Hey, apologies for the big bump; I recently got a U-44 myself.

Using the same driver setup as you list, bitperfect Digital capture seems to work great, but I'm unsure how to go about Analog capture. My main confusion is the gain knobs that are physically on the unit; I wondered if you had any tips on dialing those in so it's not too loud but also not too quiet

You already got Digital capture right on Input 3/4.

For Analog on Input 1/2 (left analog on 1, right analog 2), you will need to play the disc a little first to check the gain.

If you are still at 10 on the Gain 1/Gain 2 knobs, you will probably "clip" (as in "go too loud/too hot") and see the Clip Signal LED flash red.

To avoid this, you need to adjust both gains to get the both Left/Right around the same levels, never hitting the max level.



For Analog Audio LaserDiscs (from a LD-S9), the right level is usually around 5~6 for me.

But they can be mixed at very different levels, that's why you need to make a first pass to calibrate.

Julien

Thanks for the advice! In my testing the safest bet that was nicely loud but didn't clip proved to be around between 3-4.

To capture analog audio from LDs, I oversample to 24-bit/48kHz.

24-bit because more resolution is good.
48kHz because LDs players are usually up to 20kHz, so oversampling more than 2x should capture all the data.



Julien

Another discovery with the U-44...

It has ZERO tolerance for laser rot on the digital tracks.

Started playing the first side of Iron Maiden: Maiden England (1989) [TOLW-3042] for rot check and it seemed to play nicely. No video speckles, audio was clean.

But the digital audio capture was telling another story... it was horrible from start to end on both sides!
95mn of garbage audio.

Made another capture from another LD and this time it was fine on both sides.

So... back to the LD player to test the 1st disc again and... yes, starting from 30mn on Side A, the audio was degrading severely, by the end of the side the audio (both analog and digital) was hashed to death/helicopter chopped. Side B was so bad the player had issues finding the chapters.

Incidentally, it was also the copy with the stickiest edges...

To the trash bin!

And testing the 2nd disc for safety, it played fine just like the audio capture predicted.

Julien