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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 08 Nov 2017, 07:15 
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Test card number 5:

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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 08 Nov 2017, 08:27 
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Looks good - and as I said in the PM, #4 is just what I was looking for to get the 32mhz phase alignment right. Thanks!

Eventually the PAL comb filter should be redone - ideally with a transform decoder, no ETA's of course... but hopefully this'll lead to getting the most out of PAL LD anyone's seen outside a lab. :) (the bar, after all, is quite a bit lower than in NTSC-land.)
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 08 Nov 2017, 09:53 
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Great work guys!

Quick question to happycube...

Is there any way of rendering the VBI information on the output frames or extracting it as I also have the British Garden Birds disc which is the first ever disc to have digital data on there in the form of teletext.
https://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/39164/BB ... rden-Birds

From what I understand on CAV discs there is a frame number stored in the frame header. Is it possible to save the frames using this frame number to allow us to sample multiple identicle discs and pick the best decoded frame from the duplicate set.

Im just looking forward to some of the next stages.

Thanks again
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 08 Nov 2017, 16:03 
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Those are both decoded in the video and can be extracted from the TBC data (possibly with some tweaking needed) - I haven't extracted the frame # data yet for PAL yet but I think the frame #'s work the same way as NTSC. Later CLV disks have frame # data as well.

I haven't figured out how to fix the TBC for the new 32mhz data yet, but I have a -b option to ld-decoder-pal.py to handle 28mhz s16 data. Not a real difference actually... I think the quality of the RF data is more important even at 28mhz.
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 09 Nov 2017, 08:24 
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I've been trying to use the latest github code to run some tests, but I'm not having much success :) My environment is python3 running on Ubuntu 16.04LTS. I realise that you're still in the process of updating the code, but I thought it might be useful to let you know the results.

Running ld-decoder-pal.py or ld-decoder-pal32.py results in:

bash: ./ld-decoder-pal.py: python: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

Modifying the shebang line back to #!/usr/bin/python solves this issue.

Running it after the mod gives the following error:

File "./ld-decoder-pal.py", line 15
SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\xcf' in file ./ld-decoder-pal.py on line 15, but no encoding declared; see http://python.org/dev/peps/pep-0263/ for details

This is related to two unicode characters in the code for pi and pi2 - the only way I've found to make it run is to replace both characters globally with non-unicode characters.

Running the code after the modifications yealds the following results:

sdi@seholddecode01:~/ld-decode$ ./ld-decoder-pal.py -b CAV_PAL_Video_28MSPS_16bit_signed.bin > 28mtest.ld
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./ld-decoder-pal.py", line 545, in <module>
    main()
  File "./ld-decoder-pal.py", line 403, in main
    outfile = sys.stdout.buffer
AttributeError: 'file' object has no attribute 'buffer'


and

sdi@seholddecode01:~/ld-decode$ ./ld-decoder-pal32.py -b -S CAV_PAL_Video_32MSPS_16bit_signed.bin > 32mtest.ld
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/scipy/signal/filter_design.py:1057: BadCoefficients: Badly conditioned filter coefficients (numerator): the results may be meaningless
  "results may be meaningless", BadCoefficients)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./ld-decoder-pal32.py", line 526, in <module>
    main()
  File "./ld-decoder-pal32.py", line 396, in main
    outfile = sys.stdout.buffer
AttributeError: 'file' object has no attribute 'buffer'


I'm not looking for an immediate fix; just consider this FYI :)
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 10 Nov 2017, 06:00 
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Use python3, not plain python... I might've made a mistake in the #! in the checkin version. Try running it as "python3 ld-decoder-pal..." too
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 10 Nov 2017, 06:34 
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Thanks for the advice :) Changing the shebang line to #!/usr/bin/python3 made ld-decoder-pal32.py run without error.

ld-decoder-pal.py still seems to have a problem though:

sdi@seholddecode01:~/ld-decode$ ./ld-decoder-pal.py -b -S CAV_PAL_Video_28MSPS_16bit_signed.bin > 28mtest.ld
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "./ld-decoder-pal.py", line 545, in <module>
    main()
  File "./ld-decoder-pal.py", line 501, in main
    newdata = np.fromstring(inbuf, 'int16', toread) + 32768
ValueError: string is smaller than requested size


I've made some more test runs using the actual Domesday laserdiscs (converting to 8-bit for now), these are older and have quite a bit of scratching on the surface of the disc. This seems to result in both noise and a weaker RF signal overall. ld-decode seems to produce some interesting artefacts in the resulting frames that looks like some form of regular colour distortion of some sort (I had to change the frame to a jpg to attach it, which makes it a bit blurry - but you can still see it):

Attachment:
frame-2.jpg
frame-2.jpg [ 105.45 KiB | Viewed 14686 times ]


I'm hoping that, with the increased sampling resolution, the process will be less lossy for more degraded discs. I realise that I'm running ahead a bit with this, but I think the difference between the 8-bit and 10-bit results should be much more noticeable on discs that have more degradation. The Jason disc I used for the test cards is in near perfect condition.
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 10 Nov 2017, 06:53 
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Oh... I think that'd be triggered at end-of-file, which I hadn't actually tried with the 16bit code. I wrapped it in exception handling so it shouldn't do that again (and I did use #!python instead of python3, oops!)

