Hello,

I am looking at the playback state of a CLD-95. It is exhibiting the following symptoms:

It can recognize a Compact Disc loaded into the tray. It is a bit slow to start to read but it recognizes the number of tracks and can smoothly play and output audio. Seeking through tracks is probably slower than usual.

Loading 12 inch CLV discs. Laserdisc is recognized and the word displayed on blue screen. When I press play "Side A", the laser assembly moves towards the center of the disc. It does a forward and backward dance as it tries to figure out where to begin to read. It always starts reading approximately 3 minutes into the disc. So the time display remains 0 minutes 0 seconds throughout playback, since it does not get the table of contents to know where the time counter starts, or to list the chapters. It will output a dark, cross-talk influenced image, with sound. It will loop back after playing 10 seconds. I can seek forward and reverse to varying extents. I can occassionally reach a spot where it will play for several minutes before getting back into a loop back.

The same behavior when reading side B. In that case I can see the laser assembly starting to read the disc, some minutes into the side. I can see that the direction of motion wants to move in the reverse direction of playback, including when fast forward is pressed.

I have tried an 8 inch disc and it occassionally spins up, but usually fails to read and gets rejected.

Does this sound like something that could be remedied through alignment, or is there possibly a need to replace the laser assembly?

I replaced the capacitors in the HDTV circuit board. I identified 3 smaller voltage capacitors (6.3 V) that tested poorly with the ESR meter. This made the difference. The player now reads the TOC and plays a disc with good video output, and makes the flip to side B.

What do you refer to as "HDTV" on a LD player precisely?

Julien

HDTV is an acronym for "Hybrid circuit of digital Time Based Correction and Video". Not to be confused with the more modern meaning.

When I first put the bonnet back on, it would no longer read Side B. It would also mainly not attempt to do the flip. The left panel foam was mostly degraded and broken off. I replaced it with a silicone sheet, cut from one of those reuseable kitchen bags. It is held on with some 3M double sided tape, the foam type which sticks to the surfaces better than the clear "gummy" 3M tape. Then when I put the bonnet and side panels back on, it makes the flip to side B and reads correctly.