LaserDisc Database :: View topic - [Voyager] Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project

Hello Substance,

this project sounds very interesting. Hope you get it to work as planed. This could be the best PAL-player ever, through the better power section and better parts from the Theta.

The reason for the difference of the two boards could be (other than SCART vs Component-Out)...

... that the european DVL-919E is only a DVL-909 with upgraded DACS, 96khz/24bit instead of 96khz/20bit, added DTS support and the new pioneer logo,

but the US DVL-919 seems like another design, more like a shrinked and redesigned DVL-H9. Maybe the inside was mostly changed, too.
The DVL-919 should have another turn-mechanism ...
According to Wikipedia -> The face plate of DVL-919E is made of aluminum (same as DVL-909) while DVL-919's face plate is made of plastic.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_DVL

You have both players, you can see / tell the differences.

Author:	substance [ 13 Apr 2017, 22:32 ]
Post subject:	[Voyager] Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
I have mentioned in the past that I was looking to modify a stock Theta Voyager to play PAL encoded Laserdisc. I have accumulated all the players and parts needed for this project. I think it is time I give a go at it. I will document everything here. Background: It is not a secret that Theta dropped an entire Pioneer DVL-919( US version) in stock form inside the chassis of the Voyager. Therefore the actual guts of this machine is a US based DVL-919. They added an excellent power section which bypasses most of the stock power supply of the DVL unit. This insures the Voyager gets very clean power hence a very low noise floor. I have to investigate the extend of this power section, I have a feeling the video board is using the stock Pioneer supply still. Theta also bypassed the analog to digital video conversion on the DVL. They have a daughter board which does the conversion and opamp section. The audio section is untouched other than elimination of the Pioneer audio DACs. This player is a transport only which means you need an external DAC. The goal of this project is to make the Voyager PAL playback capable. There happened to be a European version(DVL-919E) of the DVL-919. DVL-919E can read both NTSC and PAL encoded discs for both DVD and Laserdiscs. I am hoping to swap boards in the Voyager and obtain PAL playback rather simply. Introduction I have in my possession the following players: Theta Voyager (Version 2) Black with Component output board add on. Theta Voyager (Version 2) Silver Pioneer DVL-919 US version Pioneer DVL-919E EU version I am not interested in the Component output board add on. I actually want this player as a transport and have my outboard scalar do the heavy work. I haven't made up my mind on which color of the Voyager I want to keep after this project. If the results are good, I might obtain another DVL-919E and mod the second player as back up as well. I am hoping the excellent power section, improved video DACs/opamps will improve the video picture quality of the stock DVL-919E. This should in theory create the best PAL capable Laserdisc player in existence. I will start with opening up the silver Voyager and trying to create a block diagram/schematics of the add ons. Bonus: I also have a built circuit for a serial command interface for the DVL-919E. I am hoping to integrate this into the Voyager. This will allow me to control this player using a serial interface rather than the ir in the front. I am also hoping to obtain a SDI output board. From what I have gathered the DVD only Theta David shares the same boards with the Voyager. If I can find a cheap David with the SDI output, I can install that on the Voyager. SDI board works only on the DVD section. Unfortunately the Fujitsu mpeg decoder on the DVL machines has chroma upsampling bug. It is possible to mask this defect but it is better if you didn't have it in the first place. So it's not going to be a terrific DVD player.

Author:	elahrairrah [ 13 Apr 2017, 22:44 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
Looking forward to hear how everything turns out!

Author:	acuozzo [ 13 Apr 2017, 23:40 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
Good luck! If you accomplish this I'm going to send some PAL LDs your way to capture.

Author:	substance [ 14 Apr 2017, 01:01 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
Ok first the good news! All power is provided from the good Theta power section. Even the spindle motor has its own power supply with its separate transformer. This insures no leakage of noise into other components. Theta applied caps to many points on the video and audio boards for additional filtering. All stock pioneer caps are up graded to better ones as well. Bad news: two of the three boards are different between 919 and 919E. On these two boards Theta tapped into a dozen points to bypass video dacs and opamps. This is going to require a lot of soldering. The real difficulty is these points are very different between 919 and 919E boards. I am going to have to figure them out on the 919E. So far it seems doable. However I wonder if it would be easier to mod a CLD-97 for PAL playback and have a better outcome. Another Bonus: there is plenty of room still in the chassis of Voyager. I have an extra Yamaha RF demod, I should be able to fit that in.

Author:	laser_cinema [ 14 Apr 2017, 09:28 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
Hello Substance, this project sounds very interesting. Hope you get it to work as planed. This could be the best PAL-player ever, through the better power section and better parts from the Theta. The reason for the difference of the two boards could be (other than SCART vs Component-Out)... ... that the european DVL-919E is only a DVL-909 with upgraded DACS, 96khz/24bit instead of 96khz/20bit, added DTS support and the new pioneer logo, but the US DVL-919 seems like another design, more like a shrinked and redesigned DVL-H9. Maybe the inside was mostly changed, too. The DVL-919 should have another turn-mechanism ... According to Wikipedia -> The face plate of DVL-919E is made of aluminum (same as DVL-909) while DVL-919's face plate is made of plastic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_DVL You have both players, you can see / tell the differences.

