Hi I recently bought a Pioneer CLD-D515 I am generally very happy with the player except for one thing, I get a lot of ghosting it gets worse if I turn on the tv,s noice reduction or the sharpness function on the player, but is always very noticable. I have tried with both scart and component and it is as bad with both. The only time its not there is on animated movies. I am using andersson 32inch lcd tv btw. Is their anything I can do to minimize or get rid of this problem?

I believe you're talking about color smear, which is common on many Laserdisc players by Pioneer. How much it smears depends on the player, power quality, impedance, monitor, comb filter, settings etc. I recommend you to calibrate the TV to your Laserdisc player (contrast and brightness usually need adjustments). The best and easiest way to get good results with Laserdisc is to simply use an old CRT. The noise might be a bit more visible, but the overall look gets very solid in comparison to using an HDTV without a scaler.

My parents have a 32" LCD from Andersson and broadcasts gets a lot of ghosting/smearing which looks terrible. Colors also gets very bold. I've never tried any other source on it though but broadcasts look much better on our 52" LCD from Samsung.

I dont have a video essentials or equal disc is there any good way to calibrate the picture without one?

The sharpness function on the CLD-D515 is horrible and makes the picture look awful regardless of CRT or LCD. I wouldn't recommend using it!

Yeah I know I just wanted to give as much info about my problem as possible

Some Laserdiscs have color bars at the end of the last side. Otherwise you can just play around some with the settings until you get a decent picture.

After many years of experimenting on multiple different display, player, video processor, I have these below guidelines for you.

-select custom/user or standard picture settings on the TV.(avoid vivid, bright, etc..)
-Turn off all noise, reduction, edge enhancement, color enhancement.
-If your TV is 120hz, disable that.
-turn off sharpness completely.
-if your TV has anything fancy in the menu, turn it off.

Your picture may look dull now but believe me this is the correct image. Your display does not need to do anything, your LD player is already putting out the best possible picture it can. If your TV does any above processing, its basically manipulating the correct image. Many average (untrained eye)folks like that, that's why TVs are tuned to look impressive but not correct image.

From here start to experiment with contrast and brightness. If you don't have any test discs, you can use a widescreen movie with black bars above and below the film. In a very dark room, you should not be able to tell where black bars end and your TV bezel starts. On an LCD this may not be possible due to lack of absolute black but find the best compromise. Darken the picture until you get the best blacks on these bars then start brightening until you see everything in the film.

Adjusting color is not as simple. You need test patterns but you can just turn up the color adjustment by a notch or two from the default position in standard mode.

If you want to clean noise/grain on the picture. You can turn up noise reduction a little but no more than half way. but you should know that you will also loose detail by doing so.

After all this if you still see annoying artifact, try different discs. Some LDs are mastered so poorly, not much you can do. CAV discs from early 1990s in general should give you lesser trouble. Mid 1990s and on they started experimenting with noise reduction and edge enhancements in mastering.

If you are still not happy, it might be your player needing alignment or repair. Or your expectations from LD is way too high

I can report that my problem has been solved. I bought a DVDO edge green yesterday and after tinkering with it for a while the ghosting is removed and my movies look gorgeous I highly recommend it;)

Great to hear. I refused to get an HDTV for a very long time but when I got my DVD recorder, there was no reason for me to keep my CRT. The difference is huge in every way, even with a mid-range player.