I finally got my first LD player ever! I haven’t seen one of those(or the media) in 20+ years!

I connected it and I got a blue screen that had very faint horizontal black lines, not sure if its just the nature of it or signs of failure. I put a movie in and the word “analogue” video hit me hard. When the studio logos started to appear it looked like VHS recording of a TV channel. I even think I saw a couple of those horizontal lines you see on bad VHS recordings. Text seemed blurry and had like digital artifacts, not sure if its due to the HD screen. When the movie started to play, the picture is hard to describe. It looked like a very clean high quality VHS tape. Its like a VHS picture enhanced by a computer to look its best. Reminded my of something like an AVI file from the 90s playing on a Macintosh computer. Either way, it really captures the old nostalgic feeling and this is exactly how I remember movies looked and felt back then, I love it! I even had the honour of having to flip a disc over once the movie was halfway through!

I played an animation movie, and the picture didn’t bother me a bit, it looked nice! In fact the older softer look made it feel more warm and artistic than the razor sharp 4K HD picture with enhanced colors on modern movies. For some reason I felt more connected to the film, maybe because films back then were made with higher artistic value than the commercial ones today. One thing that confused me is that by the end of the disc, the film started to play faster like on FF, the sound was faster, and I could see those horizontal lines and some colors turning green. Obviously its corrupted. While I understand how this happens on a VHS where the tape might be chewed up, dirty, or has some other damage, I couldn’t understand how this happens on an optical medium.

In retrospect, the picture quality made me question the purchase of this device back then. yes I can tell it looks clearer and better than VHS, but its not the difference between VHS and DVD. I also don’t know if the difference on a CRT is more noticeable because maybe my HDTV is upscaling the picture. Given how close the picture is to VHS, was it really worth it to pay multiple hundreds of dollars extra to buy this device? Even worse the LaserDisc itself is so huge to store and much more expensive, not to mention the flipping of discs. I also wonder how people who invested in LDs reacted when they saw those tiny DVDs blows the LDs picture out of the water. I believe they were also cheaper by player and medium.


Now my only problem is that I am afraid its going to die on me. I bet those were not made to last so long, I don’t think the engineers who were designing them in the 90s thought people will still watch those in 2020, because they thought we were probably going to be living on Mars by now! I sure hope it lasts until I go through the 30 or so movies I have to watch on this machine.

I have 3 questions.

1)I sometimes can hear the disc rotating in the player like a “trrrr” sound, is this normal?

1)There is a button on the back that I believe it says “Attenuator” ON/OFF. What does it do? All I notice it seems like it raises the volume, should I keep it on or off? whats the default?

3)This will sound embarrassing, but how do you rewind and forward on this thing? A VHS pauses on the tape part where you last stopped, a DVD stores a digital bookmark, but when I hit stop on the LD it restarted the disc from beginning. I tried choosing chapters but chapters could be so far between each other, I tried forwarding and rewinding but its slow(I see grey screen in between images) I am also afraid that rewinding and forwarding stresses the player accelerate its death.

There is a CH/TM button that you can choose which Chapter or Time you want to go to, I pressed it and got Chapter or FRAME. So I wrote a wrote a frame number to go to (CAV Disc), but the number kept flashing on screen. Is there an “Enter” button?

You’re going to be asked which player you have, exactly what discs you were watching. You’ll be told to calibrate your TV. Turn brightness and contrast WAY down and sharpness to zero.

If you have a CRT in the house I would start my video quality analysis there since HDTVs bring all their own issues. It sounds like things aren’t tracking properly though so you will need some actual repair unless the problem decides to go away after repeat playing.

1) The discs spin pretty bloody fast, especially towards the start of the side on CLV discs, or the whole time on CAV discs. As long as it doesn't sound like it's hitting anything it's probably normal.
2) Switching the attenuator on will weaken the video signal. I imagine the player puts out quite a strong output, in case you want to use a particularly long cable, but I imagine some TVs had problems lowering the output to a suitable level if your cable was short. If you don't notice any difference, it probably doesn't matter what the switch is set to.
3) Not sure what player you have. You should be able to hold the rewind/fastforward buttons while the disc is playing; I've never noticed it to be too slow. On CAV discs the picture should still show even when you're scanning. On my Pioneer you can press Play after entering a frame number. The only thing it would stress more than usual would be the motor controlling the laser position — it's not like VHS where you're physically stretching the tape or anything — and so any reasonably well-designed player shouldn't have any issues. My player does also store a digital bookmark — there is a "Last Memory" button which you can press on the blue screen to resume it.

Congrats !

Welcome to the club

FF RW functions sorta depend on the player. Pioneer ones all work as you'd think, kinda like a CD player. I have a Panasonic player where it doesn't seem possible, mind you I don't have the remote. On my Pioneer with CLV discs I get little freeze frames as it FF/RW, while CAV discs offer a really smooth/quick one. I can also choose the speed on both kinds of discs.

Sounds like your player is having issues. The playback should be rock solid.

A huge advantage to VHS is the lack of degradation from numerous playbacks. You can play an LD pretty much all you want without having the picture quality degrade. A well used VHS tape looks pretty crap. LDs are a more time related degradation, unless there's issues with the manufacturing of a particular disc.

Wait a minute, you have been posting stuff about how to use LDs and you never had a player until now????

Admin can we get some type of listing under the poster to say whether or not we actually own a player.
We have these padawin titles but could we have own or not own ld player?

