and sample links, it's improved a lot since these early posts!)

--- original post

I've been working on decoding Laserdisc video directly from the RF signal, bypassing most of the player electronics and hopefully (eventually) getting cleaner pictures.

I've been using an LD-V8000 with the RF test point hooked up to a video capture card using cxadc for raw 8-bit 28mhz capture (which I updated for Linux 3.5) to get the RF signal, and wrote some very slow, dirty, code to decode the laserdisc image, and another program to do time base correction and NTSC color decoding (which amazingly hasn't actually been done by anyone yet, as far as I can tell... I was rather surprised by this)

I've posted the rough source to github: https://github.com/happycube/ld-decode - I did a little bit more work on this right now, before I head off for my real job ;)

There's a .jpg there with color bars with correct colors, albeit fuzzy.

The next steps are to clean up the software decoding (I'm thinking locking onto the analog audio signals, subtracting them from the RF, and then working out some sort of proper PLL for the video rf), combining the NTSC decoding phase using more information from the LD decoding, actually properly adjusting my players, and an AC3 mod but taken from the core RF signal.

(and/or purchasing an adjusted, modded player with a nice pickup... an LD-S2 might be out of my price range, but a CLD-1010 would be nice, and so would a gas tube model for Discovision disks...)

I'm surprised someone in Japan hasn't beat me to this, and if they have I'd definitely like to see it, it's almost certainly farther along than mine is!

(edited for a little more detail and clarity)