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[Voyager] Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project https://forum.lddb.com/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=7054	Page 1 of 1

Author:	substance [ 14 Apr 2017, 15:21 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
laser_cinema wrote: Hello Substance, this project sounds very interesting. Hope you get it to work as planed. This could be the best PAL-player ever, through the better power section and better parts from the Theta. The reason for the difference of the two boards could be (other than SCART vs Component-Out)... ... that the european DVL-919E is only a DVL-909 with upgraded DACS, 96khz/24bit instead of 96khz/20bit, added DTS support and the new pioneer logo, but the US DVL-919 seems like another design, more like a shrinked and redesigned DVL-H9. Maybe the inside was mostly changed, too. The DVL-919 should have another turn-mechanism ... According to Wikipedia -> The face plate of DVL-919E is made of aluminum (same as DVL-909) while DVL-919's face plate is made of plastic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_DVL You have both players, you can see / tell the differences. You can also tell from the positions of the buttons on the front. Mechanical parts seem identical. there are 3 boards, two are different. I suspect its going to be the best PAL machine as well.

Author:	audioboyz1973 [ 14 Apr 2017, 22:40 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
You've been planning this for a while now; best of luck with it (not that you need luck). PAL is a very (VERY) minor component of my collection but my best version of Peter Gabriel: Secret World Live is def the UK PAL, despite some nasty video artefacts due to various things going on inside the CLD-925 it still beats the USA version for me, and the Japanese version? OMG it's f*cked. I've even thought about looking for a 919E purely based on your choice for this project, but it's hard to justify a whole new player for 1 disc! If the original video master is PAL then I think there are very definite advantages to this, versus seeing an NTSC disc mastered from a PAL conversion, of the day. Hope this works out and we have the closest thing to a new model for 20 something years!

Author:	happycube [ 15 Apr 2017, 08:19 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
The schematics for the 909[E]->919E changes are in RRV2095, which is up on Elektrotanya. However the comb filter board is part of the DVL-909 SM, which includes both NTSC and NTSC/PAL versions. Elektrotanya has a lower quality version of the schematics only but I can't find a good free copy of RRV1888 as a whole.

Author:	substance [ 15 Apr 2017, 14:45 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
happycube wrote: The schematics for the 909[E]->919E changes are in RRV2095, which is up on Elektrotanya. However the comb filter board is part of the DVL-909 SM, which includes both NTSC and NTSC/PAL versions. Elektrotanya has a lower quality version of the schematics only but I can't find a good free copy of RRV1888 as a whole. Some of the tap points I already figured out without schematics. The others I will sit down this week and work on. Hopefully in 3 weeks, I will pull out the soldering iron. If I can mod one and document it, subsequent units will be a days worth of work. Its a matter of sourcing other theta units. Luckly I have two of these but I don't know if I would sell the second one. I read on other forums that there are successful attempts of modding hld-x9 for Pal playback. It turns into a pal only (no muse) machine. Accouzzo, I have a good idea what discs you want captured;) I might have one of them already? SW French boxset by any chance? Audioboys, this is a project I am doing just because:) i have only a dozen pal discs and none of them that significant other than the french sw boxset. If i can get this machine working, I might buy another dozen or two music titles on pal. Once I am done with this, I will resume with the hi vision ld to bd project i started a while ago. My capture rig wasn't good so I stopped but i plan to build a pc to capture lds/hi vision lds over the summer.

Author:	substance [ 08 May 2017, 03:13 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
I had been dealing with food poisoning last few days. Now I can resume this project.

Author:	rein-o [ 08 May 2017, 03:48 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
Very interesting, want to see how it is with the top off when you are done.

Author:	tomlee80 [ 09 May 2017, 22:14 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
I just posted to the Laserdisc Forever facebook page asking whether anyone had looked at improving a PAL player to produce top-end picture..So glad someone directed me to this.. Hope it's a success!

Author:	substance [ 20 Jun 2017, 04:58 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
One of the forum members here convinced me to sell this player before I do anything on it. I am no longer working on this project. I have another Voyager in the storage. I will re visit this project probably next summer.

Author:	substance [ 30 May 2023, 03:26 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
I am reconsidering this project. Let me tell you a bit about the motivation to come back to it. I honestly don’t have massive interest in PAL Laserdiscs. I have accumulated a decent inventory of interesting Laserdisc players and video processing equipment. I have different priorities now and I want to slowly sell these. I have the option to sell the above listed equipment individually or put them together into this one of a kind NTSC and PAL capable Laserdisc player with progressive scan (480p) component digital SDI outputs. If I go with the latter, I would have to ask the combined values of all the donor players and parts I put into the project. Maybe the admin can turn this into a poll. Should I not bother and sell everything individually? Should I do it because there is a market for such a thing? Should I do it for the sake of science? What is your opinion?

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Author:	laserfanhld-gb [ 31 May 2023, 10:43 ]
Post subject:	Re: Theta Voyager (Version 2) NTSC/PAL mod Project
Just my humble opinion, but with a fair few PAL LDs residing in my collection I would really love to see you give this a go substance, for obvious reasons I suspect most of any further likeminded members will likely reside on the European side of the Atlantic also.