Hey there,

got my AC3 mod from Benedictus too to upgrade my CLD-2950! You get all the needed parts including a detailed description telling you what to do. Pretty easy to get it done and it works perfect ever since...

Good afternoon knatterbuechse,

Thank you ever so much for sharing with myself and this forum, your experience with the AC-3 Mod package for Laserdisc players, or at least mentioned CLD-2950 & CLD-97.

I shall visit this site for details and possible purchase of this MOD.

12:35pm 12/04/2012 I have visited the German Benidictus site, and have sent them an email asking for details.

I shall hopefully receive details soon.


Regards

Just won a Sony SDDS DFP-D3000 a few days ago. I have it secured so I have 14 days to pay for it, only 12 days or 11 1/2 days to go as I'm shy of £25.00 for postal that is cheap from the USA cheap price £63.00! That has to be by far the cheapest cinema processor I brought yet.

Reason for the low price is that digital decoder board has fault! The analogue to AUX 6/8 channel input to output as I'm told is okay its only the digital board that is faulty and could be an easy fix it might be a dry joint on the underside of the PCB or an IC or micro processor chip that has packed in?

The centre board in the decoder is the part that is faulty "DECK 102" I might be able to find a DECK 102 board used as there are plenty of Dolby CAT boards going for Dolby CP processors at low prices.

It would be good enough for integrating it with Dolby CP65 while I can also take the 8channel from the Yamaha to Sony D3000 and use its many features including 8channel 1/3 octave EQ.

Finding space in the rack will be hard as I might have to remove a few items and place them in the other rack if possible or save up and get a third rack!

I'd have to also buy a cheap pc with an old windows system 3.1 to run the RS lead from pc to Sony which acts a remote control to program the levels EQ and all other features. Once done its using the SK soft-keys on the processor daily use.

Users manuals
http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manu ... 00OPER.pdf
http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manu ... 00PROJ.pdf
http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manu ... KSTART.pdf
http://www.film-tech.com/warehouse/manu ... TNOTES.pdf

Do you have any 35mm prints to play with that SDDS decoder? Do you have a reader to go with it? That would be so cool

I might buy a digital reader and who knows a 35mm projector since no cinema cares for 35mm no more, and projectors are often going at cheap prices even cheaper at times than home cinema video projector costing $5grand or more. Get looking around eBay and garb a bargain.

I was after an SDDS decoder early this year but while speaking with a guy, at SDDS told me the model D2000 won't work for my use and I'd be better of getting the D3000 that can run in AUX mode and it has 2 AUX 6/8 inputs so I have been thinking?? What to do or how to get matrix five-screen as the 6/8 inputs don't have a means of matrix 5 screen so I 'll have to use the two Yamaha DSR-70 decoders wire them up and use one of the AUX 1 or 2 inputs for re-creating a 5 screen front with left-centre right-centre from a three screen mix that has dialouge panning moving between the left and centre and centre and right.

I'll use the other AUX input for direct from the Sony BDP-S550 from its RCA outputs. The CP65 will have to be wired ahead of the D3000 and all the EQ settings on the CP65 will have to be set to 0 flat and all the 1/3 EQ will be done on the D3000 as that would be the final last part before passing over to crossovers and amps.

Also getting a second pair of JBL control 12SR and another DCX2496 and matching amps.

As for 35mm prints out there some are in fair shape. The cost of running 35mm in the home won't be cheap xenon lamps are costly. also storing the prints in a good ideal room temperature so they don't crack up with in few years, its a risky gamble but its tempting.

If you ever do get into 35mm prints, see if you can find Star Wars Episode 1. It came to theaters with an 8 channel SDDS track. I bet it sounds gorgeous.

I'm aware of that it was the only such 8channel mix made out of all 6 films.

Go to
"SDDS Movies
A complete list of past, present, and upcoming films with SDDS"
http://www.sdds.com/

Titles that say (yes) are 8channel last known one was Surf's Up (2007).

Paid off and on its way should be somewhere in flight transit might take a week or 12 days to arrive. In the meantime I have to look at ether buying premade connects to link Dolby CP65 to the DFP-D3000 which is not half bad with cost for a D plug 25pin with x8 XLR male plugs.

The cheapest route would be to buy the multi stranded cable and a few male/female D-25pin connectors and solder all the wiring up neatly between CP65 and DFP-D3000 which would have to be racked ether above CP65 and shuffle the other GEQ3102 and MDX4600 into the other rack until I get a third Samson SRK21 rack to start stacking the amplifiers in.