I played the whole move everything seemed fine, I don't think there is a problem with the playback. It was only that last 2min on one side of the discs which I assume is corrupted. This disc is I believe from the 80s, so I expected problems, but problems like playback skipping or dics rot, but I didn't expect it to act like a chewed VHS tape. Its the animation "An American Tail".

In the end though, there were some "making of..." notes where you can read text frame by frame, each frame seemed to jitter/wobble kind of like when you pause a VHS tape.



thanks!



When I rewind it seems like I get a frame of the movie-a black/grey frame-then a frame of the movie, its not smooth, kind of like FF on Netflix where it jumps frames.. I believe its CAV its An American Tail. Mine is Pioneer too. FF for closer timeframes is ok, the problem is when you have to FF minutes in you just sit there waiting for it FF in almost 2x.

Thanks for the "press play" tip I will give it a shot. How do I NOT stress the motor?

Mine is Pioneer too, the movie playback is absolutely fine but RW and FF seems to skip frames its not smooth fast forward where you get to see each frame. I don't think I can choose speed of RW/FF, if I press RW it rewinds if I take my finger off it stops and goes back to play. There is also a STEP button.

Given the timeframe, those LD will last more than the lifetime of the players. Discs are still running fine, but players are dying right and left. I mean, how many functioning LD players left out there, and out of those, how many will last the next 10 years?



I never posted about how to use LDs, I posted stuff discussing the medium and asking questions.

OK enjoy LD!!!!

If the player you have (no idea which) has no digital field memory then CAV discs will scan forwards and backwards more smoothly. They will also freeze frame with the Step buttons. If your player does have digital field memory then it will emulate those features for CLV discs as well. Otherwise CLV discs will not have a freeze frame or Multi-Speed and will scan forwards and backwards in small chunks of time, the smoothness varies depending on where on the disc you happen to be. The American Tail disc you describe sounds like it’s CAV. The stills jitter because your TV was made with no regard for LD. It won’t flicker at all on a CRT, I’d wager.

LD players are actually super reliable. Usually when people buy their first one from eBay or whatever it’s broke. You aren’t the first person to write the same sort of post and at once wonder about the future of the format. The time to wonder was before you spent $$$ I’m afraid. Now you can quit the hobby and save yourself $$$ in the future or you can buy another player while trying to get this one fixed. Players that aren’t broke now will likely outlast your current TV or mobile phone. Some players are inherently more reliable than others, some have a greater need of impossible to find spares. Some break during shipping what seems like %75 of the time. LD players were never designed to be shipped by courier all over the world every time a new classic game kid gets bored. Back in the day they were virtually all carried by professionals in their original boxes to one or two locations where they have lived their whole lives. Your average X-0 probably was driven from the factory to a dealer and then to some old Japanese guy’s house where it sat for 20 years. Then RetroMasterSubZero69 gets ahold of it and it’s been UPSed 7 times in five years. It’ll break. It’s not a Chromecast, it’s a real hand built machine filled with electronics and gears and stuff.

Buy a DVL, then buy two more, that should last 15 years or so. There’s no point in planning your life further than that.

hmmm I am not sure why you think my player is broken... it plays fine. Unfortunately, to buy a reliable LD player with your recommendations I have to buy one from the retail store back in 2001 for a price I am guessing closer to a $1000. My only option is used today, i think thats the only option since 2005. I got a European model CLD-160K. Why do you recommend DVLs specifically. I have already spent around $500 for this one, I can not justify more for it. LD sellers seem to jack up the price for any model consider unique or different inlcuding the "reliable" ones. This one survived the shipping trip. With proper padding I believe players should too, unless mail men throw these around for fun. There are people in the business of selling these international if the failure rate is so high I doubt they would still be in business.

Thanks for the sharpness tip, i set it down to 0 and now movies look more like "film". I was under the impression that 50% is the default, if you go higher it will sharpen the image and if you go lower it will blur it. Didn't know 0 is the default.

As for brightness and contrast how low should I go? I tried lowering them but the screen got so dim like a tired LCD computer, colors started to fade. Currently I set Contrast 55 and brightness 50. I used to have contrast at 80.

You spent $500 on a Euro player and you’re in the United States? Why? There are virtually zero PAL titles worth owning even for people who do live there.

When I wrote about repairs I was under the impression that your player had tracking issues. I’ve now read where you said you thought it was probably the disc itself, my mistake.

I can’t say how low to go on the brightness/contrast because it depends on your TV but start below %50 for sure. Not too low for the TV to display its colors properly but not so bright that it’s showing the flaws of LD. It helps to have a test disc. It should go without saying that all special features should be switched off except DNR depending on your preference. No motion smoothing, no extra saturation, etc. There are a lot of BS features on TVs now it can be very confusing just to find “normal”. Screen ration should be 4:3 or an even zoom that crops 4:3 to 16:9. Nothing else unless it’s a Squeeze title. If your TV has multiple de-interlacing options they are usually work checking out on a disc by disc basis.

Ummm.... the attenuator switch on the back of what I assume is a Karaoke model attenuates the analog audio output (not video).

This is used when one does not have the ideal set-up for singing like using the speakers of your TV instead of a good PA speaker. It is meant to cut the highs of the human voice to protect the speakers from damage. When the player is used for just listening to music or watching movies, set the attenuator to off.

it plays NTSC titles too. Thanks for the tips.





you are correct, I noticed it makes volume louder. thanks for the help.