Just used to digitize and played back with a Media Player or UHD 4K Player

So I picked up a Panasonic DMR-ES10 in good condition and have been experimenting with it; to be honest I'm feeling pretty mixed about the results.

First off I'm loving the TBC like qualities of the passthrough; adding this player to my setup finally fixes the signal dropouts I'd get whenever I used CLV trickplay features. However I'm less impressed by the comb filter.

Connecting my LD player to the DVD Recorder using either SCART or Composite, then Component out to the Onkyo, gives stronger, more accurate colours and maybe reduces the rainbow artefacts compared to going straight to my Onkyo AV Receiver. Still shots look great but as soon as there's movement things get mushy and undefined...a bit like how the Definitive Star Wars sets look (but not as bad). The "AV-in NR" setting is off, but from a bit of reading it sounds like "off" is more like a "low" setting and a "small" amount of DNR is added regardless. This looks far from small to me, with previously well defined edges in pictures suddenly becoming dithered and mushy looking. It looks similar to the low or medium DNR setting on my Onkyo Receiver.

I tried using S-Video to connect the LD player and DVD Recorder and found that the noise reduction was gone, but the rainbow effects were now slightly worse than just running composite from LD to AV. I'm guessing that because S-Video has already been split it's bypassing the comb filter and the noise reduction? The downside of this is that the comb filter in the LD player is definitely going to be worse than the ones in the DVD Recorder or my AV Receiver. The TBC still stabilises the picture for me, so that's something at least.

I thought I could just try turning the Comb Filter off in the settings but annoyingly the PAL models force the setting to be on when the recorder is set to NTSC. Maybe I could experiemnt with using the DVL-919E's PAL60 mode to allow my to turn off the comb filter, but who knows what that would do to the picture.

So in summery:

Pioneer DVL 919E ---composite---> Onkyo TX-NR626 ---HDMI---> LG C8 TV.
Solid, detailed picture, average rainbow artefacts, occasional dropouts.

Pioneer DVL 919E --- composite/SCART ---> Panasonic DMR-ES10 --- component ---> Onkyo TX-NR626 ---HDMI---> LG C8 TV.
Mushy, low detail picture, with few rainbow artefacts, zero dropouts.

Pioneer DVL 919E --- S-Video ---> Panasonic DMR-ES10 --- component ---> Onkyo TX-NR626 ---HDMI---> LG C8 TV.
Solid, detailed picture, but some pretty heavy rainbow artefacts, zero dropouts.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this with this DVD recorder or similar models? I've seen so many people rave about how great the comb filter makes their picture look that I feel I have to be missing something.

Please chip in if you have any advice.

As previously mentioned , my link to downloadable video captures from a few LD players
with the Video Essentials LD can be found here:

3D Y/C Comb Filter tests

download some of the captures and have a look which combo you like best.

If you tell me what scene from a movie you like me to capture let me know and
I'll do it, if I have it in my collection.

Picked up a dead DMR ES10 earlier this year and wanted to share some tips. Wouldn’t power on, so it was cheap. These were made during the capacitor plague (my unit is 2005) so I figured the power supply was the issue, and it was. Bunch of burst, exploded, leaking capacitors.

There are high quality Panasonic, Nichicon, Rubycon, and Nippon Chemicon capacitors in the unit, featuring Nichicon “gold” audio grade caps throughout the main board. Nice!

I shotgunned every cap on the power supply board. The Panasonics were all FM series and actually tested perfect when removed, but the main culprit were exploded Rubycon caps.

While I was at it, I replaced IC1150 because it looked toasty. This is an MR1521 switching regulator for DC-DC, and it’s obsolete, but I got a few NOS from eBay (make sure to buy from a reputable seller, I bet several are fakes)

That regulator does indeed get really hot. I cleaned and replaced the thermal compound on the heat sink when replacing the IC with high quality Arctic compound and the heat sink was still really warm to the touch after only being powered on for 30 minutes.

Unit works perfectly now for pass through (other than the unit’s LED readout display being extremely dim). I’m really impressed with the quality of this. I have a good Kramer scaler that I like but my player > DMR ES10 > QLED Hisense TV’s composite input is more impressive. I haven’t tried it into the Kramer yet, but I will soon.

When I first powered it on, it was in “self check” mode and wouldn’t do anything. I found this info online and was able to eject an Office Depot DVD-R from the drive:
“1. Hold the POWER on the front of the unit to force the unit to turn off
2. Press STOP twice on the front of the unit
3. Press the OPEN/CLOSE once on the front of the unit.
4. When the tray opens, remove the disc, and do not use that disc again.”

NOTE OF WARNING WITH DISCS…

The disk drive works… sort of. Plays audio CDs, gives me “cannot read. Please check the disc” error for retail DVDs and makes weird clicking noises. I’ve read about the drives dying on these so I guess that’s no surprise. However, I’ve found that several discs I’ve removed from the unit after trying to play end up with a sort of line that looks like disc separation that isn’t there prior. I didn’t think it was possible for a drive to physically damage the content layer of a disc like this, but I guess who knows. Maybe the writer laser is messing with them? I don’t really have a technical explanation for this.

Whatever chip the Panasonic DIGA DMR-BW850 has in it, it does a pretty good job to my eyes. I've been recording anime LDs in its XP mode and then pulling the drive and using ISO Buster to directly dump the contents to avoid rewriteable disc size limits. Same with an older Philips DVDR3575H. (One of three, technically - I've found two at local thrift stores, one full of travel shows, the other full of Doctor Who.)

