I just got a Pioneer CLD-D704, and thanks to a few people on these boards, it is running beautifully. This has made me want to revisit my original player, a Sony MDP-750.

About 15-20 years ago (has it been that long?), I took it to a local repair shop in Los Angeles in order to add an AC-3 out board to it. The shop did the job, but when I played some movies, I noticed the picture was very noisy. At the time, I hadn't used the player in a while, as I had been very much into DVDs, and thought that I just didn't realize how noisy laserdiscs were, since I had become used to DVDs. So, I retired the player to storage.

Fast foward all these years later, and I realize now that there is something wrong with the player, and it should not have noisy picture quality. I'm thinking maybe the laser is out of alignment due to the addition of the AC-3 board, or maybe the board is causing some sort of interference.

Does anyone have advise on how to diagnose and fix this? has anyone experienced this before? I know Sony players aren't as popular as others, but if I can get this back in shape, it would be a great 2nd player to use in my bedroom.

Thanks!

I dont think the Sony machines have as much info about repair than the Pioneer machines. Not as many parts out there either. Hopefully someone can help you. Best bet would be to look around your local area for any repair shops although I wouldnt hold your breath these days.

As odotb3 has said it may be worth you checking out TV / AV repair shops, I have been lucky with a couple of players in the past at a fairly local repairer & the cost was more than fair.

The SONY players are almost impossible to find parts for now unless you can perhaps pick up a donor unit but caps & the more common components should not be an issue.

Good luck .

If you really suspect the AC3 board as the culprit, the best way to diagnose is to simply de-solder one or more of the cables going to the board and then test again. If it clears up, then you can suspect that the person who installed it did not find the most ideal place to tap for the AFM or even a power point (I have seen some issues tapping a particular 5v point that would cause interference).

Was going to say the same thing, just take pictures of what you have before you start un-soldering.

And are you sure you have good cables or clean contacts from player to TV?

First, I really appreciate the quick replies and advice. Here's the current update:

I found a local repair shop that services laserdiscs. I don't know how good they are, but I had set up an appointment with them. I took the player out of storage and decided to hook it up to make sure it powered on, spun up, and played a disc. To my surprise, the picture wasn't noisy at all - it was rather crisp, and slightly less perfect than my CLD-D704.

My thoughts: When I last had it hooked up, I had a 2003 Mitsubishi 55" 1080i rear projection TV, and was hooked up via S-Video. My current setup is a 2020 LG 65" 4K LED, using the composite RCA in. It's possible that either the S-Video out is not up to snuff, or the older Mitsubishi couldn't handle it well. Possibly the filter on the new TV is doing some heavy lifting. Either way, I was stunned by what I saw. I canceled my appointment and hooked up the SONY in my bedroom - same TV, but 43".

I remember hooking up my 925 to a cheap unbranded no name LCD and it looked like absolute crap. When connected to my sony bravia it looked fine. Some TVs cant handle the signal well. Good news that it's working!

Now you just need to keep lowering the adjustment settings on your TV to get a better picture.
Don't keep things like sharpness up high, LD doesn't like that.

Good luck and enjoy.

Your Pioneer is a WAAAY better player than the Sony ever was in any condition. I’d expect that’s the entire issue right there. I hope so because you’re never going to find someone to work on that thing...

You might just have a bad S-Video cable and that wouldn’t be a surprise as they can be very fragile. I recall years ago diagnosing a bad cable that caused an extremely dark picture along with unstable sync (I assumed the luminance part of the cable was bad).

In any case, you really shouldn’t use S-Video when it comes to LD as the composite connection is usually better depending on the comb filter in the TV. Also, video settings in today’s TVs’ usually require a lower brightness setting when using LD and tape since these older formats encoded video at a higher brightness setting. Thus, if you leave the TV on a higher brightness level, your picture will look more noisy and washed out.

Well, it's only been about 3 years, but I finally got around to opening the player. I completely removed the AC3 board, and the picture has cleared up. Would love to be able to find the correct tap points to reconnect the board, but if I can't, so be it - this will be the bedroom player and I don't have a surround setup in there yet.