I've seen that distortion pattern before, I think NR settings can alleviate it but I dunno if they work in the PAL comb filter. Can I take a look at the raw file for that over the weekend? Hopefully 10 bit will help a bit. It might be a less-bad CAV version of crosstalk thinking about it.

It's a shame that outside of the labs Phillips really didn't do well with LD at all.
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 10 Nov 2017, 07:01 
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I just tried the 32MSPS 16 bit signed conversion all the way to PNGs - nice :D Worked well (although, as you said before, it's not quite 'right' yet - colours are a bit muted and there's some light banding across the images) - but awesome progress!

I will make a sample from a real Domesday disc (@LOL@RARE!!!@ as they say on ebay :) ) and provide a copy for you. It will be a lot more of a 'real' test of what I'm trying to achieve, since there are only a few, very old, copies of the disc set available.

I'll PM you with a link to the RF sample once it's ready.
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 14 Nov 2017, 10:25 
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Just a quick update; the production boards are now designed and I'm in the process of ordering some to continue testing with. Here's a render of the board design:

Attachment:
File comment: PCB 3D Render
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Software is still on-going; but I'm getting there :)
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 21 Nov 2017, 19:39 
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Quick update... Software is on-going (still quite a bit of work to do), but the first production board is now ready for testing (hopefully it will work!). If all the tests work out, then I'll make a couple more.

Attachment:
Completed_Board_2_0_small.jpg
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Still working on the capture application and also adapting the software to the new board (which has a completely different FPGA footprint from the prototype). However, progress is progress :)
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 25 Nov 2017, 16:41 
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Hmm. Seems as though this hardware could be adapted for use as a MUSE decoder (which is much more simple computationally anyway).
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 25 Nov 2017, 17:02 
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Quote:
Hmm. Seems as though this hardware could be adapted for use as a MUSE decoder (which is much more simple computationally anyway).


I'm still hacking away at the software right now, but the project is completely open-source and open-hardware, so you will be welcome to use it for any purpose (although I would advise patience until it's in 'release' state). I will also put the final Gerber files up on the GitHub so you can easily get PCBs made too. The development environment is Ubuntu 16.04 LTS, so it should be fairly easy to get the development tool-chain running - I'm also planning on writing both a software and hardware (assembly) guide complete with a detailed component BoM.

I won't be making any 'mass' production runs of the board (my target is purely the Domesday86 project which requires a maximum of 3 boards), but I will do everything possible to make it easy for anyone that does want to make some (for personal use or for sale to others).

In other news, I have 3x Pioneer LD-V4300D machines being delivered shortly so (back on the ld-decode side) I will be able to start testing both NTSC and PAL captures.
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 12 Dec 2017, 07:16 
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I realize I've been quiet about the duplicator board progress, so here is a quick update:

I've completely rewritten the FPGA code for the project to make everything more robust and to increase the level of system testing and the error checking. The design now runs the FX3 (USB 3) communication at 64 MHz (double the capture speed) to allow better buffering and 'catch-up' when the PC slows down for any reason - the non-realtime nature of a PC performing the capture to disk causes bursting of data via the USB3; this is now much better implemented.

I've also written a Linux (Ubuntu) GUI front-end application in QT which monitors and controls the capture process. The latest github build is a fairly simple GUI, but contains a robust USB and disk buffering implementation that has been tested successfully with capture runs of over 60 minutes (generating in excess of 250Gbytes of capture). By making an open-source Linux application specifically for the duplicator I can now expand the functionality at will to make the capture process far more user-friendly. Also the whole 'chain' of the capture and decode process can run on a single Linux machine (before the capture relied on the Cypress FX3 Windows test applications for capture).

I have now received 3 Pioneer LD-V4300D laserdisc players and these players will be the reference hardware for testing the Domesday Duplicator board. The new players are both NTSC and PAL capable, so they represent a much more universal approach than the Sony PAL player I was using previously. To get the best results the players need to be correctly calibrated and set-up. I've ordered the required Pioneer 8" test disc (from PacParts in the USA) and some service remotes - I also have the service guides and the test equipment required.

I've also just ordered the parts to make up a couple more Domesday Duplicator boards; these should be ready by the new year and will be used to expand the testing scope (one will go to Mr Happycube and the other will be a secondary test card for my own rig).

