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Posted: 31 Oct 2011, 05:40 

First facility: MCA DiscoVison. Their first release of "Jaws" was the first LaserDisc released anywhere in the world. This would later become Pioneer's USA plant.

Last facility: Probably Kuraray, which continued making discs into 2002. As the end approached only two facilities were still in operation worldwide. Pioneer Japan and Kuraray. But who stuck it out the longest?

Those of us with large LaserDisc collections built up over time have our own opinions as to which manufacturer was the best, although awarding the title of "worst manufactuer" would greatly depend on your collecting habits.

The best (in the USA): I'd go with 3M. Except for a period in the late 80s, a time when Image Entertainment was relying on them heavily, 3M's quality has been very high. I'm speaking of my experience, so yours my be different.

The best (worldwide, outside of the USA): I'd go with Kuraray. Their quality was extremely good, and I believe it was the only facility worldwide to never replicate a title that was a complete failure. By that I mean no good copies of a run. DADC USA had a huge problem with entire runs being bad, but this never happened at Kuraray. When Pioneer USA started replicating "Star Trek: First Contact" THX actually had it pulled and replication was moved to Pioneer Japan, delaying release by 4 weeks. By 1997 or so Pioneer USA began importing the raw plastic they used from Kuraray, after which time Pioneer USA's quality went up. Mitsubishi rates highly with me as well. The Director's Cut Special Edition Boxed set of "Aliens" was made at two different facilities. While the defect rate is very high with this title, my copy, made by Mitsubishi, plays perfectly.

The worst (in the USA): A tie between Technidisc and DADC USA. Both facilities produced entire runs which later proved to be bad. I'm not counting DiscoVision, because they were the "Pioneers" (sorry about that) in disc manufacturing. Their defect rates were really high.

The worst (worldwide, outside the USA): PDO UK. This has been my experience anyway. Eventhough they replicated relatively few NTSC titles I have nearly 30, all released by Image Entertainment. I'd estimate approx. 30% are bad.

The worst LaserDisc: In my own collection that would be "I Spit on Your Grave." This film was released by three different companies on LaserDisc, all for the US market. Mine is the very first release, from Vestron Video. It is the only disc in my collection made in W. Germany by Sonopress. Laser Rot is the worst I've seen, with the added bonus of numerous video and audio dropouts. Speckling and static abound.

What has been your experience?

STAY AWESOME! :)

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Posted: 20 Oct 2017, 17:37 

Serious question: why do so many people with mental problems obsess over LD? I don’t need to name a single example, we all know them, many are members.

I don’t *think* I’m emotionally impaired or Skitzophrenic or anything but I’m starting to think I must be or I wouldn’t be watching LDs, right? Maybe my attic is full of heads and I’m blocking it out...
Just to be certain, who in this thread is "obsessing" over LD?

I will admit to having mental problems (which I am seeing a Psychiatrist for), but is sharing a valid complaint about an Ebay seller who is trying to swindle me out of money and/or a valuable LD player is far from obsessing, wouldn't you think?

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Posted: 30 Dec 2017, 04:17 

publius wrote:
I suggest taking the output through the otherwise useless mono audio jack (the one tagged for an RF modulator).

W99 on the main board is the AC3-RF tap point

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Posted: 04 Sep 2018, 03:44 

Hello everyone,

Our friend amaroc from Poland has been kind enough to send me low-res (200dpi) and high-res (600dpi) scans of an old quarterly UK LD magazine Laser Disc Review .

I nice chunk of LD retail history unfolding over the years.

LDR.jpg

I created a specific subdomain for this: http://magazines.lddb.com

Currently 22 issues uploaded, check by year:


1985
1986
1987
1988
1989
1991

Enjoy!

Julien

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Posted: 11 Nov 2018, 17:57 

Sounds pretty likely it's alignment. The blue mark should line-up with another mark on an adjacent gear but I have no idea how the alignment works. Here is the service manual for the CLD-1400 (same chassis) that might help.

http://manuals.lddb.com/LD_Players/Pioneer/CLD/CLD-1400/CLD-1400_EN-FR-ES-Service-Manual_Scan.pdf

Maybe Kurtis can also provide input on it as well.

Once you get it fixed (I'm sure you will), try not to mess with gearing in the future especially when it comes to belt replacement. You should be able to access the loading belt by ejecting the tray and with the cover off.

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Posted: 26 Nov 2018, 05:13 

If you are having this much trouble playing CD's then either the tilt is way off or the pickup is just bad (signal getting weak). You should have found a point where all CD's played fine.

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Posted: 11 Dec 2018, 04:15 

I just did some research and found what appears to be the part that keeps going bad.....

https://vgy.me/0q7lnN.png

The part number is VXA1365 and called a "slide latch assembly". Based on the image above, this appears to be a generic door latch that can be found on a lot of older TV's that had the push in latch for doors that hid control buttons (my old Mitsubishi, CS-2655R, CRT had this style switch). I am not sure if they are all of the same size but if they are you would probably just need to make a simple swap to get your door working again.

