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 Post subject: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 22 Jan 2021, 22:42 
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Did the 1995 revisions of both the LX-900 and LX-H670 add AC-3 support? When I capture movies with the optical audio which I'm assuming is AC-3 because when I check it in MediaInfo it tells me my capture has AC-3 audio in it. I thought these two players aren't suppose to have AC-3 support? Also, even many cheesy horror movies seem to support Optical Audio. I thought I was lead to believe AC-3 or Optical Audio was not common on laserdiscs. Many laserdiscs in my collection support AC-3 or Optical. Not all of them tho. Sometimes I have to go back to the red and white audio cord. However, more than I expected do support AC-3. And I definitely notice an improvement in Audio with AC-3.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 22 Jan 2021, 23:00 
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No...., they don’t :crazy:.

If you don’t see an RCA jack on the back of your players that spells out “AC-3 RF Out”, you don’t have AC-3 (Dolby Digital). Optical and sometimes Coaxial Digital outs are common on many LD players and they only push out PCM or DTS depending on the disc.

And as Muzer stated below, you would also need an AC-3 RF Demodulator along with an AC-3 RF equipped player to extract the Dolby Digital 5.1 mix.


Last edited by ldfan on 28 Jan 2021, 08:51, edited 4 times in total.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 22 Jan 2021, 23:04 
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To my knowledge no player has an AC-3 demodulator inside it, so therefore no player can output AC-3 directly over optical. With the exception of DTS discs which are not too common and very clearly marketed as such, most discs from around the mid-80s onwards will have PCM digital audio to the same standards as audio CDs. This is very high quality audio, but is only stereo. The main thing that AC-3 adds is 5.1 surround. AC-3 is stored in one of the two analogue audio tracks on discs that have it (discs from about the early-to-mid 90s onwards), and needs an external demodulator to decode it which is nowadays obsolete (nothing else besides LaserDisc encoded AC-3 in this form) - these were somewhat common in amplifiers at the time, but nowadays the easiest (albeit not the cheapest) way to decode it is with a standalone demodulator. Players made before the early-to-mid 90s won't have an AC-3 output, but many of them can easily be modified to add one. But as I said, to my knowledge to player has the ability to decode this AC-3 track directly, so no player will output it through the digital optical port.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 22 Jan 2021, 23:36 
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No mate, no ac-3 on digital coax or optical. Pcm and dts only.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 22 Jan 2021, 23:42 
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muzer wrote:
To my knowledge no player has an AC-3 demodulator inside it, so therefore no player can output AC-3 directly over optical.


Well... definitely not a factory player but.....

Modified Pioneer CLD-D701 w/ an internal AC3-RF Demodulator



I’m always having fun modding stuff :thumbup:
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2021, 00:06 
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ldfan wrote:
muzer wrote:
To my knowledge no player has an AC-3 demodulator inside it, so therefore no player can output AC-3 directly over optical.


Well... definitely not a factory player but.....

Modified Pioneer CLD-D701 w/ an internal AC3-RF Demodulator



I’m always having fun modding stuff :thumbup:

Very nice! I stand technically corrected (though since you seem to have used coax for the S/PDIF signal my statement about optical is still technically correct ;) )

Are those boards custom or are they out of something else?
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2021, 00:14 
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Is this a turtle bay headphone deal again?
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2021, 00:28 
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muzer wrote:
Very nice! I stand technically corrected (though since you seem to have used coax for the S/PDIF signal my statement about optical is still technically correct ;) )

Are those boards custom or are they out of something else?


Yeah.... should have mentioned that as well. I could have created an optical out but it’s harder to make a square hole :lol:.

And yes, the RF Demodulator is made by a company called Sample Rate Systems who I don’t think is in business anymore. Not sure why they made this board but it must have been for custom applications since I have never seen anything exactly like it in a factory AV Receiver, Processor, or standalone RF Demodulator box. The AC-3 RF board was made by BDE Electronics.


rein-o wrote:
Is this a turtle bay headphone deal again?


I hope not :? :lol:


Last edited by ldfan on 23 Jan 2021, 00:32, edited 1 time in total.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2021, 00:29 
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There was a company, as mentioned aboce, that made a board you could install internally to demodulate the AC-3 RF but you had to have a separate output as there was no switching between the AC-3 and PCM bitstreams, it took two inputs on your receiver/processor. I've only worked on one unit that had this installed. I believe that there was some type of lawyer pressure from Dolby that quickly ended the sales of these so not many made it to the market.

This was never stock in any laserdisc player.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2021, 03:00 
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rein-o wrote:
Is this a turtle bay headphone deal again?