Also buying a cheap in working order pc with Windows XP/2000 as I fear my new pc won’t handle the software for the remote setting-up the audio alignment on the Sony SDDS. There is plenty of cheap going pc on eBay, got my eye on really cheap with good features so I’ll buy that along (with soon wireless features to place the pc in cupboard to isolate the fan noise).

Technically not a "new" piece of equipment but I modded my CLD-97 to have AC3 output. So same hardware, but new functionality.

Rear view of CLD-97 seems like plenty of other places for small RCA connector to go but why in the middle it looks out of place? Near to vent hole too near I might add.



If you can't find a spot inside for do away with one pair of the RCA analogue outputs chances are you only use one pair to an AVR for analogue use.

Then take the cable and solder it to one of the RCA connectors and hmm I wonder if a analogue to digital board can't be fitted in and use the other RCA for PCM coaxial or remove it and plug the hole up!?

Two major reasons why the RCA is usually put on the right side (as can be seen in the pictures of my mod instruction guide).
1) It is very cramped inside the player and the reading mechanism is in the back portion so you want to make sure that you don't run any wires there as it can get caught up with side changes. The middle right side (looking from the back) is a straight line from where the mod chip is attached and is free of any moving mechanical pieces or the disk. Even if the wire came loose, it wouldn't fall into any dangerous area.
2) The coaxial cable included in the mod kit is pretty short and is not long enough to go to the other side of the player (yes you could go and buy more cable).

You haven't stripped it Right down plenty of room inside to take wires and fit them in so they don't even come near to laser mechanism plenty of room.
AC-3 mod kit
http://www.precisionlaserdisc.com/ac3-photos.html

Pioneer CLD-97
http://www.precisionlaserdisc.com/cld97-big.jpg

^^ Blimey is that all there is to it. A tiny PCB and some soldering.

http://vellzen.com/laserdisc.html

Most if not all the above pictures are over 10 years old as the resolution is rather low quality.

You probably have more comfort than I with dealing with electronics. . I would not consider the inside spacious. I think you would have to start taking circuit boards out if you wanted to run wires through to the other side. With placing the RCA connector on the Right side you don't have remove any which makes the process a lot faster and easier. But of course you can put the connector anywhere you want, just may need to remove the back panel, circuit board, buy more coaxial.... the sky is the limit I suppose. But for most people they probably want to do the upgrade with the least manipulation of the internal electronics (and subsequently, minimize the chance of damaging anything).

Hah, wow man! That is insane, but awesome! I love SDDS and always thought it was a shame it was never ported to home cinema.

When Ridley Scott's Gladiator came out, my brother and I went out to see it 3 times. Once in Dolby Digital, once in DTS and once in SDDS. SDDS was the best sounding of them all.

Hope you get to use that with some good films!

By all means place the RCA connector anywhere expect over the lettering on the back it looks a little tatty. I haven’t seen a good picture of high res with lid off the CLD-97 to have a peek I’m sure its not much different than my CLD-2950 or my present CLD-909.

Well leave it be now if its all working fine don’t drill anymore holes in the back. I would have fit it near to video output and if its a tight fit still fit it next to video at around the same height position.

I bet you were nervous drilling in the back what you do? Fit the player in Black and Decker workmate or get a friend to hold the player?

Did you have to cut any circuit board track any resistors bridged between any cuts or was all simple straightforward 20min soldering?

Here is my upgrade guide with pics:
https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B3Or4auin9FnNkpJZE9KVTVzRFk

Your absolutely right about being nervous with the drilling! I had the vacuum cleaner put on the other side to make sure that when I broke through the back no metal filings would fall into the player. I went really slow and carefully.

Half the pictures are ether blurred or struggling to upload. I like to see pictures of your, mod with higher clear pictures.

WHOA yeah then you would be in dire straits! All it would take a small few hairline fragments to bridge cross-circuit and short it out. Maybe fit a plastic bag inside double plastic bags so all the metal falls into the bag under the hole that is being drilled.

What's those drills that have the leaver that you turn and it lowers the chuck drill down onto the item you want drilled? I worked on Bosh one some 26 years ago when doing PCB and soldering for a company. There was cone drill fitted as it was doing holes into plastic cases for radio transmitters. Holes where done in less than 4sec and I had hundreds to thousands to do as well as soldering checking radio frequency modifying the boards sometimes (that another engineer sussed out this can do more than its designed to).

Google docs makes it convenient for people that want to view it in their web-browser that is why I posted it there, but I think it does blurr the pictures a bit. However, if you download the actual pdf file and view it on your pdf viewer it will be more clear. To download just click on "Print" and you can then download it as a pdf file. I didn't put the full resolution pictures in the guide as if I did, the document would have been over 100 mb!