Yep, just bought it to Donberg !
And found a genuine test remote GGF1067 on ebay too

I managed to clip the resistor out myself. No longer getting the weird dark video, but colours seem off. Found VR482, but I'm unsure about how to adjust it... It's in a pretty tough to reach spot. Would have to take it all apart to do it... but then how can you adjust it without it being turned on?

Edit: Going to try and work this out with my colleague. I'm just no good at this sort of thing.
He says he might have time tomorrow.

Ok, so here's what I have before adjusting the VR482:

Modded output on left, original untouched output on right





I'm not sure if this is similar to what jamski68 was experiencing or not. I do find it rather strange, as some of the colours, like red and blue, appear to be fine, but the colours around green are wrong and white is faded.

Would VR482 fix this?

My colleague suggested that before touching VR482, we should attempt adjusting it on the mod itself, as he thinks (and I tend to agree) that we should not touch VR482, in case I ever want to undo the mod and retain the original output.

I tried adjusting the video level on the capture card, but the Y only seems to darken or brighten the video and the Chroma either saturates or de-saturates the colours. What do you guys think? Would VR482 do the trick or did something else go wrong here?

Just a quick update. My colleague told me he had some time to look at it again today, and I think he nailed it! That is to say that he managed to fix the video entirely on the mod, so we didn't have to touch anything on the original board. Judging by the output on the really crappy mini TV they had there, it appears to be better than stock. I'll still have to fine-tune it a bit before capture, but I don't have time for that tonight. Hopefully I'll have something for you guys tomorrow.

Ok, new problem... There's more noise on the modded output. I believe we need to ground it, but unfortunately, my brother has my toolkit, so I can't do it atm. Going to ask him when he'll be able to bring it back to me.

Aside from the noise, there appears to be an improvement on the colour (most noticeably green) and sharpness of the image.

Alright guys, I managed to ground the modded output.

Here are the comparison shots. Please note that they are NOT the same exact frames being compared as I did not go to the trouble of perfectly aligning the frame numbers. Either way, you still get a good idea about how this mod improves the image. This is not the native resolution, as I increased the size of the original capture (lossless) and the size of my capture app in order to be able to make a better comparison by eye.

Top is modded output, bottom is original output:
















Here's a 300% zoom - Left is mod, right is original

Damn I guess I need glasses now.
Does anybody else see a difference between the two???
Sorry I can't see much, the red in the one pic looks to have slightly less noise in the original before mod was done but that's about all
I can tell.

To me, the modded version seems to have quite a bit less color noise to me, and the clarity of the vertical lines is greatly improved (the crap comb filter on PALB is definitely interfering with them - makes it look like the TBC is bad!) It should be noticeable with regular movie LD's as well

What changes were made from the reference circuit? Got an updated schematic? I've always meant to build one of these (I think it'd help players like the CLD-D606 as well), but never got around to it...

I guess I need glasses
I see a little difference with zoom but not much, I guess enough if it bothers you but I wouldn't be able to tell

Actually, my colleague did inform me that he would provide an updated schematic so that I could share it on here. I don't want to rush him though, so I can't say when I'll have it for you. Sorry!

Maybe it’s my eyes or maybe screenshots don’t transfer well; I can’t see a difference.

Sorry

I think I see it more in those last two zoomed pics.
But if you have to get that close is it really worth the risk?

I can see it. I’d imagine in motion it’s way more visable. Static color noise is just...texture. When it’s moving it’s another story.

The difference is very subtle, but it's there, especially on the finer details like the smaller kanji on the credits here. I think it's slightly sharper and more detailed on the mod (left). The original output tends to smudge those details a bit.




Another thing that I've noticed, which is not so great, is that solid reds appear to have more noise on the modded output. I'm not sure if this has to do with the video level perhaps being too high, or if the higher sharpness/detail of the modded out is simply making the defects in the video more obvious. I'm also wondering if perhaps I didn't properly ground the output... Hmmm...




I've only tested out this one LaserDisc, but I plan on trying out some of my other discs when I have more time.

Here are a few more screenshots, in case you're interested, though I'm finding it extremely hard to see any different between them, aside from the slight colour difference.

The second picture looks like phase errors to me (and I see them a little bit in the original shot as well). The 2950 has an analog TBC, so even with this mod in some ways it's still not as good as the NTSC-only 503/70x players.

A capture system more specialized in doing composite captures might help here, I'd be surprised if they spent much time on it with your card

Phase errors? Heheh, I don't know much about these things... and I had to google what TBC was, lol.

As for my capture card, it's a Decklink 4k Extreme 12G. I doubt they have any sort of processing at all - I think it just captures the raw image.

Either way, these were just direct captures, so you guys could see the raw footage. For proper capture, I plan on running the player through my ADV7842-7511 eval board, which will then connect to a Lumagen Radiance Pro, then to my capture card. Not sure if any of that will be able to help with the phase errors.

Phase errors are when the time base corrector is slightly off, causing the colors to wind up a bit off.

And that's an impressive capture chain, definitely worth doing the mod for! (As long as the phase offset is the same in the color burst, it'll correct it.)