They must at least know each other.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2021, 03:03 
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jesuslovesgood wrote:
So skimming through this topic I gather it is not real AC3 but fake AC3? Media Info is identifying as 384kb or 364kb with 48h and calling it AC3. I can't give the exact specifications right now because my computer is currently capturing another laserdisc. MediaInfo which I don't know how accurate it is calling it AC3 audio when I capture the Audio with Spdif or whatever it's called which is the Optical Audio. Optical Audio is not real AC3 audio so what it's picking up is not AC3? Even if it's fake AC3 or whatever this audio format that is being incorrectly identified in MediaInfo it sure does sound better than red, white cords. I do prefer the optical audio over the red and white but some movies don't like the optical audio. I can take a snapshot of it around 10pm after my capture is done. So around 10:05 or 10:10pm EST I can show you what MediaInfo is claiming about the capture. MediaInfo is calling it AC3. Maybe the capture device I'm using Hauppauge is making it fake AC3?


Nothing is “fake”. You just don’t have AC3. Your player won’t do Dolby Digital. We are %100 sure about this, question whatever the heck MediaInfo is.

Also, please do not “skim” a thread that multiple people spent actual time correctly writing for your benefit. It shows no respect for the effort they donated to you.

LD audio is a little confusing when someone first sees a later player but it took time to get that way.

1980:

Introduction, analog stereo from analog outs. Most discs retain the matrixed Dolby Surround from theatrical versions.

Digital Sound is added, now there are two soundtracks to choose from, only analog outs.

Digital outs start to show up giving you raw PCM of the Digital track from a digital out (SPDIF or TOSLINK, it varies). Analog outs will still do analog or Digital tracks.

Theaters start to get Dolby Digital movies. Pioneer figures out a way to squeeze DD onto the disc sacrificing only one of the analog soundtracks. Now users can use the standard Dolby Surround or Dolby Digital 5.1 if they have a RF demodulator.

DTS debuts in theaters, to fit this much higher quality 5.1 signal on an LD it takes the place of the normal Digital track meaning that the disc only has Dolby Surround on the analogs.

LD ends.

2000
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 23 Jan 2021, 05:02 
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jesuslovesgood wrote:
So skimming through this topic I gather it is not real AC3 but fake AC3? Media Info is identifying as 384kb or 364kb with 48h and calling it AC3.


Looking at the attachments you had posted before they were removed, I think I now understand why you are so confused about this AC3 coding. Based on what I am seeing, you are trying to capture audio from your LD player and having the encoding software choose what "codec" to encode for recording. In this case, you are utlizing Dolby Digital (AC-3) in a two channel mode and encoding at 384 kilobits per second / 48khz sampling. So that is simply it; you're re-encoding PCM 2.0 audio to lower quality Dolby Digital 2.0. You could actually make (if your program allows it) an exact one for one PCM to PCM copy of the audio from the optical out of the player but you will be using a lot more data to make it work (but it would sound better than DD 2.0)



jesuslovesgood wrote:
I do prefer the optical audio over the red and white but some movies don't like the optical audio.


Why would a movie not like the optical audio? That makes no sense.

The reason you are not getting any sound out of the optical out is because you are playing an "analog audio only" LD (which means there is no available PCM track to output on the optical out and thus it will be mute). And when you're trying to capture audio from the L+R outputs, you’ll also notice you’re still encoding in DD 2.0 based on your encoding software. In any case, sound quality with DD 2.0 will be fine for capturing the analog tracks on LD since they are less dynamic vs the PCM tracks.


Last edited by ldfan on 28 Jan 2021, 21:56, edited 16 times in total.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 24 Jan 2021, 00:01 
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ldfan wrote:
muzer wrote:
To my knowledge no player has an AC-3 demodulator inside it, so therefore no player can output AC-3 directly over optical.


Well... definitely not a factory player but.....

Actually, I thought so as well until today. I was looking through Stereo Review's 1998 Buyers guide and MSB sold players with demodulators inside. I guess technically these aren't factory players though.


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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 24 Jan 2021, 01:20 
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cplusplus wrote:
Actually, I thought so as well until today. I was looking through Stereo Review's 1998 Buyers guide and MSB sold players with demodulators inside. I guess technically these aren't factory players though.



I remember this as well so in that case we could say that counts as a factory player since it would be sold through an official retail channel.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 24 Jan 2021, 09:55 
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cplusplus wrote:
Actually, I thought so as well until today. I was looking through Stereo Review's 1998 Buyers guide and MSB sold players with demodulators inside. I guess technically these aren't factory players though.


Interesting...

So I should give a provision in the Hardware Database for both AC3-RF output (the usual one) and AC3 output (already converted to bitstream).

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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 24 Jan 2021, 18:28 
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I would actually wait.

My reasoning for it is that even if it has been stated that a MSB player had the option to have the Demodulator built in, it’s amazing that no one can find even a picture of it (especially a back panel or internal image of the player).

I just want to see proof that it was done.


Last edited by ldfan on 29 Jan 2021, 01:06, edited 2 times in total.
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 Post subject: Re: Do my Panasonic Players have AC-3? I believe they do.
PostPosted: 24 Jan 2021, 19:06 
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ldfan wrote:
I would actually wait.

Agreed, however elahrairrah did post here that one was seen for sale online: MSB LS2 Gold

elahrairrah do you recall what website or company this was? We might be able to take a look via the Wayback Machine.
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