Any Laserdisc fans/experts (yes, old format style, not DVD) in our membership?

[radio]

Usually I'm over on the FTA, C-band and pub sides of this place.

Enjoying a used Denon LA 2100 player found at a garage sale that plays both sides of the old style 12" disc, and have found already some movies that are NOT on DVD that were on my "want list"...so the format is fun for me, and of good quality.

Looking for advice on this Denon not always playing "side b" automatically. Seems to struggle. Have not opened it up yet...nor had my station engineer do it. Suspecting that some parts need either some lube after all these years, a belt, or something new. Also told this is a "clone" of a pioneer, and that Denon did not make its own, but bought them from Pioneer or Panasonic. Tracks "A" side perfectly. Been manually flipping discs.

Any thoughts? Love finding NOS discs and good quality used ones! Kind of fun using the older formats sometimes.

 

[TNGTony]

I have the Pioneer version of this unit I bought as a floor model at the retail store I used to work at. The all had issues. My unit has the problem of turning itself off in the middle of the movie randomly. Sometimes it works great, other times it just turns off.

I gave up on laser disc the moment I hooked it up to my new HD Hitachi TV. The picture quality was AWFUL in comparison to just about everything, including S-VHS. I toyed around with it to see if I could tweak the picture, but no... that's just the way it looked.

The issue with your unit not "flipping over" is purely a mechanical one. It is most likely a problem with the track or guides being dirty or seized up. One unit that had this problem actually had the ribbon cable get caught on the track when it tried to "flip" to the other side.
Open the unit up and see if just cleaning the guides and rail will do the trick! Avoid using lubes. They only attract dirt eventually and cause it to get sticky.

 

[radio]

Thanks much! Will try this very soon and report! I was amazed at the picture quality from this unit. I think the difference is the analog rendering of video, not compressed to a small disc. I've got DVD's that don't look this good.....(given SD, of course)...but just watched "A night to remember" in black/white (about the Titanic, English version, 1950's) and it was crisp, clean, and NO pixelation of course, no digital in the pic. It came with some discs and they all look GREAT, too. I've heard of units that had varying video quality.

I'll be looking for another player in great shape, and collecting discs for fun, I'm sure! Especially movies not yet on DVD!

 

[TNGTony]

Black & White laser discs look GREAT! It's the color ones I have trouble with I am wondering if maybe I have an issue with the color burst decoder in the processing unit causing the issues I have with pure blues and reds looking "speckly". But you are right. Some B&W movies look better of LD than DVD strictly because of compression issues.

 

[jayn_j]

I still have 2 players and over 600 discs. Am slowly replacing discs with BluRay when available, but as you say, there is a fair amount that never was released in DVD.

I try to keep the players serviced. Denon used the Pioneer mechanism but took great pride in advertising that they had totally redone the signal processing with their own electronics. I believe they used the elite series mechanism.

My primary player is a Panasonic unit that has served me flawlessly since 1989. My backup is a Pioneer 1070. As you say, the Pioneer is a bit clunky in comparison.

 

[ronfelder]

Speckling in the picture is caused by laser root.This happens when the glue used to cement side a and b together ate the aluminum backing.

 

[jayn_j]

Laser rot affects B/W discs as much as color ones though. I think Tony was describing a tendency to oversaturate reds (and blues). I agree about looking at the color burst decoder, but you can probably pick up a different unit from fleabay/craigslist cheaper than fixing that one.

 

[radio]

I can't complain about the color rendition on the unit I acquired. The Denon (Pioneer?) seems great on all. I just need to fix that mechanism for side "B"...which I'm sure we will. If not, finding another unit will be "top of mind".....any experts here recommend a good A/B side capable replacement if this one fails?

There have been some writeups on 'net sites about varying degrees of color rendition and quality of picture even unit to unit of the same model. I suppose, much like a TV of the era, certain components and adjustments can affect overall quality of playback. Then, add 20-plus years to each of these units.

Still fun to own, use, and watch!

 

[jayn_j]

I can't complain about the color rendition on the unit I acquired. The Denon (Pioneer?) seems great on all. I just need to fix that mechanism for side "B"...which I'm sure we will. If not, finding another unit will be "top of mind".....any experts here recommend a good A/B side capable replacement if this one fails?

I have owned a large number of players over the years, starting with the original Magnavox gas laser unit. Paid nearly $800 for that one, and I bought it the first morning it was available in the Denver test market.

