Laserdisc rabbit hole, short lived.

jeffro67

Member
I stumbled across a pioneer cld-d504 laser disc player for $10 at gw and thought why not?
I've never had one and always have been intrigued by them so I went on ebay and bought a few dics to try it out on my 92" screen projector
After connecting it up and putting a movie in I hate to admit it but the picture is pretty bad and I could barely stand to watch it. Its a 1080p projector and hd stuff looks amazing. Also wanted to hear ac3 but those rf demodulators are $100-150 alone and considering the picture I'm gonna hold off.

I guess It has a lot to do with the resolution limits and the projector filling in the image, resulting in a blurry picture that I tried tweaking to no avail. Only $40 bucks in I don't feel that bad but I'm bummed out.
The one thing I do think is really cool is the movie selection and prices on them. They will make for a great display wall I'm building anyhow!
 
Yup. I had the same experience. I think that a lot of newer TV's have crappy comb filters so if you're using the composite video input, you're just not going to get a good picture with old video sources.
 
The type of display used can make a big difference with LDs. Projectors in particular don't do well unless you have some sort of scaler, but I'm guessing you don't want to go that route.

The player also has something to do with it. A CLD-D504 is a middle-of-the-road player that won't give you the best results. The individual disc might be less than optimal, too.

Your best results might be to watch stuff on another display, if you have one. Many discs look quite good on my 44" DLP, which is only 720P (using my CLD-D704).

Cheers,
Larry B.
 
Last edited:
I stumbled across a pioneer cld-d504 laser disc player for $10 at gw and thought why not?
I've never had one and always have been intrigued by them so I went on ebay and bought a few dics to try it out on my 92" screen projector
After connecting it up and putting a movie in I hate to admit it but the picture is pretty bad and I could barely stand to watch it. Its a 1080p projector and hd stuff looks amazing. Also wanted to hear ac3 but those rf demodulators are $100-150 alone and considering the picture I'm gonna hold off.

I guess It has a lot to do with the resolution limits and the projector filling in the image, resulting in a blurry picture that I tried tweaking to no avail. Only $40 bucks in I don't feel that bad but I'm bummed out.
The one thing I do think is really cool is the movie selection and prices on them. They will make for a great display wall I'm building anyhow!

Does your projector upscale the composite input?
 
Last edited:
I initially ran the composite video from the ld to an onkyo tx-sr608 receiver which converts it to an hdmi output, then I ran the composite video directly into the projectors composite video input to compare(no real improvement)
I was using a thx/ac3 version of top gun as the movie assuming the video should be as good as it gets from an ld.
The projector is an Epson 3020, not sure if it upscales or not?
 
I had a Pioneer CLD-M90 and it had a great picture as long as you used 720p resolution and a Pioneer AVR, quite spectacular in fact. Replaced it with a Pioneer DV-C302D because of all the classic sixties sitcoms on DVD.
 
I initially ran the composite video from the ld to an onkyo tx-sr608 receiver which converts it to an hdmi output, then I ran the composite video directly into the projectors composite video input to compare(no real improvement)

The projector is an Epson 3020, not sure if it upscales or not?

Connecting the LD player to the composite video input, according to the Onkyo manual, you can display it from the HDMI out but it's not upscaled. Probably the same thing connecting directly to the composite input on the projector.
 
If your projector or television is 1080P, isn't it automatically upconverting/upscaling any 480, 720 or other lower resolution to 1080? I mean, you may not like what its done to 'fill in the blanks', but I believe it is still 1080. If the AV receiver/Pre-Pro isn't doing it, then the projector and/or television will do the upconverting.
 
I believe that is generally correct. A fixed pixel display (or projector) will automatically scale to its native resolution, unless you have a 1:1 pixel mapping mode available and turned on. If that is the case, it should attempt to display at the resolution of the incoming signal whatever it may be.
 
Last edited:
A great Laser disc played on my 919 Pioneer combo player up scaled to 1080 p isn't half bad when you increase the contrast and make some adjust ments. Is it a 480 dvd, no, is it a 1080P blu ray, Hell NO. The sound with a good decoder and the right source is ever bit s good as whats on a dvd. Movies like Sound of Music, Star Wars, and concerts from performers of the time the sound is superb. The only reason I still keep the laster players is to listen to the 30 or so sound tracks of performances not available on the small disc. I also have some live classical performances I keep the player for. But one of these days I'll dub them to DVD and be done with it. Yes I have a professional DVD recorder.

8-6-17 We'll I'm down to 8 laser discs, and have two replacements on order in DVD blu-ray format. That leaves 6 to go. Then the RFD2 and the 919 will be history. I may save a disc or two just to show folks for the immediate future.
 
Last edited:
The only reason I keep LDs around these days is for the cover art. They are the LPs of the video world with the one exception being they will never come back. The last LD I bought was a Japanese release of Star Wars Episode One which is as disappointing as the movie.
 
Unless you have a CRT based display or a good upscaler; LD isn't worth it anymore. Just send 'em my way. :D

But in all seriousness; if you want to get serious just invest in some good external video hardware. The Key Digital iSync HD...while old...did a fantastic job of upscaling the LD's analog signal to a 1080p signal that looked just as good as native 480i viewing. I had an Onkyo AVR that had Qdeo video processing in it; that did a fantastic job even with it's sub-par video digitization.
 
And one of those Pioneer/Marantz players... I think I remember the TOTL Marantz and Pioneer were the same thing just re-badged or something. I forget what they had in common, but generally the Marantz were regarded as the best even though I think the Pioneer were exactly the same. I could be wrong though, it was a long long time ago.
 
I used to think the same thing, but, as it turns out the Marantz players were only mid-level Pioneers, not their better ones. The last model Marantz sold was the LV-520, which was essentially identical to the Pioneer CLD-D504 - far from Pio's best. Kind of disappointing.

Cheers,
Larry B.
 
I have only owned 4 players over the years. The original upscaled player when LD was introduced/ Then came the CLD 91, then the CLP 93 and finally 919 combo player. As much as I loved the CLd 93, for a lot less money the 919 does as well if not better.
 
I think the native resolution and display type has a lot to do with how these old formats look. I recently played with some DVD players with component video connection to my 1080p TV, and it looked terrible. Much worse than I remembered. Took the same unit to my mom's house, and hooked it up to her 720p rear projection LCD TV, and it looked much better. I have a feeling LD will look much better on a CRT.
 
I think the native resolution and display type has a lot to do with how these old formats look. I recently played with some DVD players with component video connection to my 1080p TV, and it looked terrible. Much worse than I remembered. Took the same unit to my mom's house, and hooked it up to her 720p rear projection LCD TV, and it looked much better. I have a feeling LD will look much better on a CRT.

You might have a point there. My TV is 1080p 120hz (it's old) but my projector is 720 and 60hz if I remember correctly (I have to check...its even older) and before it blew up, my Marantz LD looked way better on the bigger PJ screen which made me wonder. Maybe they are just compatible somehow. Unfortunately I never replaced the LD player, so I can't try the experiment again.
 
I used to think the same thing, but, as it turns out the Marantz players were only mid-level Pioneers, not their better ones. The last model Marantz sold was the LV-520, which was essentially identical to the Pioneer CLD-D504 - far from Pio's best. Kind of disappointing.

Cheers,
Larry B.

Oh wow. That IS disappointing. Oh well. It's history now and a shitty bluray player can kick even the best LDs ass.
 
Back
Top Bottom