At a glance the remote control for the Pioneer HLD-X9 seems fairly similiar to that of many other laserdisc players.

The one on the left is the remote control shipped with popular machines such as the Pioneer CLD-D925, CLD-2950 etc
The one on the right is the remote control shipped with the Pioneer HLD-X9.



As you can see it is the exact same size and shape however it does have a number of different buttons and associated features.

D-EXT button let’s you toggle back and forth the correct NTSC colour temperature for Japanese NTSC and the U.S. standard. So, both U.S. and Japanese LD’s will look their best.
In effect it lets you get deeper blacks if you want them. I don't doubt this can also be achieved by just adjusting your TV settings although it is very handy to set via the remote which you can conveniently toggle.

Video memo and select buttons let you configure the 3D comb filter using either pre-defined or customisable settings.



I wouldn't mind getting some advice from someone who knows more about how to actually adjust these settings properly.

Audio Mode button displays on screen a number of configurable audio options available e.g.



Strobe play facility can be turned on to drop some of the frames but maintain the sound. In effect the image will look like a series of stills even though the sound plays as normal.
As a music fan I found this pretty cool as you could effectively pause given frames to look at in more detail whilst not interrupting the actual concert playing.

The long grey button on the left side of the remote illuminates the main play buttons (white buttons) for about 5 seconds with red LEDs which automatically dim and gradually extinguish.

FL DIM button controls the dimming of the display on the front of the unit which again has a range of settings from low, medium and high brightness to not shown at all.

Display button can be toggled to display a number of LD options including the remaining time on the LD (for a given side) which I don't think I've seen on any of my other LD players I own.
Surprised this wasn't a standard feature on other players as it is an obvious omission that is useful.

The Multi-speed button offers 1/90, 1/30, 1/16, 1/8, 1/4, 1/2, X1, X2 and X3 speeds. The 1/90 and X3 speeds are not usually present on most other LD players.

NOTE: The normal remote that comes with other laserdisc players (e.g. black one shown above) can be used with the HLD-X9. The reason I mention this is because one feature I use frequently as a music lover is the Audio D/A button which toggles between Digital and Analogue audio. This button is missing from the HLD-X9 remote and instead this functionality must be controlled by pressing the Audio Mode button and selecting the relevant options via the on screen display. I found this a bit tedious to access and prefer the old remote which you can use to toggle the audio much faster. Funny how you get used to certain features and really miss them when someone makes a subtle change! Thankfully the old remote works with the HLD-X9 so you can use it if you prefer. Conversely the HLD-X9 remote can also be used to control other LD players for any features they support.

One shot memory button - I haven't figured out what this is actually for. Can someone please let me know!

The Panasonic LX-1000u and LX-900u also have that strobe effect. I never really saw much use for it (much like the "still play" mode where it will freeze frame the image you choose, but continue to play the sound from the LD!)

I'm thinking the "One Shot Memory" might be like the "Last Memory" featured on the R7G and the DVL-919 (and also on your D925 it appears.) It will help you go back to the last spot you stopped on an LD after turning the machine off (and so long as you left the disc in the player.)

Of course, that's just me speculating.

From a little more experimentation based on your comments the One Shot Memory seems to be like a screen grab.
If you press it the screen is captured to memory. The disc plays as normal and when you stop the disc or eject the disc the screen reverts to the previously grabbed image.
This will continue to be displayed until you switch the player off and then the memory gets wiped.

"Remain Time ALL" is definitely one of the steps in using the Display button on my Pioneer LD players. As for "One-shot Memory", one of the things you can use it for is to select which frame will be displayed during side-change. It's also a feature of the CLD-D704. I've used it only rarely, but that's true of most of the player features.

I prefer a black screen during a side change.

TLK

Then you can capture a frame of the blackness preceding the program on most Laserdiscs with this function, right?

The X9 adjusts the same as the CLD-99 or LD-S9 so you just have to play with it to get what you like the best. You will find when you move from "NORMAL" to "HR" that you will loose adjustments below.