I have been extremely happy with the Panasonic LX-900U player. Rock solid and has been reliable for 20 years of regular use. Just looked on ebay, and it appears others agree as they seem to be going for $200 these days.

Pioneer was always the strongest promoter and has the widest availability of players. The best ones are the elite CLD-9X series or the LD-S1/S2, but they seem to still go for big bucks.

 

[radio]

Well, with the lid off, it hasn't skipped a beat changing sides when asked to do so. Multiple times! Will wait for the "automatic" flip at discs end of side 1and see if it still does it. Perhaps it sat a long time and the parts just need to move (more) ????? Tracking and flipping very nicely! If this keeps up, I'll look for a remote!

 

[radio]

Update, since edit not avaialble: After "sitting' it doesn't flip. Takes powering down to remove or flip the disc. Then, its back to normal operation, and repeatedly CAN do what you want. Darn. Can't be "sticking" I don't think......but something is not allowing it to go. Maybe some failing power supply that runs the motor which flips sides? Caps seem to be the demon in most older electronics!! (and some newer ones.)

 

[mike123abc]

I have a lot of laser discs, including the entire ST-TNG on them. It took DVD a long time to catch up to the picture quality of laser discs. They tend to still over compress DVDs.

 

[radio]

Looks like it's "shopping time" for another laser player. This one has a mind of its own. Sometimes opens, sometimes doesn't...sometimes flips, sometimes doesn't. It came out of hibernation much "older" than it was. A shopping we will go......

 

[jayn_j]

When you are shopping, there are several upgrade lines you should learn about. There was also a fair amount of technology upgrade that occurred, especially in the audio side.

Pioneer and others sold the mass market players in 3 series. The names varied over the years, but the most common was 10x0, 20x0 and 30x0. The 10x0 was a basic player that simply played the movie. You had to manually flip it at the hour mark. The 20x0 added auto side change. The ones you want are the 30x0 series that added a frame buffer so you could freeze and slow motion on a CLV disc.

The first players were gas laser and should be avoided. In the mid-80s, Pioneer added a digital soundtrack to the discs and I would say the players that can decode that are the minimum starting point. The last big step was in the mid-90s when Pioneer added a dolby digital track on the discs. This track was laid on top of one of the analog tracks and was decoded by using an outboard AC-3 adapter. Since this was near the intro of DVDs, there weren't a lot of these titles pressed, and the outboard adapters are even less common. I believe the first Pioneer players to have the port available was the 1/2/3090. However, adding the adapter port was pretty easy and a lot of earlier players were retrofitted. The AC-3 RF decoders are difficult to find these days, and to my knowledge, nobody ever built one in to the player. I could be wrong on that last part as I didn't pay a lot of attention to those last generation combi players.

 

[radio]

Incredible info! Found a store near me today that not only sells new and used discs, but let us look through their "used/for repair" stock of equipment the public normally doesn't see. Nice folks. Saw (3) units up there. One very GRAY Pioneer, one Pioneer was an "elite" series, and not sure of the others. Going back to see if I can buy them as-is for our engineer to repair! They may also work as bought! Thanks for the information! Is the "elite" the best, then?

 

[jayn_j]

Is the "elite" the best, then?

Yes, but...

There were two levels of elites as well. The ones you want there are the CLD-97 or 99. There was also an elite in the later D-70x series, but it is not as highly regarded. Finally, there was a lower line elite, the CLD-5X series.

I found a good article here: http://www.mindspring.com/~laserguru/askjosh.htm where the question of the best Laserdisc player is asked about halfway down the page and essentially says the same thing.

 

[mike123abc]

I have the Pioneer elite DVL-90 that does both DVDs and LDs. I have a preamp that does the AC-3 decoding.

 

[radio]

So, like our earlier FTA boxes...if one has AC-3 Audio on a disc but no decoder, one gets no audio, or is there a default track? Good info here, and thanks so much!

 

[jayn_j]

The AC-3 audio took over (only) one of the analog tracks. You would still have the digital stereo PCM tracks and an analog mono track.

 

[radio]

Thanks for all the info! Heading this week to look at a Denon 3100 (the one above the model I own) and purchased via ebay locally a (basic unit, I believe) Pioneer CLD 42400 which I hope will be a good basic no frills "workhorse" unit. Couldn't beat the price for a former school unit, appears clean, hopefully back enjoying discs this week. Local purchase means no shipping and less chance of damage!