It is currently 29 Mar 2024, 12:35




 Page 1 of 1 [ 7 posts ] 
Author Message
 Post subject: DVL-9x9 - How difficult to change the laser?
PostPosted: 29 Jul 2019, 21:00 
Honest fan
Honest fan
User avatar

Joined: 03 Mar 2019, 15:15
Posts: 82
Location: United Kingdom
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 12 times
I have a couple of faulty players:

1) a DVL-919E - it plays LDs but not DVDs
The DVD laser lights up (very bright!) and the DVD spins, but after a couple of tries the disc is ejected.

2) a DVL-909 - it powers up but does very little. Pressing buttons causes the relevant action to be displayed - OPEN, PLAY etc. - but nothing mechanical happens. Both lasers are back in their little cage. I've tried winding one out onto the bottom track, but it makes no difference. The only movement is if I wind the cage round so the DVD laser is on the bottom, then when the player is powered on it rotates so that the DVD laser is back on the top again.

Assuming there's nothing simple I can try with the 919's current laser, I was wondering whether the shortest route to getting a fully working machine might be to try putting the 909 DVD laser pickup into the 919.

How easy would that be? The obvious method to remove the laser would seem to be to remove the top tracks, then manually wind it out of its cage, disconnecting the ribbon cable somehow - but is there a better way?

Would there be complex realignment adjustments needed after the swap, requiring an oscilloscope and test discs (neither of which I have)? From what I can make out in the Service Manual, there is only one adjustment for the DVD carriage, the Tangential adjustment screw - can that be done with trial and error?

(Incidentally I realise that DVD playback on these machines is nothing to write home about, but I'd still like to fix it! I do have working players as well, these two were inexpensive purchases to tinker with - in an earlier thread here, I already asked about swapping spindle motors and in fact the 919 currently has the worn spindle motor from my 'best' player.)

Thanks for any help :-)
Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: DVL-9x9 - How difficult to change the laser?
PostPosted: 29 Jul 2019, 22:37 
Jedi Master
Jedi Master
User avatar

Joined: 03 May 2004, 19:05
Posts: 8093
Location: Dullaware
Has thanked: 1218 times
Been thanked: 841 times
While I have no tech knowledge about these issues, I would just leave them alone or fix to at least play the LD parts.

Not worth it in cost of parts if you can even find lasers etc.

Just run them as is with LD only, or even sell them as LD only to someone.
Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: DVL-9x9 - How difficult to change the laser?
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2019, 20:40 
Honest fan
Honest fan
User avatar

Joined: 03 Mar 2019, 15:15
Posts: 82
Location: United Kingdom
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 12 times
In the end I did swap the DVD laser from the 909 to the 919e - and it worked without any adjustment :-)

I did it by removing the top slider (the four black screws), winding the laser out of its cage by rotating the worm gear with my finger, then disconnecting the ribbon from the laser block (a little tricky, it doesn't just pull out like many of the ribbon cables on the machine, it's held in place by a very thin plastic clip that pivots at the ends).

So now I can play DTS DVDs... I was surprised to find that the player doesn't decode the sound from these to analogue at all though, I wonder if buyers at the time were unimpressed by that...?
Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: DVL-9x9 - How difficult to change the laser?
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2019, 20:54 
Absolute fan
Absolute fan
User avatar

Joined: 01 Feb 2018, 02:41
Posts: 1990
Location: Finland
Has thanked: 182 times
Been thanked: 382 times
yaffle2345 wrote:
So now I can play DTS DVDs... I was surprised to find that the player doesn't decode the sound from these to analogue at all though, I wonder if buyers at the time were unimpressed by that...?

Did any of them do that?
Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: DVL-9x9 - How difficult to change the laser?
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2019, 21:00 
Honest fan
Honest fan
User avatar

Joined: 03 Mar 2019, 15:15
Posts: 82
Location: United Kingdom
Has thanked: 6 times
Been thanked: 12 times
takeshi666 wrote:
yaffle2345 wrote:
So now I can play DTS DVDs... I was surprised to find that the player doesn't decode the sound from these to analogue at all though, I wonder if buyers at the time were unimpressed by that...?

Did any of them do that?

Good point, I'm trying to remember if my first DVD player (a Sony DVP7700) output DTS sound in analogue, and I think it probably didn't - but I don't think I had any DTS DVDs back in those days, as I never recall seeing its special little DTS light on the front panel light up :-)
Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: DVL-9x9 - How difficult to change the laser?
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2019, 21:28 
Absolute fan
Absolute fan
User avatar

Joined: 01 Feb 2018, 02:41
Posts: 1990
Location: Finland
Has thanked: 182 times
Been thanked: 382 times
External DTS decoders had become so common by early 2000s that time there was probably no need to do it internally by the player, and before that it would've just driven the prices of the early models even further up. I dunno, it's possible some of those "all in one" DVD players that had their own speaker outputs might've had internal DTS decoders as well. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to convert DTS to analog anyway since you can't do multi-channel audio through analog connectors without a whole bunch of cables...which I think some players did do, and I've seen some home theater amps with like six RCA inputs for what is obviously intended for multi-channel audio and you certainly wouldn't need those for a phono preamp.
Offline
 Profile  
 
 Post subject: Re: DVL-9x9 - How difficult to change the laser?
PostPosted: 07 Aug 2019, 23:04 
Advanced fan
Advanced fan
User avatar

Joined: 02 Aug 2019, 02:29
Posts: 660
Location: Australia
Has thanked: 52 times
Been thanked: 85 times
takeshi666 wrote:
External DTS decoders had become so common by early 2000s that time there was probably no need to do it internally by the player, and before that it would've just driven the prices of the early models even further up. I dunno, it's possible some of those "all in one" DVD players that had their own speaker outputs might've had internal DTS decoders as well. It wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to convert DTS to analog anyway since you can't do multi-channel audio through analog connectors without a whole bunch of cables...which I think some players did do, and I've seen some home theater amps with like six RCA inputs for what is obviously intended for multi-channel audio and you certainly wouldn't need those for a phono preamp.


I recall having one DVD player many years ago that had full 5.1 output via rca jacks and it could also output as 2 channel rca. Yes it did have a DTS decoder, at the time I had a pro-logic Yamaha amp with only stereo rca inputs (no optical or coaxial digital audio inputs).
Can't remember what brand it was now, but it was just a Chinese type cheap brand iirc. The psu unit died at some point and it wasn't worth fixing, it's long gone now.

With that DVD player I would decode DTS, output as 2 channel rca into the Yamaha pro-logic amp and then have 5.1 surround again :lol:
It was a long time ago.

I still have the Yamaha receiver though, it's RX-V480. Nothing special.
Offline
 Profile  
 
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
 Page 1 of 1 [ 7 posts ] 


Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 0 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot post attachments in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: