Hi everybody; I'd like to start a discussion although some of it was discussed before.
In general: regarding picture improvement, does it make sense to upgrade from ELITE LD players nowdays at all, with all brandnew Faroudja and QDeo deinterlacers/upscalers built in newest A/V receivers?
Doesn't it make more sense to use any LD player with a solid original composite transport and let all video processing be done externally?
Does anyone had any expierience with newest higher class Pioneer/ Integra/Yamaha AVR's and their processing of LD images?
Is there any sense in buying S9, X9 or X0 for thousends of $ for getting what exact results compared with a modern AVR for 1800 $?
What goals should a picture improving LD fan set in 2013?
For example: I like my CLD 79 S Video picture much on a CRT- TV, but projected trough Pana PT-AE 5000 not very much. Composite to PT-AE looks even worse (too blurry). I need a new receiver with hopefully QDeo Chip inside. Is that good for LD? Did anyone test it? Should I go for Pioneer AVR without S-Inputs Sockets?
I hope for a great discussion also for similar dilemmas.
Kind regards to all of you
Laserdisc forever
s.

If you don't like the way the CLD-79 looks going straight into your display then you should invest in something with a decent scaler/processor.

The original reason people sought out the S9, 99 etc was the superior comb filters which are now not that big of a deal. The reason people go after players like the X0, 97 and LD-S2 is because they have the lowest video noise due to their superior build quality and design.

In your case, if the video noise from the 79 doesn't bother you and you can't see CLV smear on your display, you should keep the player. The 79 will have one of the sharpest pictures you can find.

I use a range of LD players (including an HLD-X9) through a modern Denon A/V receiver.
It works well as it provides improved upscaling from the newer receiver that would otherwise
be unvailable and connectivity to a whole range of new appliances that require HDMI inputs etc.
No point going back in time when your trusty LD player works just fine with the latest stuff.

Thanx. I was also wandering: people here talk about two pieces of hardware: de-interlacer and upscailer. Now we have new AVR with a already very famous Marvell QDeo-upscailer. Does it de-interlace as well as it upscails?

Does anyone know this AVR: Pioneer SC-LX56-K 9.2 Channels (in Europe - in US it's called differently but it's about 1500 - 2000$ Price range) with QDeo ? Did anyone tested Pioneer Elite Players with that new shiny thing? Maybe I should ask this in another topic... it's al connected thematically...

Hello and greetings from Germany.

I'm also interested in this discussion cause my good old Sony 16:9 CRT is near its end.

So i think about buying a new LED or Plasma TV.
But how to get LD and Betamax properly to the new TV ?

Buying an expensive TV with good scaling and deinterlacing circuits,
or a cheap one and spending the money on

- an expensive AV-Reciever ( like the new ones from pioneer / onkyo / denon)

- an external scaler ( lumagen or crystalio )

or a DVD/HDD-Recorder (Pioneer / Panasonic) for doing the job ?


I know it's a difficult question but i hope to get a hint from the experts here.


Thanks in advance

The Pioneer Elite Plasma TV's did a great job with the signal straight to them, S2 or X0 with DNR OFF and even the 97. Turn Off DNR on the unit and let the Plasma do the work. The real issue here is that not many new flat screen handle composite or S-Video very well. That is one place the Pioneer Plamsa's do very good. Many other manufacturers just put composite and S-Video circuits in that are OK but you end up with noisy and smeared pictures. With those flat screens you'll need to convert the signal to atleast component before going into the TV. You will just need to play with combinations to see what you like. I'm using a Pioneer Elite plasma and it looks just fine for me. Still nothing is as good as a CRT for these older formats.

After much trial and experimenting with different equipment I found that a simple de-interlacer such like an Iscan pro can do the trick. Upscaling to 1080 or 720 resolution is not always the best option since it makes the picture looking "digitalized"
I run composite to the Iscanpro then output component to my lcd display. Stable picture and the tv does the rest. Sure different equipment makes several results... It's somewhat of a trial to find out whatever you personally like.
I never owned a pioneer Kuro and have no intention of getting one but i'm sure with "moderate" equipment you can achieve amazing results. I never went back to crt for ld once I watched them de-interlaced trough a small little wonder like the Iscan pro unit that can be found dead cheap btw.

Ok, this one is from Speakers / Displays forum. He describes the usage of QDeo upscailer in an Onkyo AVR. The same one you may find in new Pioneer AVR's.

viewtopic.php?f=27&t=2070

It sounds very convincing.

Check the Panasonic LX-900 vs LX-600 thread, I run the composite into an Onkyo 1009 then at 480p out to a Mitsu DLP (HDMI), and it works very nice, the PQ (vs DVD) is only limited by the disc. I posted a number of screen captures of the Snell & Wilcox patterns for several different players. The only serviced model I have is the LD-S9 (Duncan). Depending on cost I would like to have both the LD-S2 and LX-900 serviced at some point since they both show good promise -and both received a beating in shipping (it seems to be a real issue for people to package LD players correctly).

I finally read that thread. It seems that you are really benefiting from the Onkyo TX-NR1009's HQV Vida VHD1900 video processor. The newest models of Onkyo AVRs that have this chipset are:

TX-NR818
TX-NR1010
TX-NR3010
TX-NR5010

The one-generation older models (TX-NR809, TX-NR1009, TX-NR3009, and TX-NR5009) first introduced this chipset.

