Has anybody had the same problem?
My set-up is consists of a Pioneer HLD-X9 connected to a Sony MSC-4000 decoder using Chord Prodac VEE3 Digital Coaxial Cable for reading Muse.
The decoder is connected to a Pioneer KRP-500A plasma TV using Chord Component leads.
When Playing Muse discs I get splashes of colour seeping thru in the scenes like faces turning Green and Red and Blue splashes of colour all thru the film.
This slightly disappears only in dark scenes.
I have changed various cables but same results.
Could the fault be with the MSC-4000 not being able to lock and hold the muse signal or could there be a fault with the muse playback feature of the HLD-X9.
When playing standard laserdisc’s with S-VHS leads bypassing the decoder. I get a perfect picture. Can anybody help.
Thanks,
Gus.

Does this happen with all discs, or just particular ones?
What settings do you have on the decoder?
This sounds like a decoder fault, to me.

Just Hi-Vision discs.I have tried the RGB settings on the decoder but this was worst . I got a slightly better image using YPbPr.
regards,
dxklone

OK, let's try this again. Which Hi-Vision discs have you been having the problem with? (Obviously, NTSC discs are irrelevant, because an NTSC disc will not cause anything to come out of the MUSE decoder.)
What do you mean "RGB… was the worst"? Did it suffer from more colour bleeding? Or did everything just look the wrong colour (which is what happens when you feed up RGB to a component input)?
The MSC-4000 has a variety of on-screen menu options, governing things like colour tone. You may have set one which doesn't work with your TV.
A picture showing the effect would be very helpful in diagnosing the problem!

Here is a pic of the Sony Test Disc

Judging by that photo, you have the component video cable connected wrong. Check that the Y (green) terminal on the decoder is connected to the Y (green) terminal on the TV, & the Pb (blue) & Pr (red) terminals likewise. It's easy to swap them by mistake, especially the green & blue connexions.

The component cable connections are all corresponding to the colours on both the TV and decoder.

Have you tried a different cable, then?
Because the way this picture looks, it appears that there is one of two things wrong. Either the cables are connected incorrectly, or the selection "YPbPr" vs "GBR" is incorrect. (I can say this because I have deliberately done both, to see what it looked like!) The menu shows YPbPr, & you say you have changed to GBR without making things better. So, on the off chance that the cable ends are marked wrongly or something, please disconnect the existing component cable, & hook up using a different one.

Thank you for your time and patience.
I have tried a different component cable swapped around the colour connections,tried another TV yet no luck.
The colours in the image seem correct. I noticed that in this scene Pic 1 of the close-up of the girl,you see the colour interference but when the image starts to fade away to darkness you see Pic 2 a perfect picture.Would you not suspect the decoder then?
Regards.

Pic 2

The face looks like this on my combination:
http://www.pustan.com/test/muse_16.jpg

Have you looked at the menu setting of your TV?
Maybe you can change the input settings from GBR to YPbPr or something.

Could be the decoder. It's mostly analog by design, 15+ years old and prone to drying up components.

Bad news is: SONY can't fix them anymore. The generation of engineers who designed analog circuits is retired today.

When my MSC-4000 got sound issues (on the analog outputs) back in Tokyo in 2004, they couldn't fix it at the SONY customer service center near Shinagawa, shipped it back to the R&D center and, several weeks later, gave it back to me with a "sorry, this is obsolete technology, there's nothing we can do about it anymore.".

Julien

admin, lons_vex, dxklone, publius,

It's a real shame that there is nobody that can repair these MUSE decoders anymore, and is a worry for the rest of US that still use the MUSE HiDEF side of our Laserdisc players.

Have you tried Nicolas Santini as he has a good number of hardware for sale.
Why not send him an email.

I hope you are able to get a perfect picture and continue to enjoy your viewing dxklone.

Kind Regards to you and please keep us all updated with your progress.

It sounds like dxklone has made good progress towards isolating the problem in the decoder itself, although if you could test that by substituting the decoder, that would make that definite.

If it is the decoder, as sounds likely, then just because the relevant people have retired, it doen't mean that it can't be repaired. If it's dried-up components, then they can be replaced part-for-part. Failed capacitors are often visible on inspection and are easy enough to replace. Dry solder joints likewise, using a magnifying glass. Take it to an electronics repair shop (obviously not Sony!) and there's an excellent chance that they'll sort it out, even if they leave it up to you to test it. Or, have a poke about inside yourself.

This is a complex piece of technology, and not so easy to detect where the problem is to be found, you really need a service doc.
BTW looks like a problem with contrast which is too high.

Look at the nice pictures Publius made and shared on his webside : http://ura.caldc.com/stannum/decoders/mst2000.html

Do you have access to a good oscilloscope? That would allow checking the actual video output from the decoder. It's possible that the one of the three component outputs is over its specified peak-to-peak voltage swing, which could cause a similar appearance, & explain why things look more normal when the image darkens.

If you were in the US, I'd offer to lend you my Victor HV-VMD1 (cheap, low-performance MUSE decoder) for comparison purposes, or to look at your MSC-4000 myself, or both.

Thanks for the offer publius.
Much appreciated.
Come to think of it. I know a retired elderly gentleman friend who is an electronics engineer.
He still has his oscilloscope amongst many other equipment that he still uses them for small projects. Say's it keeps him active.
Sorry to impose on your good-self but could you assist us as to what readings to look out for.

WOW!
Please tell. What extra equipment if any, you are using to get this.

The main thing is that, in YPbPr mode, Y should be 1 Volt peak-to-peak, at maximum (white), while Pb & Pr should each be 0.7 V p-p max (with 75 Ohm termination — just plugging them into the input of the scope, typically 1 MOhm, without a feed-through terminator will double the voltage you see). The other thing is that the Sony decoders are DC-restored, meaning the lower tips of the sync waveform should be at zero-volts (ground) potential. I will shortly put up a little page showing the waveforms which should appear on the scope when the color bar segment of The Test Disc is played back. By comparing these images, you should be able to see what is going on.

Here is the page, where things are laid out in extenso.


The Y component


The Pb component


The Pr component

In all cases, the tri-level sync waveforms are 0.7 V peak-to-peak with 75 Ohm termination, or 1.4 V p-p into megohm termination.