Hey guys, I'm relatively new to LaserDiscs and brand new to this forum. I've had a really crappy player for a few years and inherited a bunch of discs from an ex-girlfriend's roommate. I really enjoy the format, and just recently picked up a CLD-53 in "untested" condition but excellent physical condition for $10.

For $10 I'm not complaining, and it's a large step up in quality from my Sony LDP-1200, which had no features at all and sounded like a Cessna 182 trying to take off.

I will attempt to explain the problem(s) as best I can and would be more than happy to be directed towards a topic that already exists on this problem, as I'm sure I'm not the only one who has experienced this.

I got it home and the first thing I did was open the case to inspect the mains board and make sure it was safe to turn on. Everything checked out, so I loaded a disc (Star Trek: Generations) and the first thing I noticed is when the clamps came down the motor seemed to complain and not spin the disk, just whine. Eventually this stopped and the disc was ejected. I thought for sure something was terminally wrong and was about to start taking it apart, but once I re-inserted the disc just to see if it would repeat the problem, the mechanism seemed to load properly and began spinning up the disc and playing Side A. I have been able to reproduce this problem a few times, but it seems to have worked itself out as the player has warmed up. I'm sure it will return, but it's not really the biggest concern I have. Before watching the film I played around swapping sides. Everything worked perfectly. I swapped from A to B several times and the mechanism worked flawlessly.

I began watching the film and got through Side A. The display listed Minutes and Seconds and would change chapters no problem. Once I got to the end of the disc it attempted to switch to Side B, but the player began to make a very loud sound. It was not a scratching sound, more like moaning brakes. It sounded like the player was trying to slow down the disc, but the motor wouldn't let it. Either way, it tried to play Side B and then eventually gave up and began playing Side A again.

I investigated and could not get the player to send the laser to the carrier so it could be flipped for Side B, the laser would travel back, but never enter the carriage and then it would simply return to home and not do anything. All it was capable of doing was playing Side A. Eventually, after much fiddling, I managed to ensure that the laser could in fact engage the carriage by physically moving it there, and after telling it to return home, I engaged Side B once more and the player actually performed the request. I cycled it a few more times without incident.

I am currently finishing Side B (which now lists times in Frames...) and will try some more discs tomorrow to see if I can (hopefully not) replicate the problem.

Any assistance or advice would be helpful. I am not afraid of disassembling if that needs to happen, but obviously it would not be ideal. Thanks for reading

Well. I answered at least one of my questions... I am not a smart man. The disc was half CAV, half CLV. I never had a display or any kind of controls on my last player, so I had no idea how the differences affected playback. Now I do! Player seems to be running fine this morning and hasn't even reproduced the initial problem I noticed when I first turned it on.

I would still love any advice, links, or information on what may be going on. Sorry for being such a newb, guys.

Also, my player didn't come with a remote, but I heard that all Pioneer LD remotes (maybe all Pioneer Elite remotes, not sure) work with every other player regardless of the player they came with, which would make sense. Anyone care to confirm this?

Thanks guys.

I think nearly all remotes by Pioneer works with any of their players, but they can have different codings and functions (some players have stop and eject on the same button). For the CLD-53 I think you can use pretty much any Pioneer remote for it. I'd recommend one from a dual-sided player as they usually have the same functions except for some high-end models that have custom DNR.

Thanks for the reply and confirmation, nissling. Cheers.

unscientific guess re side change: perhaps the player just needed to stretch it's legs, so to speak? (more scientific guess - the grease needed to loosen up) krbahr or grasshopper: any thoughts?

You may want to clean off the spindle pad eventually, the CLD-53 is very similar to the 503 (the port layout on the back's different though, so something about the circuit layout is probably different), and those pads are known to dry out causing slow disk stops/ejects and eventually playback issues.

Thank you for the response. I don't doubt that's part of the problem. That said, I feel something else is also going on.

Here's a little more information on the problem:

I just watched another disc all the way through Side A, this disk is CLV/CLV.
When it tried to switch sides, the laser successfully completed the operation and the disk stopped and began spinning the opposite direction as it should.
However, playback never resumed. The laser looked like it was seeking information and trying to focus, but was unable to accomplish this task.
The player was also audibly spinning the disk at a much higher RPM than it was for Side A.

I ejected the disk and told the player to go to Side B and play. The player complied and the disk started playing Side B no problem.
So again I went back to Side A and skipped to the end of the disk. I fast forwarded until the last few seconds and waited for the switch.
Again the same problem occurred.
I tried this a few more times, eventually the player successfully switched sides and began playing.
It sounded like the player was spinning up the disk too high, but this time slowed it back down and began playing.

I hope this information is helpful in identifying what could possibly be at fault. Thanks again, guys.

If you want to select between soft, normal, sharp picture modes you need the original remote or a cu-cld121 remote should work fine. There are 5 of those on eBay right now. As for side B issues. If you are playing side A and press open while playing and it takes 30 seconds or more before it opens you need to replace the grip ring on top the spindle motor. The grip ring being bad causes a lot of weird issues. If fine then you probably have a side B centering issue between the motor and laser.

My player has a button on the face to adjust picture modes. Also it does take forever to spin down. Is the grip ring the rubberized/textured ring or the retractable plastic ring? Disassembly looks simple but I wouldn't mind some pointers.

Well, I assumed I would need to replace the grip ring. After doing some more research I discovered it was the rubber ring. I didn't have any cleaning solution or rubbing alcohol so I just used some water and Q-tips to clean the rubber, which yielded some rather nasty looking Q-tips. I then greased the main pin on the spindle with some white lithium grease and dried the grip ring off with some clean, dry Q-tips.

The player not only spins down faster now, but also properly switched from Side A to Side B first try.

I have read elsewhere that someone had similar initial results from cleaning their grip ring but their problem returned shortly. I will monitor the situation. In the meantime, how do you remove the grip ring in case I have to do that in the near future?

I have a cld-53 that I had got non working ejecting the disc making the motor sound. In my case changing the loading belt fixed my problem. Could be your loading belt also needs cleaning or replacing.

Here is a picture of my cld-53 remote. The bottom corner says cu-cld103

Thanks for posting that information. I'll look into finding that exact remote. I've been watching discs all day and the only problems I have had are, I think, related to the loading belt as you said. The player has been flawlessly switching sides since I cleaned the grip ring.

Unfortunately, my copy of Search for Spock has finally gone from "multi-colored noise" to "audio track destroyed" the rot improves up until the end of Side A, and is also present in similar magnitude on the opposite side. A sad day indeed... I fear my copy of Blade Runner isn't far from the same fate. RIP Spock. Oh well, it looked like crap even without the noise and wasn't widescreen.

Is it worse on the Sony, too? (probably, but still, blah!)

I currently need to perform some BNC to Composite cable surgery to hook up my Sony, but the last time I played it was on that player, and while the multi-colored noise was still everywhere it got better as the disk played, I also remember the disc playing from start to finish. I'll bust out the soldering iron and make that my project today.