Nice caps!

TLK

After Duncan serviced my 900 and also added AC-3 RF out, it performed much better. I'm going to have to eventually have him service my Runco LJR-I and add AC-3. My "spare" 900 works great too so I'm keeping it as a parts machine for my Runco and main 900.

Off topic, but the title of the thread reminded me of "Big Emma" the one-time Laserdisc seller and reseller.

Here's a wayback machine capture of the site circa 2003: http://web.archive.org/web/200302011528 ... gemma.com/

Now back to your scheduled thread discussion.

I loved Big Emma's - I got many of my rare discs there, like Little Darlings, for 9 bucks. And a huge amount of DiscoVision for 50 bucks.

Another option is to digitize material first in capture, although I would keep interlaced material, interlaced, then play back from computer by HDMI to plasma/LD tv, using 1080i. Options for superior capture are numerous, less wear and tear on analogue equipement, quick and easy library for playback, no worries about laserrot, can sell back analogue or digital material on the market to minimize space used for collection.

Either way, if your going to use a digital device in your chain, you will need to make adjustments for analog to digital, might as well do it first and foremost.

P.S. I know I've advocated this method before but I'm sure there are others new reading this that appreciate all options to be mentioned.

For late era discs, I think you need the very best player for the initial capture - one with the most extended, flattest frequency response and lowest noise, both luma and chroma. Most players do not fit that bill. Even Pioneer's later players with the extensive digital video processing, while having low luma noise have a soft picture and rolled off frequency response. Since the adjustable NR in Pioneers later players is 3D temporal based, it shouldn't be used during capture because it can wreck havoc with later processing and deinterlacing that is also temporal.

Honestly, I've found that the best copies to DVD are when I use my top-loading LD-1100, which has no noise reduction or my LD-700 clone from Sony, the industrial LDP-150 which also has no NR. Both create superb disc transfers. The LX-900 with NR off and the EAD TheaterVision/CLD-99 with NR off also make excellent players for disc transfers due to their low noise. For discs with any kind of speckling I use the LD-1100 because it has both a smaller beam spot from the red tube laser and it has only 4.2MHz frequency response so very high frequency drop outs and speckles simply do not get reproduced. With early discs that only have 330 lines of resolution encoded on them, there's no reason to use a player with greater frequency response that just uncovers high frequency disc noise.

Good info, disclord. Although I am not an advocate for deinterlacing. I prefer to process the material while interlaced in Adobe Premiere and find the Neat Video add on a fantastic solution for removing surface noise and preparing the video for compression. But first try and get the most detailed capture possible, this is the biggy as you suggest with different preferences of players, what capture device or card can also have a huge impact.

Depending on the disc I use either the capture built into my Sony Vaio, which has an excellent 3D adaptive comb filter or I use my Panasonic DMR-E20 DVD-Recorder - it allows you to set the comb filter to either 3-line adaptive 2D or 2 frame 3D adaptive. For short programs of less than an hour I typically use the Panny at the 9mbps rate - for longer programs I use the Vaio with its lossless AVI encode - then I import it into Sony Vegas 11 Pro on our 64-bit 4 processor PC for further processing and DVD menu authoring, etc... If the disc doesn't need much, I'll just let the Panasonic make the disc - like for the hour long Jaques Cousteau DiscoVision discs that don't need menus or chapters. And the 9mbps rate is basically transparent. In Vegas with uncompressed AVI files I can do multiple pass MPEG-2 or make Blu-ray AVCHD's or deinterlace them - it has a great per-pixel motion vector compensated deinterlacer - its not real time and it takes forever, but the results are stunning. I just wish I knew where to get plug-ins for Vegas for filters to reduce NTSC comb filter artifacts on programs that were pre-combed poorly and recombined and have dot crawl 'burned into' the image. Olivia In Comcert on LaserDisc is an example of such a disc.

Elviscaprice; How much is Premiere with the Neat Video add on? I'd like something that can reduce disc luma and chroma noise without smearing or destroying the image but I'm quite limited on funds.

You can get the Neat Video add on for $50 they have one for your vegas software or else definitely for stand alone. Otherwise the Premiere 6.0 is over a grand without any previous version key upgrade ability which then would run about $300. wink wink

http://www.neatvideo.com/

I don't know, that Neat Video plug in works great for noise with a periodic pattern, is fantastic on VHS captures lossless. Sometimes I can goose out a better picture with many already compressed videos but it's limited in effectiveness. For your issues of chroma and luma noise it is limited, just depends on the pattern. Sometimes it works well on compressed artifacts, especially in the blacks. It's really a hit and miss plug in but overall I find it invaluable and many times over worth the $50 for the home plug in. It will soften the image somewhat, so getting the sharpest capture is huge. But you can also use the software to sharpen the image after your done building the profile.
Prepares the lossless analogue capture perfectly for a DVD or BR compression. Makes a huge difference with or without when viewing on a digital television from the computer HDMI.

One other thing we didn't cover is the sound capture. I can't recommend enough a separate capture, when available, of the digital sound through a DAC into Audacity. Then match up the analogue capture to the digital capture and replace (having normalized the sound). Even for VHS/LD, to capture the analogue sound with the separate DAC into Audacity digital makes a huge difference in quality.