LASER CED VHD Disc Guide: The Forgotten Jog Shuttle Dial

[wclem]

Thats it, you may as well taken a pic of mine LOL.

I was wondering do you have any titles you are looking for, sort of your white whale? I know I want Tron, thought it would be awesome, but have yet to see it.

Those digital ports are intriguing to me, but I have nothing to hook em to. I was thinking they were for karoake machines or something.

[CRTGAMER]

Thats it, you may as well taken a pic of mine LOL.

I was wondering do you have any titles you are looking for, sort of your white whale? I know I want Tron, thought it would be awesome, but have yet to see it.

Those digital ports are intriguing to me, but I have nothing to hook em to. I was thinking they were for karoake machines or something.

Can you post a better closeup pic of all the connections? I really can't tell from the screen grab and guessed at the Optical audio square port.

My best finds on Laser disc include the Arcade Dragons Lairs Disc and various Imports. Any discs that utilize the features of Frame Search such as the Space Archive series are also good. I have Tron on Laser and it is great to be able to do a rock solid slowdown forward and backwards of the video, the best feature of a Laser Disc. Video quality is better on DVDs and Blue Ray, the Laser wins in the interactive controls.

[Jamisonia]

Its cool to have a DVD/LD combo Laserdisc player, but they're not much more than a novelty. Like the LD archive states, they remove LD features, and you will find the DVD playback is limited compared to newer DVD players. The DVD parts are buggy, slow at loading, and have issues playing some discs. I have a Pioneer DVL-V888 which their top of the line karaoke player, it can play LD, VCD, CD+G, and DVDs. I have an issue watching a few commercial DVDs on them like Nightmare in Elm Street. Point is do not buy a combo unit because you think it will replace either a dedicated DVD player or a dedicated LD player. $45 is a good deal, but this player is more of a novelty like the LD-W1. When it comes to Laserdisc, every deviation from playing Laserdiscs resulted in a compromise. This is evidenced by how the best LD players in the world, the HLD-X0 and HLD-X9 do not even play CDs. To get the best LD quality it required making a system that was designed only to play Laserdisc. However you will find that the DVD side of the player is very limited. This is true because these were some of the first DVD players.

If you're getting into LD, I feel like you want to maximum that experience. A combo unit will not do that. A combo unit is a compromise, and ultimately you get a mediocre LD player, and a mediocre DVD player that are attached.


The digital connections are to pipe digital sound directly into a receiver. There are three. A digital optical port. These are common on LD players, you will need a toslink cable to connect to your receiver. The second is a digital Coaxial port. These function the same as digital optical ports, however; you can use standard RCA cables to connect to your receiver. These were more common on DVD players. Finally you have an AC3 RF port. These are found exclusively on LaserDisc players. This is how you get Dolby Digital out of a LaserDisc. To use this port you need an AC3 RF Demodulator.

If you do not have an Audio Video Receiver then these ports need not concern you. You can simply connect the red and white stereo cables however you wish and enjoy analog stereo sound. However, you won't be experiencing the full audio capability of either format, which is a shame since LaserDisc audio often outperforms its DVD counterpart. I can provide you will a much more thorough overview of LD and DVD audio if you wish, but I didn't want to confuse you.

[ApolloBoy]

A combo unit will not do that. A combo unit is a compromise, and ultimately you get a mediocre LD player, and a mediocre DVD player that are attached.

I happen to have a DVL-700, the first LD/DVD combo player that Pioneer put out. I've had it for almost a year and I have to say that I'm quite pleased with it. The DVD player hasn't really given me problems save for a DVD that happened to be fairly scratched up to begin with, and as for LDs, it's a huge step-up from the LD-V2200 that was my first LD player, which practically had no features and was as basic as you could get. I certainly don't feel like combo players are a "compromise".

[Jamisonia]

A combo unit will not do that. A combo unit is a compromise, and ultimately you get a mediocre LD player, and a mediocre DVD player that are attached.

I happen to have a DVL-700, the first LD/DVD combo player that Pioneer put out. I've had it for almost a year and I have to say that I'm quite pleased with it. The DVD player hasn't really given me problems save for a DVD that happened to be fairly scratched up to begin with, and as for LDs, it's a huge step-up from the LD-V2200 that was my first LD player, which practically had no features and was as basic as you could get. I certainly don't feel like combo players are a "compromise".

Well they are. They drop features that are common in higher end LaserDisc players, and they lack features common in a lot of DVD players. There are lacking in even more features when compared to the current generation of upconverting DVD players. The fact is the DVD/LD combi units are priced comparably to full featured, and better LD players. Obviously a DVD/LD combi unit compared to a very basic LD player the combi will when, but thats not really comparing apples to apples. Combi units were intended for those who owned higher end LD players, looking to get into DVD. From today's perspective which DVD players being common are more featured, if one wants to get into LD it makes sense for them to seek out the full LD experience, that just can't be had with a combi unit.

