My laserdisc player still works great!

Bummer man, I know exactly how you feel.

 

I never even knew what they were before reading about it here. My dad always thought they were records with movies on them. I saw "Heat" on LD at my local used music store and my feelings were that it was just a giant DVD.

We had VHS here in my parents' house up until about the year 2000 when DVD's and DVD players started becoming the norm.

 

I first purchased a Pioneer LD model that also had a multi-disc CD changer back in 1993. I only made the leap into LD because I moved to a neighborhood in Los Angeles that had a large dedicated Laserdisc store that rented titles. I recall my first major purchase was the Godfather Trilogy, Coppola's special chronological edit of I and II that he had done for TV plus Godfather III for $199!

When that died in 1999 I bought the DVL-919 so I could also play DVD, in addition it was a fine CD player. I still have it and it gets occasional use only for LD.

There was a bad design flaw in this unit affecting it's two sided auto play. After changing to side 2,about 3 to 5 minutes in the video gets stuck, repeating the same 5-10 seconds over and over. You can speed it forward a bit to continue, but there's a zone within those first few minutes on the disc that this affects so it's quite irritating. I had it repaired twice, but it always reverted back to the skipping after a short time. Several years later I came upon the site of a Northern California LD used sales and repair place. The guy there responded to my inquiry with a detailed note about the reason for the skipping and with the news that it could never be repaired with Pioneer parts as it was an inherent design flaw. He had his own fix for it with parts he designed, but it was something like $500 plus shipping both ways, just not worth it. If I play an LD these days I just make sure to stop the disc after side 1 and manually flip it over for side 2, that way I don't have to deal with the skipping, or more likely my youngest kids don't because LD is the format I own much if the classic Disney animated films on, all purchased when my teenage daughter was young.

 

PLD-509 is surely not the Laser Disc player? Here's a list of Pioneer Laser Disc players:

Thanks - Mine is the CLD-301.

 

I still have VHS too. And a DVD recorder. I dub VHS-C mini cassettes to DVDR of old videos of my children I shot, it is excellent. Plus I still have The Cure In Orange VHS concert video!!!

 

My laser disc players have outlasted several good VHS decks that's for sure. I'm happy about music server technology arriving on the scene and including advanced video file playback. I will recapture all of my laserdiscs, and drop the resulting files into a server file format resting place. No transfer to DVD at all. That is why I don't mind the redo on some of my programming. The VHS to digital drops I'll rip to ISO from the DVD-Rs already done. But the lasers which are not that many I can redo. I never thought I would get around to doing some of the drops from LD I had on my list to do, but now that DVD-R is out of the equation, the whole process is less a pain, I can face it.

I have many Japanese concert discs and a bunch of those early Pioneer Artist operas which are Japanese pressings as well. How much you wanna bet that these discs are showing no rot. No rot even after 30 years for some of them! They might actually look better captured to digital but not encoded to DVD-R. That's my thinking.

 

Do a lossless capture 8 bit on your most prized ones. Makes any processing work later that much more effective. The files will be huge, but well worth it. Also make sure to record any digital audio files separately and properly, redbook.

 

Thanks for ideas and encouragement. I would likely be capturing audio 16/48 or 24/48 which is better than red book spec.

I got the idea to use H.264 as delivery file format from another member.

And I have done a lot of laser drops, not new to it except my efforts to have higher quality than DVD is the only thing that is new.

 

I have the Panasonic LX-900. It's the one I have in my editing suite for capture, editing, and encoding. I've mentioned it previously that I captured with the Canopus ADVC-500 device. That A-D converter cost me $1,700 new ten years ago.

Anyway that combo is about as good as it ever got for LD capture to DV. I can bump contrast, saturation, brightness, etc at capture. You suggested not using the s-video, but rather the composite RCA for best picture from LD. I'm still torn, but have not A-B'd each against each other.

Anyway, lots of fun still. And I'm glad I grabbed some music material that did not get issued again later. And I am happy one of my players is a known winner too.

 

Analog sound, fine, treat it like a vinyl album and record for headroom. But digital is redbook on LD, so capture as bit perfect as possible at 16/44.1. For picture, don't worry about the file format you compress to later, for now just capture in as big of a sample rate as possible.

 

DV is not a good codec to capture with. Better to use lossless NTSC 8 bit or even 10. That Canopus is way out of date. There are much better capture devices today, try with something like a Black Magic Intensity Hub or Shuttle. They are only a couple hundred bucks or so.

