I tried a search on this topic but couldn't find anything.

Since getting my new 2950 player I moved the 2850 out to the man cave and set it along my current 1450 player. I thought it was a perfect opportunity to do a side by side test of how the players perform and as I suspected the 1450 produces a sharper image with less CLV smear but one thing that surprised me is that the colours out of the 1450 are a considerably duller than those from the 2850. The end result is basically that while the 2850 picture is softer and more vibrant colours produce an overall better viewing experience in my opinion anyway.

So the question is, is there anything I can do to the 1450 to improve its colour rendering or is it just a sign of age with the older player.

Both players were connected directly to my projector using the same RG59 cable same port so there is no difference in display settings etc.

You did not mention what type of disc you were trying to play, but I am assuming you are doing your comparisson using a NTSC disc since the 2850 is a NTSC only player. I looked through the cld-1450 service manual and there was no mention of a symptom like that. But if I recall correctly, unless a simple mod is done to the 1450 for true NTSC playback instead of the pseudo PAL it produces natively you would get this sort of issue. The mod is quite simple and you can find that here at: http://www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/laser ... d-1500.htm

Don't worry that it is for the cld-1500. That player and the CLD-1400 and CLD-1450 are the same players internally except for some changes to board circuitry where the NTSC components were left out. Apparently that article was written because some of the 1500's were basically 1450's, but not all of them, which is why some people claim that the mod works while others claim it does not. But in your case the mod will work because you have the 1450 which was designed out of the box to play NTSC and PAL, although using the pseudo PAL, which I believe to be your problem with the colors looking washed out. But if you do the mod your TV will have to be capable of playing back a true NTSC signal, which does not sound like that will be an issue in your case from what you wrote.

I have and use the CLD-1500 and I find it a very nice player and can assure you there are no color problems when playing a PAL disc but mine can not play NTSC since the circuitry is missing from the boards to allow for this mod on my unit.

I wish you luck!

I tired a mixture of both pal and ntsc discs. The 1459 is also modified for pure ntsc output but in all scenarios the colours on the 2850 are more vibrant than those from the 1450. I suppose I could try agjusting the gain on the video board but would prefer not to start messing with it.

Like I said there is nothing in the 1450 service manual that mentions anything at all about color adjustments that I could find. The service manual covers mainly adjustments that must be caried out with an oscilloscope and the special test disc, all of which, I am assuming you probably do not have. You suggest that your 1450 has already been modified for pure NTSC modification. If that is true then there will be a switch somewhere on the back of the player that must be selected for NTSC and PAL, depending on what format you are watching. Have you tried the switch in both positions? If there is no switch installed then you can be sure the modification was not carried out or someone had made the modification to always output NTSC permanently without using a switch, which would then give problems viewing PAL discs. Have you openend the player to confirm that the modification was carried out correctly and the wiring for that is correct according to the website link I sent you for the CLD-1500 (the mod also applies for the 1400 and the 1450)?

If you don't get anywhere with that then I would start by changing out capacitors. I don't think it is wise to tweak pots that should still be in their correct factory positions because you will create a whole bunch of new problems!

I modified the player myself for ntsc player. I did it with a switch so that I can switch it back as required.

I'm not going to start changing caps, to much hassle to be honest it's works fine it's just the colours are a bit washed out. Was just interested if there was anything obvious.

Since part of this is analog replacing the caps may have a benefit to the overall PQ; but I haven't seen any posts about someone doing such a thing experimenting with values and comparing images.

I was not suggesting that you experiment with changing capacitor values....where did you read that? I was suggesting that you change the old capacitors with brand new ones of the exact same values as the old ones! If you're interested though there is a guy on Youtube that does Frankenstein type conversions to his players: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj6JSzmB_Rw I sure would like to see the face of the repair technician who opens one of his units for service in the future!

In my opinion the cld-1400. 1450 and 1500 are fine players that are built like tanks and are highly reliable and were reviewed very highly in their day when they came on the market. The 1450 is also the first european player to play both PAL and NTSC although it was never marketed as a feature in ads because Pioneer was hesitant of releasing it in the first place and expected backlash that never came and so paved the way for them to release other European models that could play both types of discs. Unfortunately in the US there were no consumer level players (only a couple of industrial players) that were ever made that could play PAL discs.

If all it is is just duller colors in a comparisson between two different models you may have no problem at all with your unit. It is known that playback is based on the player itself and some models do a better job than others in that regard. Some players will produce better colors than others and some will produce a sharper picture, while others may exhibit signs of color bleeding and crosstalk, ect., ect., ect.. With laserdisc the picture quality is highly dependent on the player itself while this is not the case with DVD players. A comparisson from two different laserdisc players set side by side really does not say much since it is expected that there will be differences between models, which is what this forum discusses most often.

But with that being said and you seem to happy with this player, why can't you simply turn up the color levels on your TV to get what you want? All modern TV's remember their settings for each source you select. On my set if I select "AV" it has independent settings for that source, while the "scart" or the "S-video" will have their adjustable independent picture settings. In other words, adjusting one does not affect the others.

I know it seems obvious, but have you checked how you are hooking this player up to your TV? I read where this player will produce a better picture from its scart connection than from its composite connection. You may want to try it both ways to confirm this. Avoid anything that would convert the composite to an S-video connection. In all cases on this forum the composite connection is always the prefered connection since it forces your TV to use its internal comb filter. Now a few years back I did notice a problem with a player I had connected to main TV. When connected the picture was not very good and would give jerky playback every 20 seconds. I assumed it was a faulty unit and left it in the closet until one day I would repair it. A few months later I connected this same player to a video projector that I had repaired as I needed to feed it some video and the picture was perfect! I tried on another TV and again the picture was perfect until I connected it back to my main TV and the jerky ugly picture returned once again. The solution I found was to connect it through my DVD recorder as a pass-through device and the picture was perfect using the main TV! It's these little problems and their solutions that make the hobby so interesting for me.

If I were to start changing caps they would only be replaced with those of an identical value. The player is in my man cave and is only connected to my projector. I could bring it into the house and try it on the main TV but not got alot of time to myself atm just with work, christmas, kids and a new dog lol.

As you says its a decent player so I think I'll leave well enough alone for now and just tweak the projectors settings for colour etc. Just thought it was odd there was such a difference between the two players in terms of colour reproduction. I do take onboard your comment about the DVD recorder and if I can pick one up cheap enough I'll try that.