First my HLD-V700 didn't want to play at all (see: [HLD-V700] Won't play with various errors)

After playing around with TRKG BAL / TRK GAIN / TILT OFFSET I could get it to run but the image is very distorted and sometimes disappears completely. Sound is almost completely gone.
All potentiometers are now turned fully clockwise. That gives the least terrible results.

I assume the player wasn't handled properly during transport. Is there any way to adjust something else (possible in hardware like a screw) to get a better picture?

Just to be sure: The cable from the player to the MUSE Decoder is a regular RCA cable (in that case with a RCA-BNC adapter), not a 50 or 75 Ohm coax cable?

The cable is not the problem.

While mailing a player is the %100 best way to ruin it forever I wouldn’t suspect damage from shipping in this case. You shouldn’t have mailed it/bought it, but you probably didn’t actually break it.

I say this because if it runs best with all pots maxed…I’d expect something is weak (laser) or something has too much resistance (old caps). They don’t build things to work that way. “Normal” for any trim pot should ideally be near the middle.

It’s probably just worn out and dead.

NEXT TIME:

Buy local or don’t buy at all. The world doesn’t need more broken LD players.

Buy known-reliable, common stuff, not fringe weirdo stuff like super rare MUSE decks that nobody alive can repair.

From the analog outputs on the player or from the MUSE decoder?
(MUSE disc soundtracks come in different flavors)

Julien

That was the default setting, yes.



It's a Pioneer not a Sony. And those industrial players are very well built. I don't want to just give up on it. As it is also Balance and Offset, it might be adjustable. But it's hard to find someone who's familiar with those players and this model especially. It's a uncommon one.



Easier said than done. Even if I'd say "local" is entire Germany then there are TWO players available. For 5000 and 6000 EUR. I will NEVER pay something even close to that. Also I have ONE Hi-Vision disc and looking at the prices, it'll likely stay like that. I'm mainly curious to see it live and will not invest a ton of money.

I'm sure there is a better solution than just "throw it away".




I tried both but I only could hear some sound fragments from the decoder. As A River Runs Through It is B-Mode 2.0ch I think only sound from the decoder will work.

I had another look at the player and there are more adjustment points. I slightly increased some of the potentiometers and now have a decent image. I could also revert the three settings i previously changed to get a picture to their original state. So nothing is maxed out now.

Sound is also there now.

I don't know how good the image should look. I get some shadows on the Japanese subs but it is still a old analog medium not a Blu-Ray.

It's absolutely worth not giving up on such a well-build machine. It'll go back to storage now nevertheless. I won't keep the setup for just one disc.

You're going to need an oscilloscope to get it right. E03 and E04 errors are slider related but likely a tilt issue. The laser mechanism has a height and tilt motor built into the carriage. There are very small gears within the carriage that break, causing the tilt and height to not be in the correct position. There is also the possibility that the tilt sensor itself has become misaligned. It can be adjusted but I would check the gears first.

My suggestion is to grab a scope and get the tilt set correctly. This can be done using a service remote and setting the unit to playback mode and adjusting tilt until the tracking error waveform is at maximum amplitude. Unfortunately there are no test discs available with the vertical bar to fine tune the tilt.

Might I ask where you picked a V700 up from?

The issue is, this player will ONLY play MUSE, so I would need a MUSE test disc. Those are impossible to get.

I got that from ebay some time ago.

Wait, so this player only plays Hivision discs??

Yes

Oh sorry, you are SOL and I don't mean the satellite in Akira.

Geez. What an absolutely useless player.

Could be good as a doorstop

So many helpful comments here. "Useless", "unfixable", "doorstop". Well, good that I don't listen to negative people just collecting post counts with nonsense. I now have a fine working MUSE player without spending $2000+

Congrats!

(So how'd you fix it in the end?)

Good for you, now you can watch Bugsy in LDHD.
However you want to take it is how you take it.

Only reason I ever though of buying a Muse player would be to have both LD and Muse playback if I ever got the Muse discs.
But I would have never bought just a Muse only player.

The real note here, glad you got it working without a test disc.

Just because you start a thread that doesn’t mean everyone on the forum is legally bound to only post the kind of posts you like in it. You don’t own the thread.

A recently mailed to death MUSE-only player is a remarkable concept, people remarked on it. That’s going to happen. Those remarks being “negative” is really just your perspective. “Don’t ever mail an LD player.” is considered essential information for many people and in this exact case I think it was good to bring it up. If people followed this axiom there would be more working LD players left in the world which would be a “positive” thing, not “negative”…if we are to talk in such childish terms at all.

This isn’t a Wiki. If you can’t handle even this level of mild discourse then you should just never talk to anyone. Don’t go into a room full of people and tell them to shut up.

I would never have just one player as there is no (Pioneer) MUSE player supporting PAL LD.

I had to do slight adjustments on the other potentiometers that are "upside down" on the pcb connected to the laser (where the turn mechanism is). I overlooked them the first time cause there are just small holes in the PCB. After adjusting I could dial back the three I originally maxed out. Currently there's still a lot of reserve in case there's some degradation to the components in the future.