My DVL-909 skips on side two and the there is no way to deactivate auto-flip. I have to awkwardly jump up and open my cabinet doors to hit stop on the remote before it gets too far into side two. It's been grating on me lately and i there is no one locally who can repair.

I'm looking for a Single Sided player with S-Video (which i upscale to HDMI) and AC3. Would be looking for something commonly available in the USA and generally known to be reliable.

Thanks for any ideas on models to look out for! Willing to pay a little extra for something built to last!

Why not buy a LD only two sided player that plays side B fine. The DVL players can be fixed if this issue is at the beginning of side B. Some DVL players experience this and others work fine. It’s either the track fully engaging the pickup gear or a slight warp in the guide rod.

I’ve never been a fan of any DVL units because they were always a compromise for both the LD and DVD format and thus it was better for me to keep maintaining my CLD / LD units and have a dedicated high end DVD only player.

With that said, finding a good quality single side LD player with both S-Video and AC-3 is going to be a tough find as I can only recall one model like that (I think CLD-S350 comes to mind) and it wasn’t exactly a great model (also, S-Video is not really the preferred video connection since the format is based on composite video).

So based on what Kurtis said, I’d probably lean toward fixing the issue you have (which is worth time and money in my opinion) since the alternative you are thinking about wouldn’t be better. And of course, a higher end dual side CLD player built after 1995 is probably your next best alternative.

Heads up, the CLD-S350 has optical but no AC3-RF.

From eBay:

No AC-3, but I still have the one I showed you the last time you were over at my apartment, with Digital Optical and S-Video if you're interested, all yours for $60 if you want to take the trip up to my new house in Swanton.

I also have a 704 I need to get around to fixing (I have the belts and everything) does what you're looking for, but it's a both sides player.

If you want, I can also take a crack at fixing your current player, I've done basic repairs with most of my players.

Thanks guys! Kurtis is going to sell me a single sided player with S-Video and AC3. Once you hear the rich demodulated AC3 Surround Sound it's hard to go back!

Chris lets talk soon. Really enjoying some titles from the recent lot i bought from you; just watched "Face/Off" the other night!

I hope you don't get rid of the DVL, those are nice players and worth keeping, fixing etc.

No way! I absolutely plan to have it repaired! Even though i don't care about the DVD capability; i do like the player overall and want to get it refurbished for use downstairs.

That’s good to know. I know if I ever acquired a DVL, I would do my best to maintain it. But since I never had one, I never felt the need to obtain one at this point.

Can you tell us what model you are getting from Kurtis? I’m still baffled that I can’t find a particular model with all those features you wanted (unless Kurtis is selling you one with an aftermarket AC3-RF output).

I wrote him privately, the players I have are dual sided refurbished players. I would have to add an AC-3 output to a single sided player and there is another player on my bench that has to be finished first.

Thanks for pointing that out. It was driving me nuts trying to recall a player with a feature set like that and I had feeling maybe it never existed.

Why did nobody ever mention the Pioneer HLD-X0?
Single sided, S-video, and AC-3 RF out.
OK, it's expensive, but... it exists

I can't remember what mod I asked Duncan to do on the LDS2 but it might have been the ac-3 mod. of which I never got but I kinda gave up on the idea of it. I do have an LDS1. I probably should have stuck with my CLD-980 than go down this rabbit hole lol

Kurtis sold me an Elite CLD-59 (which is arriving today!)

It DOES have the "both sides" feature. But since he recently refurbished the unit i'm okay with it and feel like it should work well for quite a while.

My DVL-909 i'm hanging on to and will be working on getting repaired for use downstairs.

Solid player... Elite build quality if otherwise on par with late-model standard Pioneer models. I almost picked one up locally about a month ago but someone beat me to it by a few hours. Enjoy!

I haven't used my CLD-59 very much but overall I do like it. A bit concerned as my unit has the more fragile motor holder that can break for whatever reason so that's part of the reason I have it stored right now (in addition that I don't have a place for it in any of my set-ups right now ).

I was going to post exactly this. CLD-59 is a nice, full-featured unit with good picture quality. The only one I've opened up had a cracked M-Holder that someone had glued back together at some point. Still operated without issue though.