Let's talk crosstalk.

Do all players eventually succumb to it?
Is there a way it can be fixed?
Does it appear on some discs but not others?
Do all players suffer from it to some degree?

With reference to the last question, I own 5 players and each one has crosstalk to a varying degree. On some players it's more obvious and on other players it's extremely minimal and only noticeable on some discs. I'm some what of an OCD perfectionist however, and even the slightest crosstalk irks me. I remember reading a post on a different forum by a chap who said upon spotting crosstalk whilst playing side B on his CLD-515, he took it back to the store only for the salesman to tell him that all CLD-515's exhibit some crosstalk!

I have a wonderful CLD-2950 which unfortunately has some crosstalk when playing side A but none when playing side B!

Crosstalk is inherent in the format itself since it is a composite. Each player deals with it differently, some better, some worse.

You can get all players pretty close to the same with crosstalk but it takes a lot of time adjusting the pickups. I totally agree that if you have multi samples of the same machine and each can be different as this work has human error in an assembly line. This is part of what I work on with all machines I repair or sell and the correct adjustment can make lower the background noise and sharpen the picture even when crosstalk is not seen.

Pretty sure he means "interference between adjacent signal tracks", not "interference between luminance & chrominance signals in composite video". This type of crosstalk is not inevitable, & can be cured with proper alignment of the optical system.

My mistake then!

3M discs are pretty notorious for crosstalk, since 3M chose to replicate their discs using the original CLV standard instead of the later CAA. Many of Animeigo's discs pressed by 3M exhibit the typical herringbone interference.

How difficult is it to align a player? Do you need a special disc?

I have a pioneer cld-d505 I picked up about a week ago. I've been enjoying watching it on my 46" LCd as much as one can enjoy watching a standard def format on a high def TV with sub-par up sampling. I had seen what I thought was crosstalk, me discs are worse than others. But I notice a higher degree than at least I think it should be. The digital noise reduction on my TV, for the most part, makes it go away to a large degree.

I just a little while ago hooked it up to a 70" Sharp Aquos quattron, which has a whole bunch of high quality video processing.

While so far, I've thrown one title in, Death Becomes Her, its all over the picture and not around the edges like I've noticed join some discs. I know I should stick a few other discs in before freaking out, but, I'm totally new to this thing, and want to get the picture looking as god as possible.

In fact, every clv disc I've tossed in shows the same amount of crosstalk, except the old ones, they seem to have a little less.

Of course keeping my brightness turned down makes the dark scenes look better...I still see it over the entire picture.



It wouldn't surprise me if this player is a little out of alignment. I doing know how well the previous owner transported it, and its been moved a few times since I've gotten it. I assume since its picking up analog signals, misalignment is really going to matter.

it's amazing to me that i have never heard of crosstalk as an issue before this forum.

if i can even remember seeing crosstalk it was only on old releases, i guess 2nd generation discs after discovision, since my first discovision was around 2006.
usually the image releases that had the covers done like old VHS boxes with images of LDs on the sides.

but if i watch my discs and make myself look for it i will see it on older releases.
i always thought it was a mastering issue, but i guess that's why it never bothered me.

What exactly are you talking about that you think is crosstalk. Most of the time crosstalk is wavy diagonal lines over top of the picture. This can vary disc to disc.

Kurtis

I have never seen it on a disc. I am running it through an upscaler and am using a 704 machine but other then that maybe I have just never looked.

Whilst I'm not doubting any of you, I find it hard to believe that some users have never seen crosstalk before. I must be incredibly unlucky. Out of the 6 LD players I own, 5 of them display some wavey lines on certain discs. Some players are worse than others. It drives me crazy and is the #1 LD flaw in my book. I'd love it if there was an easy way for an amateur user to fix this...any ideas?

Can somebody post a picture of what they're talking about? I use a CLD-97 blown up to a 150" projector screen (1080p) and I don't see any kind of "wavy lines." I have played a huge number of discs and although picture quality is better on some than others, and occasional isolated flicker (dirt or laser rot?) I have never had any other kind of "artifacts" pop up. Or at least none that I was able to discern. I would love to see some examples of this to know what to keep an eye out for if they start popping up. Thanks.

Small amounts of crosstalk pretty much just increase the background noise. If you are getting the wavy lines the pickup is way out of adjustment. This is why people love CAV recorded LDs as with each revolution the adjacent track in the LD there is a small amount of different data since each revolution is a frame. Now with CLV recorded the adjacent track is not in sync with the previous so you are getting noise reading two tracks that are displaying the video at different places in the revolution. The primary track gives you the picture and the bleeding from adjacent tracks gives you the distortion or noise.

Now stop looking for it and enjoy your unit if you have a clean picture.

I think I'm going to follow this recommendation!

I have a 603 that shows a thin line (maybe 6-12 lines of resolution) that begins at the bottom of the screen and slowly travels towards the top, at which point it starts again from the bottom.

This only happens on Side B and it only happens (I think) with AC-3 discs, although I'm not sure about that.

I have a new M Holder and gears on the way and I hope they fix this issue. This player has a problem where it skips a few seconds at the begining of side B. Also, side B playback in general is slightly less clear than side A.

This sounds like cross talk, but I'm not really sure what the problems are that you guys are talking about. I know that bad upscalers can minimize certain LD artifacts and maximize others when on an SD TV everything might look uniform. I've see morre effects that used to cover an entire area that only cover certain areas when shown on an HDTV, which just makes it even worse.

My most recent machine is an Onkyo DX-V500 Pioneer clone. It's a karaoke machine with digital field memory and it plays both sides. Unfortunately it displays some awful crosstalk on certain (make that most) discs.

The disc is the Hong Kong release of 'The Big Hit' I paused the film and took a photo.



As you can see there are some wavy lines to the right of Marky Mark's shoulder. When the movie is playing the wavy pattern moves a lot and is very obvious.



And again on either side of this gentleman's shoulders.

Thanks for the pick, I can really see it there next to the window. I think i'll count myself lucky as I have never seen anything like that in any of the LD's I've played on my CLD-97.

Never noticed anything like that on either my CLD-V2120D or DVL-919E. I too will count myself lucky.

i don't really think it's luck, i think the player will need an adjustment.
i haven't really noticed it for many years, only disc i had with crosstalk was a warped disc.
cracked it so i didn't have to worry about it.

Wow. That's Terrible. That's exactly what my little rolling strip on side B looks like, only this covers the entire screen. Dang.