 

As far as to whether to use the composite or S-video out of your LD player depends on the quality of the digital comb filter. If the LD player has a superior comb filter, use S-video. If you use a pass thru device with a better 3D comb filter, then use the composite.
Yes, I believe that LD player you have does have a good comb filter, so use the S-video.

 

I agree that lossless is great. But I am told DV or AVI is fine because the quality of LD just never rises enough to get that concerned. And I do no post work on the picture other than add black for 5 seconds. Fade in, cut sides into their own file (if the program is long), and fade out. Not a lot going on once it's captured. And disc space is still a concern as is money. I'm spending elsewhere at the moment.

I'll see how it looks and compare to original LD as it plays and decide if it's happening or not.

 

Here ya, whatever works for you. Myself, I like to capture as high of a sample rate as possible in analog picture. Later when I go to do processing work, it's just that much easier and cleaner to get a fantastic final digital picture in whatever format/codec I choose. Also I will have stored that original capture, so that later I can go back and rework the video over time when my skills/knowledge improve, just like vinyl.

 

I have Yes QPR, Heads - Stop Making Sense, AHDN on Criterion., several Paul Weller related concerts. I have one disc of Delicate Sound of thunder because it was in a player I bought used. I have Let it Be too! And then all those Pioneer Artists titles some Jazz. But most Classical and Opera. Did you know Werner Herzog directed an Opera on Pioneer Artists label? Yeah, I can't wait to stream it

 

It all makes sense yes. The only real work I need to do to a film is use the LD for 95% of the picture, but use the sound track from a VHS tape for about 30%. I have a Vestron disc with rot that really only effects the sound rather than the picture for 30% of the film. Picture is effected for only last 5 min. Of one side.

So I am going in to do the surgery combining the two sources to make a good program. Rare film that never got a DVD release. Tapes and LDs are both rare and showing age. I can use most of the LD for the picture, that is the good news. Ready for the bad news? The soundtrack on the VHS tape is not in Hi-Fi. It's a factory tape pre-1984 in mono. Hope I can get a soundtrack out of it.

 

It's common for rot to attack the analog sound track first, or at least most notable. Might be just as easy to search for another LD copy first, unless it's that rare. I don't think your going to be happy with the VHS mono sound track.

 

On another note, I'm still looking to borrow or buy a PAL player to do a transfer of 3 PAL ld's. Needs to be capable in both digital and analog sound. Just get's so darn unreasonable to ship from overseas. If I was making a trip there to PAL land, I'd pick one up. I'm in the States during the summer months.

 

It's mono on the LD as well. It really depends on how far a drop in quality happens at the edit mark. Other copies of this disc are going to be rotting as well. Vestron were likely pressed by MCA during the Discovisiom era. Entire run of this title is going to be effected. Mine at least has a good picture except for the last 5 min of one side.

What video titles have you worked on capturing A to D?

 

Are PAL players as common in the UK as NTSC players are in the US?

 

No, the market penetration was almost nil in Europe. Whereas in the US, I believe it may have been 1 to 2 percent. Japan was about 10 percent.
Most of the European players played both PAL and NTSC.

In a posting of mine on this thread here I list about 50 musical laserdiscs I've done transfers on. I'm specifically into certain genres, mostly promo videos along with some live. I've pretty much have all the LD material transferred and sold off the LD's that I'm ever going to want.
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...at-never-made-it-to-dvd-blu-ray.345303/page-8

 

I did an edit of the Mad Dogs & Englishmen film back several years ago. I cut that film down to the concert and music footage only. That cut is still on HDD waiting for me to do something with it.

Ever seen that film with Joe Cocker and Leon Russel? It's pretty great for the concert material, but really drags during the remaining candid shots. It really needed my delicate hatchet job all through it. LOL!

My cut is 64min, I think I got rid of 35 min. from it.

 

I had my DVL-91 until earlier two months ago, but I hadn't played a movie on it in 5 years - either LD or DVD. So it finally went.

 

I've not done any real LD capture work in the last five years. I got uninspired with it all. But now with servers and movies on iPhones I'm thinking it's about time to do some projects. One can capture while you are sleeping or out of the house and come back and capture another. Then do the sit down work later which won't be too much effort since like I said earlier, no DVD-R in the chain is a nice thing to be done with.

 

I'm a pack rat when it comes to electronics. I always think I will use things later and I tend to save everything. I've saved laser discs on Criterion just because they are on that label. If there is a good DVD of the title, then those are worthless LDs, but I can't dump them. I will likely do a Criterion LD lot on eBay and get $4 a disc on a good day.