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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 10 Aug 2021, 17:15
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Got a RetroTink 5X! No more worrying about sync drops during resolution changes!
Right now I'm using it to connect my PS2 to a CRT monitor (only CRT screen I have; don't have space for a TV. Using a simple HDMI-to-VGA dongle in between). Deinterlacing looks good, and importantly the RT5X's 480p output handles oddball horizontal resolutions from 240p/480i input better than the OSSC does: every column appears the same width in FF7's menus for example. (EDIT: I first wrote here that the RT5X outputs more horizontal resolution than a flat 720 columns in 480p output mode, hence it wouldn't divide weirdly with oddball horizontal resolutions, but now I can't find where I thought I read that, so I'll just stick to what I've observed myself.)
With scanline mode turned on ("integer 100%" mode specifically, simple blanking of every other line) I'm getting what I imagine is a PVM-like look for 240p games. Been trying composite, s-video, and RGB with different games to see which ones benefit more from a clearer picture vs. blurring of their dithering and other inherent visual kludginess. For PS1 games I may end up sticking with composite on this monitor for most of the time, which is not what I expected I'd be saying a few years ago!
Anyway, I've been doing a lot of fiddling for what's supposed to be a plug-n-play, fiddle-free device, but I'm an incurable fiddler, and I will say that the device does offer some decent options to fiddlers without compromising the fiddle-free experience. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 16 Aug 2021, 20:30
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I think that "mpeg-2" is a "mpeg-1 superset" ,all DVD players should play VCD/SVCD unless the brand restricts the software consciously to not recognize the carpet structure of the vcd disc.
DVD players definitely have self-imposed software restrictions on what they will play (region codes for example, which aren't physical or technical hurdles at all). |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 19 Aug 2021, 12:40
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There's a trailer here but I think it makes the film look more like Dukes Of Hazzard or Cannonball Run than what the final product actually is, which is neither of those films.
Honestly, that could be a contributing factor in why it went over poorly. If people are primed going in to expect a store-brand Dukes of Hazzard, they'll come out thinking it was that or worse unless it's a better DoH than DoH. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 24 Aug 2021, 03:19
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| Speaking of movies I should have watched already (even more so), just saw Castle of Cagliostro (Discotek's UHD). Fun movie! Miyazaki does wonderful work with European settings; which reminds me I should watch Kiki's Delivery Service again. Unfortunately, the noise reduction on the UHD is pretty heavy, but I understand that Discotek had to use what Japan gave them. At least the color's nice. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 29 Aug 2021, 18:06
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| It's an alias (unless his parents had a goofy sense of humor), but why is that relevant? Putting all the relevant information on the ebay listing is certainly best practice, but as you say, he did provide the catalog number. I don't think this merits any vendetta or public shaming against the seller. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 14 Sep 2021, 05:34
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I imagine LD would get a good bit of interest at a retro video game convention or something similar, if someone was interested in setting up their own booth.
Especially if you had a LaserActive player and some LD-ROM games.
I just read that there was a prototype Myst port on LD-ROM, which would be absolutely wild to see if there are any copies out there. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 14 Sep 2021, 17:19
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What you're looking for is a VEQ1509 remote or replacement. When I google "VEQ1509 europe" the first result looks like what you want. https://directnine.eu/products/replacement-remote-control-for-panasonic-lx600-veq1433-vql6813-veq1509-lx900u
Note that it's a replacement, and has a different shell and button layout than the original. I have a replacement remote in the same shell as this one, and it's fully usable, if a bit annoying. There's no dial, but there should be equivalent buttons. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 04 Oct 2021, 18:21
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| I could say this in threads all over the internet until I die, but whether a resolution jump matters depends on 1) the source, 2) the size of the screen, 3) the distance between the screen and your eyes, and 4) your eyes . My laptop has a 4K screen, but just because I can tell when something on it is running in 1080p doesn't mean that everyone can. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 08 Oct 2021, 07:00
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Oh boy, thank you for the replies dudes.
Is 350 nits bad? That's what this monitor apparently displays for HDR..
The short answer is that it'll be better than SDR but sub-par for HDR. You're looking at equipment that's geared for (and priced for) professionals, not movie-watchers. Lower peak brightness means lower possible dynamic range, which is the point of the format, and sure enough the advertised 1,000:1 contrast ratio for this display would count as mediocre for an HDR consumer TV. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 12 Oct 2021, 16:37
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He didn’t have a “singular” thread.