I can't seem to find any resource on the web to purchase these switches but I'm sure if you visit a TV repair shop that has a lot of broken TV's laying around you could salvage a switch from it. Also, I have seen in the many years of selling AV gear that this particular latch design always seems to fail over time (although the one on my Mits TV was good to the end) so it would be a good idea to pick up a number of spares to ensure you can keep fixing it (or just fix the door and limit how many times you open it).



Update >>>>>

Well, I found something that works just like the VXA1365 but I'm not sure if the size is correct.

https://kpcomponents.co/products/cd-player-door-latch
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Door-Latch-Door-Lock-Door-Trap-for-INSIGNIA-NS-83112-GPX-BOOM-BOX-CD-PLAYER-/221889945368

You could contact the sellers to see about getting dimensions but you'll still have to open up the 3080 to measure the one in there to see if it's a match.

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 Post subject: AC3/DTS visual timeline
Posted: 21 Jan 2019, 15:41 

Just wanted to see what it would look like, from first release to last one!

https://www.lddb.com/ac3.php
https://www.lddb.com/dts.php

Julien

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 Post subject: Re: How about a Discord ?
Posted: 21 Mar 2019, 19:15 

For me personally it’s just that I don’t need more or faster or easier interactions with people I need higher quality interactions with people. This forum lets us put all our thoughts out in well formatted posts that are actually worth something an hour or a year later, even Trippletopper because let’s face it he has created the most popular topics in the last year. :)

Think of all of Ty’s posts that keep coming up when you search for things and realize that if he had typed all that stuff into Facebook or whatever it would already be lost. When you make your posts on this forum you make it better and better. When you put it on FB it basically just starts trying to make ad revenue and if that fails it essentially disappears. People have abandoned forums for something much much worse.

This forum also has one owner which has its advantages.

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Posted: 02 Apr 2019, 17:28 

That's why I would never buy a standalone AC3-RF Demodulator as people think that is the "only" way to get the coding out of the player.

I would recommend searching out these three models on eBay:

Sony, SDP-EP9ES
Sony, SDP-E800
Denon, AVD-2000

These are all Surround Processors with AC-3RF Demodulators built in but they also have an S/PDIF optical output that will convert the signal and send it over to your AV Receiver (in other words, you just use these processors as a digital switcher).

Every so often you'll see these units sell for a lot less than a standalone AC3-RF Demodulator. You'll just have to be patient.

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 Post subject: Re: CLD-M450 Disassembly
Posted: 16 Apr 2019, 03:54 

I still think you have a bad belt.

I know from experience w/ my M90 that the belts on the changers are even more critical in that they need to be really tight since this is probably the heaviest tray that Pioneer made for any of their players and thus needs more lifting torque.

if you own an Alpha Turn model from around the same time period that uses the PEB-1013 belt, you can use the belt from that player to test it on your M450 to see if it works better.

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 Post subject: Re: [CLD-M450] Disassembly
Posted: 16 Apr 2019, 18:10 

When I was building my M90, I had issues with the tray as well. The tray is so large and flexible, I found it was getting hung up on the transformer when trying to lift. Putting a slight bend in the metal bar that holds the two sides of the tray together around the transformer resolved the transformer hanging, but I did end up replacing the belt too. I used the standard VEB1184 SQB3.6 belt and that cleared up the rest of my problems.

By far the biggest issue I had was getting the tray properly synchronized. Having the tray be off by even one tooth would throw the timing completely off.

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 Post subject: Re: CLD-D604 Grinding Noise
Posted: 19 Apr 2019, 05:37 

Take your finger and push the pickup forward and back, if you see the gears between the motor worm gear and the track jump up and down then the pins holding them are broke. The entire holder does not initially break, just the gear pins.

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Posted: 04 Aug 2019, 23:31 

I haven't seen a V820 though and don't know much about them.

The CLD-V820 appears to be a CLD-2090 chassis based on its rear jack arrangement.

Just to add some additional information, the 90 series were the first of the 1bit DLC players so audio quality would theoretically be not as good as the mult bit DAC's on the CLD-1070 (4x oversampling, 16bit) and CLD-1080 (8x oversampling, 18bit). Picture quality should be better on the 90 series vs the 70 and 80 series but nothing significant (as I said before).

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Posted: 22 Aug 2019, 01:21 

Definitely the grip ring is bad. It does not spin up fast enough to properly read the TOC (Table Of Contents) so it defaults to a single sided disc mode and will not let you switch to side B (It won’t work anyway because of the gross grip ring slippage you have). When this bad they pretty much need to be replaced of cleaned and then coated with something like Plastic-Dip as the original ring is too far gone to recover back to near original gripping condition.

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Posted: 14 Sep 2019, 19:45 

When replacing the pickup all the calibrations will be off, so you will need to go through the service manual and follow the steps set out for when you replace the pickup.

https://manuals.lddb.com/LD_Players/Pioneer/CLD/CLD-D504/CLD-D504-EN-Service-Manual_Scan.pdf covers the NTSC version of the 515/915.