Just checking in with this thread, which seems to have become kind of a go-to for people with Laserdisc players realizing thrift store buys can be extra cheap scalers/comb filters. Well, except that the prices on the most recommended dvd recorders (namely, the Panasonic ES10, 15, 20, and 25s) are basically pinned at the $150-200 level in most places online, haha.

Anyway, I thought a cheaper way to investigate whether or not a player has a 3D comb in it is... to look up the manuals for it online, and then search the pdf for the settings pages, and then search THAT for terms like 3-D Y/C, 3D, Y/C, Comb, Filter, or any other combination of those terms to see if the player's got a 3D comb in it, if you can toggle it, etc.

As it turns out, there are still some cheap-er options online, meaning like $50-80 usually, which is still way off from this threads humble beginnings back in 2012/2013 when folks were snapping these things up for $15-25 at the Goodwill. And it also seems like there's SOME options long-since touted in here as having 3D comb filters that apparently DON'T, as well.

Anyway, the Toshiba RD XS series of DVD-Recorder/Hard Drive recorders appear to ALL have 3D comb filters in them (XS-32, 34, 35, 52). As does the Toshiba D-R1 and R2, however it does not appear that the D3, 5, or 7 have a 3D comb filter inside (they specifically cite 3D Noise Reduction as a setting, but never call it a comb filter, or a y/c filter like every other Toshiba at the time does in its manuals), and apparently the V-R400, 410, 420, 600, 610, or 620 do not have 3D Comb Filters either. HOWEVER - the spec sheets for these models do all cite Y/C separation as a feature, so I'm wondering if maybe for the models that DON'T cite a setting comb-filtering in the menus, those models have an always-on 2D comb, or a 3-Line comb.

Edit: went through the thread and made note of every DVD recorder named to this point, and ran the owner/service manual checks on them. These are the ones that came back with specific mentions of 3D Comb Filters inside:

PIONEER:
DVR-220, 225, 310, 320, 330, 531, 532, 533, 633, 920, LX70

PANASONIC
DMR-E20, 30, 50, 65, 75, 80, 85, 95, 500
DMR-EH50, 55, 60
DMR-ES10, 15, 20, 25
DMR-HS2

TOSHIBA
RD-XS24, 32, 34, 35, 52, 54, 55
D-R1, R2

Everything else that's been listed throughout the thread (incl. various Philips, JVC, Sony, RCA model #s) that DIDN'T have a 3D Comb Filter, typically listed as 3D Y/C in the settings and owner/service manuals across all brand names, doesn't appear above. Some of these brands and models DID cite use of Motion Adaptive 2D comb filters, or Motion Adaptive Noise Reduction, but the above are the only thread-referenced players I could find that specifically stated they used 3D comb filters.

By all means, please check that work (or add to the list above if you know there's a model # that was missed or that you've confirmed a model that's not above DEFINITELY has a 3D comb). Thanks!

Anyway, thought I'd add the idea I had re: poking through the manuals and spec sheets vs what seemed to be happening, which was folks just buying up recorders and running test patterns on them and crossing fingers.

Addendum to the above list - I did take a gamble on some cheap players (some of the above listed can still be found cheap, in fact!) after going through this list. The Panasonic DMR-E50, and the Toshiba RD-XS35. A Pioneer DVR-225 will be arriving soon - it and the DVR-320 share a video processing preset in the machine that is specifically for Laserdiscs apparently. Both the Panasonic and the Toshiba do in fact have 3D comb filters, you can toggle them off and on in the settings. The Toshiba has an automatic shutoff popup (hit enter and it goes away) that I so far haven't figured out how to disable, if there is a way to do it (the Panasonic's can be disabled via the menu).

Player is a Pioneer CLD-97, (Digital NR off because you have to hit that button on the front every single time, LOL), outputting composite video into the two players, component out from the players into BOTH a DVDO iScan Duo, and a Retrotink 5x Pro (latest experimental firmware). To clarify, I don't have the iScan and Retrotink in the same chain, I have two different 4k displays available to me, and one has the iScan as the primary processor, and the other has the Retrotink. I used the Video Essentials LD, and the Snell & Wilcox test on it, to compare.

The Toshiba's comb filter is markedly better than the Panasonic's, with the Toshiba providing almost full color resolution. The Panasonic's comb filter seems to only allow about half that. Still, even with a lesser comb filter, the image improvement is immediately noticeable. Will be curious to see if the Panasonic's comb filter IS the same as the one in the ES10 & 15, and also curious to see if the Pioneer one is closer to the Panasonic's performance, or the Toshiba's.

Addendum to the above addendum!

The Pioneer DVR-225 came in and it does indeed have a 3-D comb filter (5-step adjustable, even!) that is juuuuust about as good as the Toshiba's when set to its max setting, and definitely much better than the Panasonic's - even at its lowest 3D comb setting it still beats the Panny DMR-E50. The adjustability of the image is arguably a little more granular than the Toshiba's, and the Digital DNR can be turned on in conjunction with the 3D Comb without really damaging the image (with the Toshiba it's more of a one or the other type thing). I still chose to leave the Digital DNR off, ultimately, but was surprised at its soft touch (pun intended).

If you didn't want to goof around with the settings in the Pioneer, the Laserdisc picture setting basically "just works" as well.

Anyway, in my own personal experience, with these three players, I'd have to say the Toshiba and the Pioneer are neck-and-neck, with the Panny a clear step down, although all three still provided very noticeable amount of PQ increase as an intermediary step on the way to the displays.