My older Pioneer cld-3030 has the still picture with sound, strobe function, and also one shot memory. The one shot memory you press it anywhere on the video for a screen capture of that exact spot. Where I use it most is with 5" cdv and when it plays the audio part, the screen will display the still image you picked along with the music. (instead of random selecting an image)

In your case it would display the image you pick on the screen when changing disc sides.

Hi everybody,

My first post here, I am so happy that there is now a forum for LD lovers & collectors

I always wondered about some of the HLD-X9 settings. I never had a manual for mine.

D-EXT
This lowers the black level so US Laserdiscs would not look too bright on a calibrated Japanese system, US 7,5 IRE vs Japan 0 IRE.
So if you calibrate your system with a US Video Essentials LD for example you should turn on D-EXT. When watching Japanese discs on a system calibrated that way you turn D-EXT off?

Video settings
I found the following stated a few times:
NORMAL: meant for normal viewing
C-WIDE: meant for fast moving material
HR: meant for static material

I am not sure if the above is correct? I remember reading somewhere that the C-WIDE mode was meant for LDs using extended chroma bandwidth?

Never managed to find out what the audio / video clock reference setting does. Does it have to do something with displaying static images?!
http://www.movies-dictionary.org/Film-a ... Subcarrier

I've got the HLD-X9 manual that came with the player however it is all in Japanese:

I've photographed the two sections relating to:

Clock Ref Video/Audio:



3D filter details:



Could someone who can read Japanese offer a translation?

Again, buy the CLD-99 manual as these selections 3D Y/C, 3D YNR, 3D CNR are these same function. The Y/C is new

3D Y/C - toward Min is 2D effect filter processing and closer to max you are adding 3D effect filter processing. Look at fast moving objects and detail and see where you like it.

3D YNR - How much luminance noise reduction do you want?

3D CNR - How much Chroma noise reduction do you want?

Y/C - This is the difference, with the X9 you can select "Normal" which is the way the CLD-99 operates. "C WIDE" never used this. And "HR" which is High Resolution which provides a sharper picture but a little more grain in the picture.

The "clock reference" selects between the LD embedded time code & the digital audio embedded time code, on digital audio discs. Not sure what the point of doing this is.

Thank you guys! I will try and ask a Japanese colleague at work to translate, maybe it will help on the clock reference part.

Found an old post from 2008 in the AVSforum about SuperNTSC / C-Wide. Is that correct?

"Even at the end, when LD encoding was at its best, LD didn't like highly saturated chroma and 75% saturation was still frowned upon in mastering. That's not a problem with DVD, and it shows up clearly in side-by-side comparisons. There were some late-era LD's that were made with much greater chroma bandwidth but unless you have a system with an NTSC decoder that can deal with that much chroma you won't see the benefits. Faroudja's stand-alone processors could handle it since they were SuperNTSC units and the LD's were encoded with Faroudja's SuperNTSC encoders. The Japanese-only HLD-X9 had a comb-filter with an optional mode available that was designed for LaserDisc's encoded with SuperNTSC's extended chroma bandwidth - I think the setting was called "C-Wide" or something like that."

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthre ... st13224800

I don't know whether that's true, but it's reasonable. The Faroudja encoder comb-filtered the higher luminance frequencies prior to inserting the subcarrier, so that there would be less interference between the two signals, & you could then use a "less picky" comb filter to extract the subcarrier from the composite-color signal. If you used the same filter with material from a standard encoder, you'd get cross-color all over the place.

And the mystery about C.Wide is known now also to me. A japanese friend translated it from my manual:
He writes: you switch on c.wide, when you have strong picture noise in movements at dark colors.
But this 3D converting technique creates a little bit pixelated noise.
This is why this method is not recommended for normal use. It is a litte experimental.

I wrote that on AVS - I had gotten the info from Yves Faroudja himself when emailing with him about his SuperNTSC system and the Japanese ClearVision EDTV system which also had wider chroma bandwidth within a compatible NTSC signal. At the time though, I didn't know just how many LaserDisc's were encoded with the SuperNTSC system - I later found out from Joe Kane how extensive the system's use was with LaserDisc's.