But you can find everything here…..
https://forum.lddb.com/search.php?author_id=3788&sr=posts
Just have to sift through quite a bit
I'm enjoying this one that starts as "CRTs for laserdisc?" and devolves into Street Fighter II posturing. https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=8281&start=60
As for this thread, I don't have the money for it, but I'll wager my collection against it over a game of Smash Bros. Melee! |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 18 Oct 2021, 19:24
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1) Purple
2) Red
3) Blue
Double-checked to make sure I had it right, and the catalog numbers are on the bottom of the spines. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 26 Oct 2021, 03:32
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Told myself I was freezing the expansion of my collection, but something kept nagging at me, namely how Legend of the Galactic Heroes has all of this animation that got replaced with digipaint for the DVD releases and onward, and how unlike a few years ago I have some rudimentary but steadily improving Japanese comprehension and a laserdisc player. So I picked up a bunch of Legend of the Galactic Heroes:
https://i.imgur.com/lFdbzli.jpg
Specifically, the second of four box sets, containing volumes 8-14. Full two episodes per side, which I believe corresponds to the second "season" of the show (second set of OP/ED sequences). Unfortunately, the box arrived more damaged than advertised (the lid of the box is detached from the spine). Fortunately though the discs seem to be okay and the sleeves are in acceptable shape. Also comes with a little notebook of character and mechanical designs, one of those Japanese phone cards, and a "Video Single Disc" for the opening theme song, which I haven't unsealed. According to Wikipedia this is a similar format to CD Video except the audio isn't compatible with a CD player; only works in an LD player. News to me!
https://i.imgur.com/PKCo1g2.jpg
Watched the first disc, and holy smokes is the video quality all over the place. Color, brightness, saturation, everything varies wildly from shot to shot. That remaster they did for the DVDs wasn't for nothing, though it's unfortunate they had to replace so much of the animation in the process.
This also adds a bunch to my to-do list for site submissions: none of these volumes are actually in the database yet! I'll try not to procrastinate on that. EDIT: Never mind, they're there, it's just that the titles are rendered differently than other volumes in the database so I didn't see them when I searched. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 27 Oct 2021, 22:09
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Log Horizon (better than it looks, at least for my viewing purposes)
"Better than it looks" is how I'd describe it as well. I like that it eschews the typical life-or-death stakes of a "trapped in a video game" story and recognizes that happiness-or-unhappiness can be compelling stakes on their own.
My most recent modern anime recommendation is Oddtaxi. It's relevant, insightful, witty, and very intricately plotted. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 29 Oct 2021, 07:25
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You don't need to worry about adding duplicates; that's what catalog numbers are for.
Anyway, even if you don't have any titles that aren't in the DB yet, there very well could be titles in your collection whose DB entries are missing information or covers, which is a nice thing to help out with for historical record-keeping. It's a chore to be sure, and far be it from me to tell anyone what to do with their free time (especially since I've got plenty left to do, myself, and my collection's comparatively tiny), but collectively it's a worthwhile endeavor IMO. I'm hoping to get some covers photographed and updates submitted this weekend. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 02 Nov 2021, 03:45
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Other than that I think fixing titles if they are open matte rather than pan and scan is just a moot point now. You either want said title or don't.
I don't agree with this perspective at all. If it isn't important to have accurate information on how much of the picture is on the disk and in what format, I don't know what is. And I don't doubt for a minute that there are still plenty of people who don't even know that an open matte cut of a movie they like ever existed, and that lots of them find out that kind of thing on this website.
But even ignoring that, you don't gather and maintain all this data just to act as a niche purchasing guide, re: "You either want said title or don't." Having a broad, deep, and accurate repository of information on a subject matter where getting the information first-hand grows increasingly difficult with the passage of time is simply... good. Pick a random factoid on this site and it likely won't be of interest to anyone; but take tens of thousands of those factoids and you're guaranteed to get lots that will be of interest to plenty of people. Leaving something wrong in an archive on the assumption that it won't matter is simply the wrong call in the aggregate and over time. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 02 Nov 2021, 16:21
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VHS was definitely king for the sports market, and for a good reason: it was the format you could record an entire live game on while you were out. Tons of sports fans owned a VCR for that reason alone; being a sports fan was more likely to make you buy a VCR than being a film person was to make you buy an LD player. So for the odd pre-recorded sports content like blooper reels, greatest-moments collections, and World Series films, it was always going to be VHS first.
There does appear to be one World Series film on LD: 1986 (a classic! (if you're not from Boston)). Seems they tried it once and the sales didn't convince them to try it again.
Now, one sports non-fiction title that I would have been surprised if it weren't on LD given its pedigree is Ken Burns's Baseball (1994) [ID8599TU] , and sure enough they released it on 10 honking discs. (CLV, at that. It's long ). |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 20 Nov 2021, 05:43
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I've been going through Future Boy Conan (new US blu-ray) lately; about half-way through. It is absolutely astounding. I can scarcely believe it was made in 1978 - if the entire 1980s produced a TV show with better animation, I don't know it. You could have told me it was made in 1995 and I'd have believed it. And even ignoring the technical genius and mesmerizing sights, it's a gripping, perfectly paced adventure story that simply bursts at the seams with heart. I hope lots of kids in the English-speaking world can get to watch it now that it's out; they've been deprived.
Sends me reeling that I'd barely heard of this show before this year, considering it's directed by Hayao freaking Miyazaki. And you can tell immediately: it is so thoroughly his work, especially in the mechanical designs. So far I'd rank it above Castle in the Sky and Howl's Moving Castle . So to say, highly recommended.