And simoni just updated this alignment guide for the LD-4300D/4400 - it's for a more complex player but a really good description: edit after cplusplus's comment below: https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=2896

edit: The above's for more general issues. Make sure the motor holder is in good shape on the new pickup - the 315 has the dreaded VNL16xx version - and maybe remount the pickup and make sure there isn't anything blocking it? krbahr or a more experienced tech will be more helpful than I :)

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 Post subject: Re: CLD-92 Audio Noise
Posted: 17 Sep 2019, 00:52 

I’d actually re-flow the solder at the droid first if you thing that is the problem. I’d recommend GI851 Fast switching rectifiers as they will also help lower the noise floor over the conventional rectifiers.

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Posted: 07 Jan 2020, 02:57 

The bar increasing is just an animated GIF really, it doesn't reflect any progress.

The problem is probably that the pictures on the phone are way too big for the forum upload limit and the upload script blocks them.

The settings of 150KB/pic dates back from the first version of the forum.
Upgraded it to 500KB/pic.

Julien

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Posted: 14 Jan 2020, 01:05 

That is the correct belt so good for you in respect to finding it.

As for replacing the belt, no need to take so much of the player apart and risk screwing something up. It's as simple as this to replace the belt on this particular chassis......

https://i.vgy.me/32asMB.jpg

Remove the clamper assembly
https://i.vgy.me/EdlMXX.jpg

You should clean the parts of the plastic pulleys that touched the old belt with alcohol to remove any residual particles.
https://i.vgy.me/bZc2cw.jpg

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 Post subject: Re: About the seller DaDon
Posted: 21 Feb 2020, 23:47 

Duncanism
Thanks to this thread for increasing my vocabulary :thumbup: Duncanism is, indeed, a phenomena not limited to our very own rogue veteran LD tech. It reminds me of lurking the old rgvac arcade game newsgroup and reading the saga of an arcade game shipping guy named Randy Buffalo. Buffalo (an alias) left dozens of games in limbo when he copped out on doing his job, then the community had to organize a group effort to save the games which required even more money (while Buffalo never gave back a cent shipping charges). Some games wound up exposed to the elements while languishing with Buffalo, some were never recovered. Much like the efforts to send that private eye to Duncan's barn to save a few LD players.

Sometimes Duncanism is a function of the entropy that catches up with all of us eventually. This was some component with Duncan - health conditions, aging, wife's death - but he was still taking on players long after concerns were raised here and his backlog known, which was pure scamming behavior. In contrast, DaDon seems to have handled the endgame in a more standup manner, letting customers know the situation instead of pocketing their money.

Niche hobbies like this go hand in hand with Duncanism, as you have to trust the rare individuals with skills/items as opposed to companies with redundant staff and various protections (and local access).

Oddly enough, here's a pic of DaDon and Duncan during better times for them both when DaDon visited the Bayview shop:

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Posted: 28 Feb 2020, 23:44 

Pioneer changed how the track is mounted for the DVL players for side B. What is happening is that the pickup gear is not properly engaging the track for the inner tracks. What some people are doing is changing the centering which also changes the angle and depth the laser gear engages with the track and this can help. The real issue is the mounting of the track and the track itself. I have seen perfectly straight tracks from front to back and the last one I had to fix actually curved up at the spindle motor end. I normally add a slight spring force to push down and the problem is fixed but the placement of the force is not always the same. Once this is done the unit works throughout the centering range. Back when Duncan was around I had a conversation with him and he believe Pioneer had some bad rails and they just needed to be replaced. I have cleaned and re-greased the same rail and it does not help. Remember the laser sits at one point and the electronics has a range where is moves the laser front to back then the movement motor pulse for a slight movement and at the same time the electronics moves the laser to the front to begin the same cycle again while properly tacking the disc. What is happening is the pickup is not moving as the front to back electronic movement is made with the laser and the laser starts jumping the track it is focused on back. If you have the top off you can actually take something small, I use a dental pick, and press up or down on the track near the pickup when it is in the jumping loop and you’ll see it move to the place it should be at.

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 Post subject: Re: [CLD-92] Audio Noise
Posted: 04 Mar 2020, 00:49 

I know you always go super far into repairing your players, thanks for posting the pics and details.

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Posted: 05 Mar 2020, 04:25 

If not packed properly and the unit experiences a hard vertical jolt the mounting tabs for the loading mechanism can break and it drops and this can happen. This is also a possibility.

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Posted: 07 Mar 2020, 15:12 

snipesbackhand wrote:
Is there no list anywhere of player specs, especially for VN in DB? The laserdiscarchive seldom contains this information. Thanks.


Working on the Hardware database, it will become possible to update all the technical fields, in and out connectors, etc.

I just need to find spare time... :-/

Julien

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Posted: 10 Mar 2020, 02:23 

The laser has to move into the rest position before anything can be operated with the player. The noise sounds like the electronics trying to get the laser to the proper position and the MHolder is bad. That would explain the laser sliding to the back during shipment and sticking in that position, common place to find it with a bad MHolder.
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