Hello everyone,

I'm completely new to the world of LaserDiscs (LDs), so please bear with me if I get things wrong or ask questions that might seem silly. Recently, I bought a collection of LDs and a few players at a local yard sale. Of the four players I acquired (one Sony and three Pioneer DVL-919 models), only the Sony player is capable of playing disks, although it does have a few mechanical issues.

I would like to get at least one of the DVL-919 models working, but all three seem to share a common issue: they play DVDs just fine, but none of them will play LDs. When I insert a known good LD, the player switches to the LD laser, spins the disk, and the display shows "Play". However, nothing happens after that. After a brief period (about a minute or two), the disk is ejected without any further activity. Is this a known or common issue? After all, I have three players exhibiting the same problem.

Cheers,
Jens

Are you playing the correct LDs, are the LDs NTSC and the player is NTSC or is it a PAL player with NTSC discs?
I don't remember as much from what I've read in the past but I think they did combo players but that only worked on the DVD part?

Also try playing a CD, if that works then others can help from there.

You have a switch on the back PAL - AUTO - NTSC
See which setting of the three is enabled?
Best to use is AUTO if you use discs from both color systems?

Thank you for your quick responses. I just tried a CD and that also works fine. The player does not have a PAL/NTSC switch. I think all of my LDs are PAL but I will check all of them again. What happens if I try to play a PAL disc in an NTSC player or vice versa? Would it be unable to read the disc or simply output the video signal in the other format?

Edit: I just found an NTSC-Disc and that plays fine, so apparently I have a bunch of NTSC players and almost exclusively PAL LDs. Excellent combination Is it possible to change the player to PAL? If you need more details about the model (on the front it simply says DVL-919) or fotos, let me know.

Cheers,
Jens

Nope, if your player is NTSC you will need NTSC discs, it just won't play.
On a positive note there are very few if any PAL discs worth it to own so you aren't really missing out.

Too bad, since I have so many PAL LDs but thanks to everyone for quickly figuring out the issue.

I have a DVL-909 which is the predecessor, this player has both PAL/NTSC playback.

Your DVL-919, on the front right corner, does it have a logo printed PAL/NTSC ???
Perhaps your player is a straight NTSC version, an import from USA or Japan if it doesn't have PAL system ?

Curiously, one of the players that I bought is also an 909 (my mistake, I thought they were all three 919) it does have a PAL/NTSC/Auto switch at the back but regardless of the setting it only plays the NTSC LD. It seems that switch has no effect at all. Unfortunately, the person who sold the player had no clue where they came from as she was selling her late fathers old home cinema equipment. I've attached fotos of the back of the players (two player have identical backs) and it seems like they are in fact NTSC devices. Curiously, the 909 says PAL/NTSC LD:NTSC

Jens

Hello,

You can find the specs of your players here: Pioneer DVL-919 (1) and Pioneer DVL-909

NTSC is for LD and CD Video.
NTSC/PAL is for DVD and VideoCD.

Julien

I didn’t read all responses but are you using the composite video output? LD playback is allowed only on the composite video output. DVD playback is allowed on both composite and component outputs. If you connected your players to your TV via component, it explains that you can view DVDs but not LDs.

You should also try playing a regular music CD and see if you get audio at all. These players use the same laser for CDs and LDs but a different one for DVDs. If you can’t play CDs either than the wider bandwidth laser is malfunctioning.

On my DVL909 I use S-video for PAL and NTSC laserdisc playback -------> connected to my scaler.
I found LD picture a bit more detailed and sharper through S-video instead of using composite which displays a bit softer when comparing connections through my TV so I used the S-video connected to my scaler.

All that switch does is change the frequency of the chroma sub-carrier between 3.58MHz (NTSC), 4.43MHz (PAL), or auto-switching between the two (AUTO).

If you play an NTSC disc, with the setting set to "NTSC" or "AUTO", it will be output with a 3.58MHz sub-carrier, which (if your screen can handle it) is the best option.

But if your screen is PAL only, then the switch can be set to PAL, which will transcode the sub-carrier to PAL-standard 4.43MHz, and the screen may be happy with this and display in colour (although there are quality issues with this transcoding so this is best avoided).

So it will have no effect on whether the player will play the discs, and it should be set to 'auto' unless you experience monochrome playback at any time.

(Interestingly, it seems that if you play a PAL VideoCD and set the switch to NTSC, it will do a full standards conversion and play it in true NTSC. But it doesn't do this with DVDs (or LDs, if you had a PAL-LD-capable version)).

Well, apart from the fact that PAL discs are higher resolution, don't show the 3:2 pulldown picture 'judder', are the native format for PAL video productions, and leaving aside the fact that the original poster is from Germany, so every German-language disc he might want to obtain will be PAL, I'm sure you're correct

You must have one of the PAL/NTSC units, they're not all dual standards, some are NTSC only.

=> https://www.lddb.com/search_hardware.php?search_hw=DVL-909%2A&sort=model

Only the Europe and Australia models were PAL-compatible for LDs.

Julien

Yes, I have the multi DVL-909 PAL/NTSC playback