The BD is well worth getting, by the way. Picture's excellent, hard to imagine it looking any better. The negatives must have been in amazing shape. The subtitles sometimes lean on the side of clarifying intent when the spoken lines are obviously simpler and less verbose, which can be a bit distracting, but it's just an intermittent annoyance (and might be something I wouldn't notice if I weren't learning Japanese (I trust the subtitles more than myself, though, otherwise I wouldn't have them on)). Haven't watched the dub. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 07 Jan 2022, 20:53
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FF4 in contrast was pretty primitive but obviously an earlier release.
Playing Final Fantasy IV next to the original Final Fantasy III is interesting. Reportedly, FFIV began development as an NES game before they changed their minds a good way through and started over making it for the SNES; and when you look at the finished product next to its immediate predecessor this makes sense.
The class-change scene in FFIV really stuck with me. It's easy to undersell it if you just call it what it literally is ("a class change"), but it makes the redemption narrative hit home so perfectly. One of the great early examples of story informing gameplay and gameplay driving story. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 27 Jan 2022, 05:07
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My laserdisc acquisition pace has slowed to a halt, but not because of any other hobbies, rather that I simply have the titles that I was really interested in having, and in that sense my collection is already complete, and will stay complete until something really grabs my attention. A collection should only ever be the natural consequence of the specific things you happen to want to find and keep (Not "Laserdiscs," but "This laserdisc, and this one, and this one"). I don't believe in collecting for the sake of collecting.
However, big change for me this weekend was the birth of my first child so now it appears I’ll be slowing down the LD hobby a tad bit to focus on diaper changes.
Huzzah! :clap: |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 28 Jan 2022, 16:57
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| Playing video games in your head is a ghastly prospect to begin with even if the tech were to work perfectly (which it won't, and instead of a Blue Screen of Death you'll get a seizure or a coma). Who knows what kind of neurological side effects it could have even when working as intended? Direct brain interfacing in general is only ever going to make sense for severe paralysis victims; for everyone else it's going to be all risks with no worthwhile benefits. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 17 Feb 2022, 22:53
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You also have to consider what exactly it is you're preserving: the history of laserdisc or the history of movies? When it comes to movies, in the vast majority of cases current formats far better preserve the original film image than laserdiscs do, and in those cases where the laserdisc is the best commercially available version of a film (or specific cut of a film), the gold standard for preservation is to skip the composite output and go straight to the signal with the Domesday Duplicator (which is an expensive and difficult proposition, as I understand it, but IMO that's the difference between "preservation" and "having a personal digital backup of something").
Anyway, to your original question, easier than finding a capture card with a 3D comb filter might be finding any other device with a 3D comb filter and a digital output, and capturing that digital output with a standard capture device. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 02 May 2022, 23:52
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| I've never bothered looking for SNES games in-box at all, much less complete. Just too big a difference in price for me. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 03 Jul 2022, 19:52
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But when it comes to Macross there aren’t as many installments as Star Wars or Gundam. It’s a small selection and the winner is the 1984 movie. Macross Plus may be the ultimate approximation of Top Gun as a sci-fi anime OVA but it’s not a great Macross. It’s too cool and perfect, very obviously bent by Western money to be as American friendly as possible. It’s not cute or weird or philosophically interesting, it’s just “bad a**”.
I'd definitely put the original Macross over DYRL, especially on the love triangle front. I don't really compare Macross Plus to them though for basically the same reason you're getting at: it's a different thing retrofitted to be a Macross thing. That said, I think it absolutely rocks. And I think there's an interesting (and Macross-ish) angle in how it's about AI/automation disrupting both music and warfare.
As for the influence of Western money, I think it's worth noting that it's a Shinichiro Watanabe show ( Cowboy Bebop , Samurai Champloo , Kids on the Slope ). I don't have any particular knowledge about Macross Plus's production, but at the very least they hired a director who went on to make a great career out of playing with American cultural influences in his work. I think in execution (if not necessarily in planning) the accessibility to American tastes comes from a sincere place.
Anyway, super excited to get this one on blu-ray! Easy day-one. I might finally watch 7, too, which I saw another company is putting out. |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 16 Jul 2022, 00:56
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My family's first player was a hand-me-down from our videophile friend, probably around 2001. I can't remember what model or even brand it was, but I still have the movie we got with it: the Das Boot director's cut, double-sided DVD.
The first "player" I had that was mine and not the family's was an abandoned Dell Pentium III laptop from my dad's job. At last, I could watch movies without jockeying for the TV! :lol: |
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| rcarlson |
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Posted: 16 Aug 2022, 05:57
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| "Encoding" probably isn't the right word. The video signal on both is the same: standard-definition, interlaced analogue video. Both are divided into fields (alternating even or odd lines), not frames, at least not directly. The difference is that since each revolution of the disc in CAV covers exactly two fields, the player can loop those to the TV on pause without a frame buffer (which later players have, minimizing this difference), and if those two fields happen to be sourced from the same still frame (as it is with video from film sources unless you're between source frames at that moment, google 3:2 pulldown), the paused video appears as a coherent still image. CLV has a longer runtime because CAV is a relatively inefficient use of the disc. Because each rotation contains two fields, there is less video per inch the further out you extend from the center of the disc. It's the same "encoding" as CLV but in a simpler physical layout that has some beneficial side effects for older players. |
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Thanks list