I'm also planning on implementing what I call "Player Integrated Capture" into the Linux application - this will provide automatic control of the LD-V4300D from the Linux GUI. Full and partial disc capture will be controlled automatically between the Linux app and the player using the RS-232-C player interface. This should take out the hassle of capturing disks and allow additional things like multiple captures of a range of frames where the GUI pauses on a frame automatically, checks the player is where it should be, captures, and then moves on. Once the VBI frame position information is exposed via ld-decode, this should allow for really smart capture techniques - especially when only one source laserdisc is available. Basically you will be able to specify a frame or range of frames in the app and it will all happen automatically. My plan is to implement this in 'layers' so others can easily add in support for additional laserdisc players.

Once the new LD-V4300D machines are running and I have an end-to-end tested capture, I'll push a Github release (hopefully in the next 2 weeks). After that, everything is just 'enhancement' work :)
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 13 Dec 2017, 21:20 
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Well, the good news is that the capture system is up and running again - the Linux GUI app needs more work (cosmetic fixes and non-capture related bugs); but I now have a modified Pioneer LP-V4300D with the RF tapped. I haven't calibrated the player yet (I'm waiting on a service remote control and Pioneer 8" test disc to be delivered). The whole software base is now far more robust and reliable with better design everywhere, especially around the FPGA dual-clock domain FIFO buffering; the USB communication is now 64Mhz (double the capture rate).

ld-decode seems to be happy with the captures however there are some issues with both black and white colours being very speckled and not very black (or white); but I'm sure this is just some ld-decode calibration issues.

Happycube - expect some rather large captures from the Jason disc and the Domesday Community South disc (I'm grabbing a frame dump of all of the test cards). I'll also include some NTSC from the Fantasia disc since I can now capture both formats. I don't have any NTSC testcards (yet), so some animated frames will have to do.

For everyone else; here's a pretty lady from the Jason disc captured using the new set up :)

Attachment:
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 14 Dec 2017, 21:15 
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The Domesday Duplicator is now in release status. I'll be working on enhancing the Linux GUI front-end some more, but the whole set-up is now working end-to-end from the high-speed DAQ through to the Ubuntu GUI.

Documentation is fairly complete and includes construction information, bill of materials and much more (but requires more detail especially around the GUI). You can find the documents via the following links:

Overview: http://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=978
Hardware guide: http://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=1066
Software guide: http://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=1070

The Github repository is available here: https://github.com/simoninns/DomesdayDuplicator

This release is primarily for testing with ld-decode (rather than prime-time use) - but if you are interested in how it works and what it is, all of the required information is now available.
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 17 Dec 2017, 08:35 
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As I mentioned before, the Pioneer LD-V4300D is the reference player for the Domesday Duplicator board. I currently have 3 of these players and I'm busy restoring and repairing them to get them in the best condition possible. Along the way I'm trying to produce comprehensive documentation about the player and how to modify and restore it. I will make an electrical calibration guide shortly (I am still waiting for the Pioneer test disc). In the meantime, the following guides are available:

Overview of the Pioneer LD-V4300D (includes serial cable pin-out): http://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=1176
Pioneer LD-V4300D Tear-down and clean: http://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=1142
Pioneer LD-V4300D – Adding an RF output: http://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=1265

Even if you have no intention of using the duplicator, the tear-down and clean guide is a good way to extend the service life of the player.

The overview guide also includes a PDF of the user manual (which I was unable to find online, so I made a copy myself) - it includes a guide to the serial control commands, so it's quite useful.

If anyone spots any errors or the like, please let me know!
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 26 Dec 2017, 10:21 
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wah ! Fantastic work !
I have also a LD-V4300D. A strong and simple machine. I like it. I will try to clean it someday with your tutorial. (sorry I one cleaned the lens with a cotton bud... I will never do it again ! I wish my player didn't suffer of this mistake ...)
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 26 Dec 2017, 10:38 
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Glad you liked the guides :) I'm trying to make sure this work is as 'universally useful' as possible!

The Domesday Duplicator software is using the LD-V43000D as the reference player and provides fully automated CLV and CAV capture; so it's getting easier and easier to quickly and accurately capture RF. My aim is to make it as 'untechnical' as possible for end-users. Here's a view of the latest github of the capture software:

Attachment:
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Nearly there! :)
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 Post subject: Re: (WIP) Laserdisc software image decoder from raw signal
PostPosted: 26 Dec 2017, 10:48 
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That is really great, for people like me^^
I will try to clean my player this summer. Then I can try to add the RF out.
Maybe around 2019 it will be possible for me to try your capture tool !

PS: just curious, and as your a specialist of this player, is the EFM out outing analog audio or pure digital audio ? If it is analog, then the DA-1 has no meaning as the player is already processing the signal ^^ !
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