Hi all, long time lurker, first time poster.

I recently acquired a CLD-D606 in remarkably good shape from my local Goodwill here in the Seattle area. To give you an idea of my setup (assembled from various advice I've seen on this forum): CLD-D606 composite->Panasonic DMR-E20 DVD recorder component->Vizio E550i-B2 LCD TV.

Most discs in my collection play perfectly, with better than expected picture through this setup, except, curiously, Video Essentials. It seems to have a "burned-in" severe level of dot crawl, so much so that the video looks the same no matter how I connect the player (DVD recorder, composite straight to the TV, S-video through my receiver). The Snell and Wilcox test pattern, the reason I bought this disc, is basically unusable and looks the same no matter how I hook up the player.

Do certain pressings of this disc have this issue, or is it some problem with my setup that I'm missing?

No, the D606 (and the rest of the D600 series) are inherently noisy players and show a lot of artifacts on the Snell and Wilcox pattern even through the best comb filters (the superb 3D comb filter in my WEGA XBR can't even help.)

The D600 series are decent players since they're fairly affordable, give you digital frame memory to freeze frame CLV LDs, digital toslink out and Dolby Digital out, but that comes at a price of a noisy picture.

Welcome to LDDB vt4000!

Yup - and the composite on the 606 is passed through the comb filter, so mistakes it makes (and being a 2D filter, it does make tons on S&W!) can be passed onto the composite output. Add that to the inherent noise of the 504-type models, and you've got artifacts galore. The TBC is not fully precise so the vertical lines can trigger the comb filter more, too.

Also the right green button adjusts sharpness. Is that a version of the god-awful "HQ" circuit, or something done by the comb filter*? The original HQ option has two levels (on and off), this has off, 1, and 2.

It's a real shame that Pioneer brought over the 606 and not the R7G - it would've made a nice "706", and the 606 comb filter is already on a separate board even though there's space for a comb filter on the main board. As it is - from a modern perspective - the comb filter on the 606 is an anti-feature.

If you have a choice, the 406 is better with modern equipment, but when a 606 crops up at a thrift store for much less than the (original) price difference between them, take it

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I was just about to post about the 606 myself, I got a 'non-working' one for $10 on Tuesday at the local thrift, and when I first tried to eject it only made clunky sounds, and then when I took the cover off it started working (it 'came with' a 1992 Technidisc pressing of "First Blood"). Weird. Anyone have that happen before? krbahr?

EDIT: * - I just checked the service addendum for the 606, and it controls an analog 'picture enhancement' circuit ( datasheet here: http://pdf1.alldatasheet.com/datasheet- ... 2209S.html) - I would presume the main difference between a 505/6 and the 606 is this circuit and the removal of karaoke features.

Edit2: Looking at the schematic more - If I understand the analog mux they put in correctly, level 1 activates the Y video enhancer circuit, and level 2 activates a two-transistor color circuit (haven't worked out exactly how that works, but I assume it's a chroma sharpener of some sort)

Edit3: The TBC analog output the 406 used is listed as non-connected - and almost certainly brought out from the chip - so if anyone actually cared it would probably be relatively easy to add a direct composite mod which would basically work like a 406 with CLV memory.

TL;DR - the 606 is a 406 with digital memory, a 3-line adaptive 2D comb filter, and analog picture sharpener circuits - basically optimized for a tube TV that has S-Video in and a 1-line or otherwise demented comb filter.

I've seen discs not properly placed inside the machine that resettle when removing the top

Do you think it might be possible to modify the player to bypass the internal comb filter? Maybe wire up an extra jack on the back panel with the raw video?

I've been looking at the service manual for the CLD-D604 (which I think is very similar internally) and it looks like it would work in theory (take pin 10 out of "video IC" PAC005B)? Or am I engaging in wishful thinking?

EDIT: Sorry happycube, rereading your post and I saw Edit3. What pin on which chip are you talking about? I'm pretty handy with a soldering iron and maybe I can do this as a weekend project.

