If you want to adjust your player following the instructions in the service manual all you need is a 8" CAV disc. Any 8" CAV disc will work. And if you don't have one of those a12" CAV disc will work. Spending $500 for a GGV1069 is the dumbest thing you could possibly do. "A Video Standard" is perfectly adequate. Flame on.

Edit: In the old days GGV reference discs were available for free if you took the trouble to request one in writing.

Hi, 99percent-

Welcome to the LDDB Forum!

Thank you for posting the notes about the Pioneer reference discs. I had speculated whether non-reference discs could be used for at least reasonable if not perfect adjustments and alignment. I appreciate that you confirmed this.

I have not yet done any alignment work on any of my players (at least, not since my VP-1000 in the early-to-mid-1980s), so I read the procedures in the service manual for the CLD-D704. Beside the crosstalk adjustments and signals that have been mentioned in other topics here, I see only a few other frames mentioned that are needed, and one of those is the "staircase" gray-scale video test pattern that is also available on the A Video Standard and Video Essentials discs as you mentioned.

I have a few Standard Play/CAV 8-inch music discs, but if a karaoke disc will potentially be better (for the crosstalk adjustments most likely, perhaps using changing on-screen lyrics as a substitute for the black bars on the reference disc frames), I will look for any of those that are in CAV format, when I eventually do some alignment work.

In many older players the 8" disc is required as the 12" disc covers the adjustment pots. It is true that if you find a CAV disc with three frames next to each other that have drastically different video patterns toward the inner portion of the disc you can perform much of the alignment. This is what frames 114/115/116 provide on the Pioneer test disc.

The other specialty of the Pioneer disc is that not all discs are pressed the same, though within the specification tolerances, and Pioneer guarantees their disc are pressed with the proper depths to ensure the player can operate on all discs pressed within the LD specification. Disc's like "A Video Standard" were also pressed with high quality control, biggest issue is that it is a 12" disc and while you can get to the adjustments on the newer players it covers the adjustments for older models.

I highly appreciate your notes, krbahr! Especially your specific comment about the Pioneer discs being essentially "in perfect spec".

I have an "Atari Firefox" game disc that also has some test patterns on it if I remember right, beside having "A Video Standard". If/when I get to a point of doing some of the alignment/calibration work, it will be interesting to check for differences in things such as the gray scale pattern if both discs have it.

Here are the contents of a Pioneer Test disc as found in Pioneer LaserDisc Reference Disc (2001) [GGV1069].

One recommendation. Don't remove your platter. Removing the platter is easy but can be a nightmare putting it back. I have a CLD-D702 and it's extremely tricky to get back in place properly.

Exactly. You hit the bullseye. I have a CAV 8" that is a catalog of laserdiscs from 1993 that basically works. Not as good a 114/115/116 of the officially unavailable test disc but better than nothing.

This is awesome information, thank you for sharing it, 99percent.

It is very nice to see what is on the frames that are mentioned in the service manual(s), such as "crosshatch" on frame 15000, such that I could look for that pattern on my other discs if it is specifically needed for the RF adjustments using a scope display.

I just pulled out my Image Entertainment (Fall 1991) Catalog Volume 1, the one (or one of the ones) made "like a CD". It is Standard Play just as you mentioned for your 1993 disc. This should work even better than my music ones for the crosstalk tests/alignment (again, if/when I need to do that).

Thanks for all the informative and useful informations, now I feel reliefed.

Anyone know what causes these extremely annoying video artifacts? Horizontal artifacts that roll down. Black with a flickering arrow on the right. Is this loss of sync? I need to brush up on ntsc video signal ... but it's 25 years too late.

Can you post a video or photo?

I recommend that you make a new topic, for this question, because it is not related to this existing topic (reference discs).

A few more details will be helpful, too: Do you see this on more than one disc? Can you take a picture of the problem from your TV set's screen and include it in your new post?

If the "annoying artifacts" are a horizontal bar/area of "snow" that starts at one position on screen in the beginning of a disc and then the bar starts to "roll down" the screen and reappear at the top (and does this faster as the disc continues to play), that is a classic case of "laser rot". But no two discs will be the same.

Recently found another PAL test disc, "Pioneer: PAL Test Disk D1" which I've added to the database - can't post a link until it's approved, but it might be found if you search by name.

Universal Pioneer disc of test patterns. Has a picture stop on the 'crosstalk' test screen. Some test patterns have Japanese speech soundtrack, talking about LaserDiscs. Labels are 'reversed', ie on the same side as their data.

Side 1 is PAL, side 2 (the 'turtle' with some Japanese writing) is NTSC - not sure if being a 'dual standard' disc makes it unique?

Unfortunately none of my players can play it right to the very end, they all give up around frame 52,000. Not sure if this is because the disc is damaged/ageing or if it means all my players are out of adjustment

There's a time-code on the 'lead in' (ie pre-frame 0).

Hows the condition of your disc because that matters? A friendly note is that please don’t adjust any of the pots first if other discs plays fine.

Hi, that's good advice, but yes I'm not planning to recalibrate any player that seems to be working fine

The disc doesn't have any deep scratches, but the surface does have a rather dull appearance from a network of fine scratches, so that's probably causing the playback issues...

It is probably worthwhile to start a new topic "New Pioneer PAL test disc found" or similar, since we are off the original discussion of "alternatives to expensive test discs". If you do that, maybe ideally these comments can be moved to that new topic, too.

Do you have other PAL discs, either CAV that go beyond 52,000 frames or CLV that go beyond the equivalent physical position in playing time, that do work OK in your players? That would seem to confirm your thoughts about the surface of this test disc.

As you play this disc (or move to frames) closer to the 52,000 point, do you hear your player's laser mechanism get louder or become audible? I have discs with which this happens on one or more players, mostly early Discovision discs, and I am pretty sure it is the laser tracking an ever-more-imperfect disc (poor mastering, maybe warped or not perfectly centered or similar) up to the point that "gives up". This could indicate an inherent disc issue rather than just the surface condition.

"Dull appearance from a network of fine scratches" almost sounds as if someone did a deliberate action to the disc's surface already. Does the back/NTSC side appear the same, or have fewer but larger visible scratches?

I know that there is a technique called "plastic polishing" with ever-finer materials or substances (in the USA, the products Novus #1, #2, and #3 are one such method). Restoring or improving the plastic covers of vinyl-record turntables is one place such techniques are used. However, I do not know if those techniques work on laser discs at all, and I sure would not recommend trying it on this possibly-unique disc without known success on a common disc first.