I was interested to see how the playback capabilities of the CLD-D925 compare with the HLD-X9 when dealing with scratches on a laserdisc as opposed to laser rot which I have already compared in another thread.

The upper picture was a frame taken from a promo music LD which has many scratches playing on a CLD-D925.
The lower picture was the same frame playing on an HLD-X9.



Excusing the fact the normal scan lines are visible in both pictures it is clear the flaw (at the neck level in the pictures) caused by the scratch is far less noticeable when the disc is played by the HLD-X9.

Actually this disc was very scratched so I was able to confirm lots of different points throughout the disc on both players.
The CLD-D925 consistently displayed flickers like this when attempting to play this disc.
The HLD-X9 either reduced or totally eliminated the flaws when playing the same disc.

So in this test the HLD-X9 was noticeably better than the CLD-D925 when hiding the impact of scratches during playback.
Interestingly that is the opposite result to what I found with regard to laser rot where the CLD-D925 was actually better at hiding issues caused by later rot.

Two thoughts.

1) If this was a CAV recorded disc then the focus servo adjustment can actually effect the amount of the line shown back in this example. If the Focus is not properly adjusted you will see the line heavier

2) The red laser being narrower has less read area effected by the scratches.

The red laser can find goodness in the pits and lans the normal laser cannot if it is there as seen with the ability to get a sync'd picture on laser rot LDs but you still get the rot speckles.

Personally I feel the issue you are seeing is the focus servo adjustments.

It was a CLV disc so it was paused to enable me to capture the exact same frame from both players.

The image quality itself doesn't matter for this test - I was just measuring the ability of both players to deal with a scratch that causes a video flaw.

I collect promo music LDs produced from broadcast companies that were never officially released to the public.
One downside is they tend to be badly treated sometimes.
This one arrived in the post today with typical scuffs and scratches and exhibited the defect I have highlighted.
I've many such discs so it is great the HLD-X9 seems to be far better at playing these particular discs.
The flaw shown was an extreme case where it was still visible even in the HLD-X9 but at a reduced level.
Most of the scratches had no impact at all when played via the HLD-X9 whereas they virtually all showed up as flickers on the CLD-D925.

I've thousands of music videos on these promo LDs so always wanted to digitize them to hard disk at some point to simplify playing them back, however until now I was never satisfied with the results as many were scuffed or scratched and didn't record particularly well. Whilst I could probably buff out most of the serious scratches it would take a long time. It seems the HLD-X9 may just have justified its higher price by being able to play scratched discs more successfully. I am guessing this isn't a necessary requirement for everyone but it is certainly useful for me as the promo LDs I own represent a sizeable part of my collection.

Just out of curiosity I also tried switching on the HQ circuit on the CLD-D925 to see if that improved the picture when the flaws appeared but it didn't make any measurable difference that I could see.

I did a little more testing.

I setup 3 identical backup CLD-D925 LD players and tried each in turn playing the exact same scratched disc.
All exhibited video flaws at the same basic spots during playback as had been noted on the original CLD-D925.

So either the focus is not set correctly in all 4 of them (seems unlikely) or they are just not up the job of dealing with scratches unlike the HLD-X9.
It looks like the red laser in the HLD-X9 must be improving the picture.

The focus servo may have effected this defect if it was a CAV recorded LD. If all 4 915's work the same then that sounds like a verified playback to me.

Some of the LDs I have for testing players have horrible scratches. You even has a straight like gouge from trying a just received player that was internally bend and an edge went across the LD and it still plays. Thought when my Autistic son hugged "The Little Engine That Could" and cracked it it became unplayable.

LD is a pretty durable format.

I'd polished out some scratches from discs before using the Novus 1, 2, 3 solutions however it is a very time consuming process to do it meticulously.
I advised a collector who wanted to buy a rare music LD from me that the disc I had for sale was heavily scratched.
There were no signs of rot so it seemed worth trying to salvage.
I watched the entire disc through very carefully noting every single flaw by timestamp.
I then spent about 2 hours using the various grades of Novus to polish out the scratches as best I could.
Afterwards I rewatched the noted flaws and all of them except for one had vanished during playback.
I sent the buyer the results and let them decide if they still wanted the disc.
Needless to say they did and were very pleased when they got it. Actually the disc looked great after polishing it - almost like new again.

So I guess if you want to get a cheaper solution than buying an X9 buy some Novus 1,2,3 and lots of wipes!

I just know from memory of watching so many LDs (particularly promos) the ability of the X9 to see through scratches better than other players could be a lifesaver for me personally as I have many that fall into this category.

Hi Laserdisc_fan

I read you did the comparison using a CRT television, it would also be very interested to know how the picture results are and compare on a modern LCD television (with/without scaler), not so much related scratched discs, but the overall quality if you compare both using a LD with good picture quality.

I would agree the best to compare is using a CRT to see the differences, but I think most of us own a LCD today

Personally I use a CLD-D925 and a scaler, a combination I really like

No problem - I will give those a try at the earliest oppportunity and post some results as I own:
a JVC 47" LCD
a Denon AV receiver AVR-1610
a Sony DVD recorder RDR-HXD970 which I can feed the LD player into first if required before going into AV receiver
CLD-D925 laserdisc player wired to above
I can connect and compare the HLD-X9 laserdisc player through the same setup

I think the main issue is I need to brush up on my photography skills first!

There wont really be any differences on a LCD/Plasma or if using a scaler.

Because on such a setup the settings you make on the display will change the picture so much,
that you won't be able to notice any differences. You would need to do this: Put the LCD into a
mode where all picture controls go to default and all scaling options are inactive.
But then most likely the picture will look pretty sad for both players :p

On a CRT imho, as the picture manipulation options are not as severe, and there should be no scaling
at all involved, the differences between a 925 and an X9 should be eye-popping (they surely were for me).
On my Pioneer plasma using lotsa tweaking with the internal scaler there basically was no difference.
It looked just as good, or as bad, as the other.

You might still find some fine details that some ppl may point out (CLV smear, white smear etc)...
but basically the point of such a machine these days, to be used on a LCD or Plasma screen, would rather
be the better disc tracking, and the ability to play MUSE. If you still use a CRT to watch LD's, then yeah
get your hands on of of those bad boys to see that LD can almost rival DVD on your tube.

Just my thoughts on this.