This sums up my experience almost verbatim. I think it would be hilarious to AC-3 mod this player. I also find that the square CU-V113 perfectly characterizes this player in remote control form.

Now that the SM is here, I'd like to take a look and see if there is anything that can be done to disable the repeat.

I agree. The remote is perfect. Huge and pointy and perfect. It can even run cable operated if desired.

Hello,

Just to clarify about the output from the SM03. The output is SDI (serial digital interface) which is commonly used in broadcast environments. It is a component output, uncompressed, but consumer equipment does not accept it. However, it is possible to convert SDI to HDMI using a low cost box from companies such as Blackmagic. (We do not provide HDMI output because the companies that 'control' the HDMI standard require an annual payment from us so we can purchase the HDMI interface ICs).

The output is 525i (NTSC or 480i active picture lines) or 625i (PAL or 576i active picture lines). We do not provide deinterlacing because modern day displays now have quite sophisticated deinterlacers (as opposed to older monitors that just did line doubling or bob and weave for example) and some have motion compensated deinterlacers. What the SM03 does do is try to produce as artifact free image as possible which makes the job of the deinterlacer simpler (and therefore produces better image quality).
What I am unsure about is how the deinterlacers handle cadence and it might be possible for us to 'help' in that respect.

The SM03 was designed to work with VHS tape players. The method to record the video (colour under) means that a comb filter cannot be used to recover better video. Or at least a conventional comb filter cannot - it is possible to design one that will recover better video. I am less familiar with Laserdisc but we could look to do something similar if the recording format does something similar. For the VHS project we are also replacing all the electronics and are processing the head signal directly to produce better image quality. Again we could consider that in the future. One of the incentives to doing this is to produce faster than real time archiving of the tapes. At present a 3 hour tape takes 3 hours to archive - faster playback corrupts the image. We are hoping to enable faster than real time playback without corruption - essential when you have tens of thousands of tapes to archive.

So I have to read up about laserdiscs which I will do over the coming weeks, and take as much feedback as you wish to give me on what your requirements are for a laserdisc 'processor' to produce the best image quality at an affordable price.

As far as I understand, LD does not use color under.


For LD we have: https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=978

It is not realtime though. RF captures are decoded via https://github.com/happycube/ld-decode

I see this same issue (ringing on OSD) with the X9; could it be the same cause/solution?

So what happened, any progress or was it not working?

Hi, sorry for the late reply, got pretty caught at work, good news though, an evaluation pre-production unit will be sent to me on Monday.

What happened in the meanwhile, Daniel added an analog audio processing capability (RCA L/R input), so the final hardware design got updated. Other manufacturing-related issues contributed to the delay.

Anyway, I should be able to post first impressions/screenshots in aprox two weeks...fingers crossed!

any news ? did you get the pre-production unit?

Hello, not yet, with my disappointment it seem there are still noise issues on the video part, which required further QA.
As Daniel from SingMai is registered here, I think the best is having him providing updates directly, as I'm a bit in the same boat as everybody else... fingers crossed!

Any news on the noise issues ?


can't wait to try one!

Hello everyone - I am sorry for the delays in finishing the SM03 - pesky customers always wanting stuff.

Here is the first draft of the SM03 user manual which I hope you will find of some interest: https://www.singmai.com/Documents/SM03%20User%20Manual%20Rev%200.1.pdf

Any comments on features you feel are missing, or on the ones implemented, would be most welcome.

Dan.

Dan, great job on the manual.

looks to incorporate everything for a successful port from Composite to SDI.

the white horizontal lines in your example pictures, is that done to let you know you're in a configuration mode?


on what date you plan to ship it?

can it be preordered?

Thanks

Ensemble Designs made a similar product years ago:
https://www.ensembledesigns.com/products/brighteye/be75

They also have one device for composite only:
https://www.ensembledesigns.com/product ... 5#overview

It's still interesting to see a similar product like the SM03 but without USB 3.0 it's kind of re-inventing the wheel.

Curious why is this outputting SDI instead of HDMI? Is it not intended for home use?

not really, but there is a $50 Blackmagic Design converter.

Because SD SDI conforms to D1 standard rec.601 for analog to digital standard definition conversion, HDMI is a mixed bag and in most cases it is not recommended for analog tape based media capturing even at 480i (576i). Your question should have been why not USB 3.0 instead of SDI?

Because, as mentioned, HDMI requires licensing to produce/sell or at least someone who could fake a document that says they're an HDMI adopter so they can buy an EVAL board or other HDMI licensed products....

The chips all use SDI internally. When converting the LD composite analog signal the ADC chips convert it to SDI and use that to further process and distribute the signal.

The cables and connectors are also easier to source, make (DIY) and are more secure since they're locking.

Overall it is a better protocol intended for professionals not consumers.

An analogy would be S/PDIF vs. AES/EBU. One is proprietary consumer the other is open and professional. Both are similar and even compatible in certain instances. SDI and HDMI are similar but also different.

Maybe I'm lost I thought the point of this was to market and sell this?

Also I would like to point out that Snell & Willcox made several devices like this with a prefix TBS and later on after they were acquired by Grass Valley which continued to make such devices under the prefix CVR.

https://www.broadcaststore.com/pdf/mode ... 0sheet.pdf

so it looks like this product is finally finished and can be bought right now.

just ordered one and can't wait to see the improvements to comosite sources it can bring!!!

any suggestions what test material I can throw at it that would look awful on any other product?