While I do already have an excellent LaserDisc player (Pioneer Elite CLD-59), I've been curious about the VP-1000 lately. I've been wanting to make some DVD rips of a few DiscoVision films and I've heard the VP-1000 is one of the best DiscoVision players out there, and the shorter-wavelength HeNe laser is supposed to be better for tracking. My CLD-59 has never had any trouble with DiscoVision, however, so would I be gaining anything with the VP-1000? How do the picture/audio quality compare to a more modern player?

If you're hoping for the best DiscoVision reproduction, why not go all out and get a PR-7820? I mean it was designed to conform with the DiscoVision specs.

if i had space to display one, i'd get a VP-1000 for the sake of display. it IS THE ORIGINAL PIONEER LDP, after all.

sure it cannot remotely compete for looks and performance with the ELITE models,
but it is it's own unique sort of late-70's/early-80's beauty all it's own...

The problem with the early players is, AFAIK, there's nobody around who can actually fix/align them anymore.

On the flip side, the last-gen players seem to deal with Discovision quite well.

Having owned a PR-7820 you only have BNC and Coaxial for video out. on the VP-1000 you only have coaxial and possibly BNC????
you won't be be getting any better picture from that over say your 59 on Discovision titles.

Its not like these players will magically make discs play any better, you may get a 5-15% difference and for the value now
its really not worth it anymore.

Now if you find one locally then take the risk.

The VP-1000 is a tricky beast. It does play DiscoVision pretty well, but alignment is tricky and can be subject to laserlock. In my opinion, the very best player for DiscoVision is the Sylvania VP-7200.

What exactly makes a player "good at Discovison"? What does that even mean? Since it isn't actually a format any different from any other analog LD (to my knowledge) then I assume it means the player is good at playing through some sort of Discovision-era specific defects?

You are absolutely correct. For example, some have reported that the HLD-X9 and HLD-X0 read through "rot" better because of their shorter wavelength laser. Specifically with the older top-loading players, the trick is the reaction speed of the tracking and tangential mirrors. The "all-in-one" lens assembly that is used by the players between mid the mid 80s and mid 90s simply aren't fast enough to compensate for the defects in the discs that were all over during the DiscoVison period. Laser lock and laser runaway are fairly common discovision "defects" and the mirrors seem to better handle the issue.

The Pioneer built "consumer" units (LD-660 & LD-1100) are not as good as the Sylvania VP-7200 and Magnavox VH-8040 because Philips had Pioneer upgrade the slider assembly and mirrors to the "industrial" version (similar to the LD-V1000). I have seen similar outstanding performance with DiscoVision on the Pioneer PR-8210 industrial player.

As for speckling - no player is going to make that go away, but some hide it better than others. I understand the players from Sony and Panasonic actually look the worst in regards to speckles.

On the flip side, there are reports here that the X9's dropout detection doesn't work well (at least on non-Discovision disks)

It is true the x0 can read discs that cld-97 wouldn't even recognize but rot is rot, you still get distortions on the video.

Definitely substance, it's amazing the X9 reads through rot pretty thoroughly as well.

Only if you want to exercise your biceps.