So, for anyone that's interested how this turned out, I was able to dig up the service manual for this player, and located the analog video signal that happycube was describing (pin 22 of IC500 digital video processor, helpfully labeled "V2" in a box on the board).

I decided to go for broke and soldered a wire (30awg insulated) to the pad for this pin, and connected it to a newly added panel mount RCA jack on the back of the unit.

And what do you know, IT WORKED! Comb filtering artifacts are greatly reduced if not totally eliminated when connecting directly from this new jack to the TV. All features of the player seem to be retained (digital memory, etc) except for the "picture enhancement" which was completely useless anyway.

I hope this ends up being useful to someone else with a CLD-D606 or CLD-D604 (I presume it would work on this player also, as it's functionally the same as the 606 except with no karaoke).

Cool I didn't think it would work without sync insertion. And it should apply to all the 504-based players and probably even DVL's, although they use a PAL/NTSC TBC. It's easier on the 504-type since the direct composite is brought out from the pin to support a 406-style player.

I'd be careful with it though, there should be buffering circuits and it's likely vulnerable to ESD.

Hello vt4000,

can you post some screenshots from the new composite out ?

Here's a video I took of the Snell and Wilcox test, after my mod and before.

It's most noticeable on white text, black background. Here's an example from the opening credits of Grosse Pointe Blank:

Before:


After:

From the VE screen, it looks like the standard output is overly bright. (and from the stills, smeary!) So adjusting the video level will make them closer, but there are still some 2D comb filter errors that simply can't be adjusted out - and it looks like some of the analog circuits might be mucking with the signal too.

I'm going to have to add (a version of?) this mod to my 606 and then, maybe, tap the TBC's digital output.

Nice job dude! Looks like the color response on the bottom of the Snell & Wilcox test plate is better on the new composite output too.

I'm tempted to try this on my D605, but I've never been good with a soldering iron . . .

Looking at my 406 manual, there's an LPF and amp circuit after the TBC output, but sync is already included (which is why the simple mod works) I think a 75 ohm resistor in series to 47p capacitor to ground for termination would be good, and if that goes to a light load it should be OK. I don't know the drive strength of that pin.

It's quite possible those circuits (and the equivalent on other players) causes some of the ringing/smear/etc that we see. (edit: I always presumed most of that was from the FM demodulator and deemphasis circuits. Maybe this weekend I'll rig up the digital TBC capture hack on that 606... and add the composite mod.)

It's a pity LaserdiscModder never posted any schematics for his stuff, he made a nice circuit using an Analog Devices high-bandwidth video op amp.

A lot of why the amp's there is the 406 (like many Pioneer LD players) has two composite outputs to support an RF modulator.

Edit: On the 406, the video output pin goes to R59(8?), which feeds Q501. That resistor will be labeled but unstuffed on the 606.

Edit2: The 406 and 606 manuals are on the manual server now, thanks admin!

This is great! Well done.

Looking at the player+schematics, it looks like you have to remove the main board to reach the test point... but I should be able to solder onto the unused digital pins feeding the comb filter placement on the main board (they went to all the trouble of putting another board on just for the 'enhancement' circuits!)

Another observation - while the mechanics are very similar between the 504 and x05/6, the electronics are slightly updated - a new TBC chip was used with integrated memory control, and the comb filter was changed from Sony 2023 to 2046. Both 3-line adaptive filters, but the SYNC signal is carried outside of the 8 bit main signal, which means the later players should have a slightly higher dynamic range.

Head over to Jamski68's 2950 PALB thread - he set up a AD829 circuit like Laserdiscmodder's to make a nice signal buffer and gave pointers to how he set it up.

This is really cool!

When my 99 eventually dies I'll probably try to use this trick to make the most of my 604.

Now to find an easy-ish way to reduce the player noise earlier on, that would improve the TBC performance as well.

In any case, this is a good bit of low-hanging fruit to improve the players - krbahr's right in that they'll probably never match a 97 or S2, but these players are easier for mere mortals to keep functional IMO.