The biggest way in which combi units are a compromise is that Pioneer literally has to compromise LD features in order to put in a DVD player. LDs analog FM nature is going to benefit from the most dedication possible, evidenced by the best LD players the HLD-X0 and X9 only play LaserDiscs, not even CDs. In order for Pioneer to achieve the best results possible, they had to make the player for LD from the ground up. The combi DVD/LD players have a worse signal to noise ratio than their counterparts. Thats a fact.

You may be pleased with your DVL-700 but you will find that a D704, CLD-99, or CLD-97 which provide you with more features, a better picture, and better analog sound.

At very least, think of it this way. In order to connect your combi unit to the fullest, you still have to connect it close to the same number of times as two separate units. The best video option out of the vast majority of LD Players (CLD-99, HLD-X0, X9 excepted) is going to be composite. So you connect that from your combi to your TV. Okay, well composite sort of sucks for DVD, so you want to connect it component (if your Combi player has component, not all of them do, a glaring feature to be missing since most DVD players have them). Okay so to watch LDs your combi player is connect composite, and to watch DVDs your combi player is connected component. Same as if you were using two separate devices.

Okay now lets connect our audio. Okay to be able to access all the audio on an LD you have connect your player 3 ways. You have to connect the analog audio outputs so you can listen to those older LDs that don't have digital sound. Okay you need to connect your digital audio cable so you can access those stereo PCM digital audio tracks, and the DTS tracks. Finally you need to connect your AC3 RF output to your AC3 demodulator so you can get Dolby Digital. Here we do gain a benefit from the combi because you don't have to connect anything more to get the best sound out of DVD. You have it connected digitally and thats all that is required. In a separate player setup you would have to connect the DVD player digitally on its own. So having a combi saves you one connection. Thats damn close to just having two players. And this combination loses you signal to noise ratio, features on both sides. Not worth it in my opinion.

[vlame]

So I picked up a bunch of laserdiscs. If Would you be interested in some pm me. They can go media mail.

http://www.lddb.com/collection.php?acti ... ng&max=999

i also come bearing gifts!!!
found this in my copy of true lies.

[CRTGAMER]

So I picked up a bunch of laserdiscs. If Would you be interested in some pm me. They can go media mail.

http://www.lddb.com/collection.php?acti ... ng&max=999

i also come bearing gifts!!!
found this in my copy of true lies.

Very nice description of AC-3 Audio. Thankyou! I copied and enclosed an Attachment in case photobucket takes it away.

Right click to view the full image

Laser Disc AC3 Information.jpg (180.16 KiB) Viewed 4534 times

Thanks for posting your list. Sorry, none caught my eye. In honesty, some of the Laser Discs I own such as Aliens, Dark Crystal and Goonies I repurchased on DVD. Laser is very nice for the Jog Shuttle, but DVD kicks up the resolution.

I see now why you don't want to part with Bambi, you have the two disc 55th Anniversary Limited Edition. I have just the single disc of that one, also have other Disney Classic Animation movies that I would not part with. My favorite is Robin Hood, the voice characterization is well done, especially the two vultures.

I noticed you have 2010, if you ever find the Criterion 2001 laser disc grab it! It has a ton of still photos that can be individual frame searched, a unique capability of the Laser Disc player.

1953 War of the Worlds is pretty good too, One of the 50s SciFis to own. There is actual footage to the flying wing preceding the modern Stealth Bomber towards the end. Also at the end you can see a radio announcer who has done many a voice over back in the day. Hard to describe but any Film Noir buff will recognize his voice. Now I want to pop the disc back in and find out more about him.

[vlame]

they had 2001 criterion for 4-8$ lol. :/

[ApolloBoy]

Okay now lets connect our audio. Okay to be able to access all the audio on an LD you have connect your player 3 ways. You have to connect the analog audio outputs so you can listen to those older LDs that don't have digital sound. Okay you need to connect your digital audio cable so you can access those stereo PCM digital audio tracks, and the DTS tracks. Finally you need to connect your AC3 RF output to your AC3 demodulator so you can get Dolby Digital.

None of that really matters since I have a receiver from the early 70s and I'm perfectly fine with analog audio. Honestly, I'm fine with my DVL-700 and I don't feel like blowing $$$ just to get the best LD player possible.

[Jamisonia]

Okay now lets connect our audio. Okay to be able to access all the audio on an LD you have connect your player 3 ways. You have to connect the analog audio outputs so you can listen to those older LDs that don't have digital sound. Okay you need to connect your digital audio cable so you can access those stereo PCM digital audio tracks, and the DTS tracks. Finally you need to connect your AC3 RF output to your AC3 demodulator so you can get Dolby Digital.

None of that really matters since I have a receiver from the early 70s and I'm perfectly fine with analog audio. Honestly, I'm fine with my DVL-700 and I don't feel like blowing $$$ just to get the best LD player possible.

The DVL-700 and all the combo DVD/LD players tend to sell for the same amount as the CLD-D704, which is a much better player. Also, if you ever upgrade your receiver, the Pioneer DVD/LD combo units cannot output DTS bitstreams that are on DVDs.