Viewing laserdiscs on Elite Pioneer plasma monitor

[Kev Haw]

I recently upgraded to a Pioneer Pro-101FD Signature Series monitor.
This is at the top of the plasma foodchain basically.
I've started to watch laserdiscs on the monitor. Zoomed to fill the
screen, so I'm not in original aspect ratio viewing.
I discovered something interesting last night. While watching Ulee's
Gold, via my DVL 909, I was getting a bad luminence noise strobey effect
going on.
I went to the tv's picture control menu and adjusted the 3D Noise
Reduction to max.
WOW! It virtually eliminated the background strobey effect without
marring the image. It didn't give the picture that smeary effect you get
when you use the player's own luminence noise reduction feature.
Not only did it eliminate the background noise of the laserdisc
picture, but it boosted the clarity and just made the picture pop!
The black levels of the monitor help too. You get nice blacks with
nice shadow detail.
The only negative is the resolution. The monitor only has a composite
input for laserdisc, no s-video input is on the monitor.
So, if you don't mind EP Speed VHS looking images for resolution,
laserdiscs are a feasible option!
Kevin

[Nitehawk^]

Kevin,

Have you tried running the laser disc player thru an audio/video
receiver? Some of these new AVR's have excellent scaling built in to
them. Like the new Denon AVR's have the Anchor Bay chip and
supposedly do a teriffic job scaling analog sources to HDMI.
I have a Denon AVR-989 (aka AVR-2809), but I still need a TV thats HD
to really put it to the test, but my Pioneer CLD-D704 s-video to the
avr and then component out looks really good on my older CRT.

I did a little test at work (I do A/V Sales). I took a Samsung
Blu-Ray player, the BDP2500 which is last years model, but has the HQV
chip in it and plugged it into a Panasonic plasma TCP-54V10 with a
composite cable and then used the regular DVD of PUSH on it. The
results were stunning, you could hardly tell it wasn't HD, it was that
crisp and clear, no jaggies or smearing at all, and that was at 480i,
it looked as good if not better than the component video out of the
same player into an av switcher to feed the rest of the TV's (about 25
TV's on that feed) at 1080i. Everyone there was amazed.

On that note, I wonder how good a job a good AVR would do for our
laser discs? I keep thinking I should haul maybe my CLD-D606 into
work and hook it up to the Denon AVR-890 and see what it will do.

I need a new TV... LOL

-Ed

[Kev Haw]

I find that most blu-ray players do a terrific job of upconverting dvds
on a hi def display.
I have a Sony dvd jukebox that holds 400 dvds. It does 1080i
upconverting via an HDMI output, but the picture quality isn't as good
as you would get playing the same discs on a blu-ray player.
This Pro-101FD plasma has top of the line processing for analog
sources. I would be amazed if there were many AVR that could do better.
Kevin

[William Skaggs]

"Kev Haw" <Kev...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:11634-4A...@storefull-3172.bay.webtv.net...

> The only negative is the resolution. The monitor only has a composite
> input for laserdisc, no s-video input is on the monitor.
> So, if you don't mind EP Speed VHS looking images for resolution,
> laserdiscs are a feasible option!
> Kevin
>

The image recorded on the laserdisc in a composite signal so you are not
loosing anything by not have an S-Video input on your monitor. The S-Video
output on your LD player was just added for compatibility. Chances are the
comb filter on your monitor is better that the one built into the LD player.

[unclejr]

On Nov 3, 8:15 am, "William Skaggs" <eaglecr...@att.net> wrote:

> "Kev Haw" <Kev...@webtv.net> wrote:
> > The only negative is the resolution. The monitor only has a composite
> > input for laserdisc, no s-video input is on the monitor.
> >  So, if you don't mind EP Speed VHS looking images for resolution,
> > laserdiscs are a feasible option!
> > Kevin
>
> The image recorded on the laserdisc in a composite signal so you are not
> loosing anything by not have an S-Video input on your monitor.  The S-Video
> output on your LD player was just added for compatibility.  Chances are the
> comb filter on your monitor is better that the one built into the LD player.

Kevin has been in this NG for a very long time. I'm 100% sure that he
knows this already.

-Junior

[Kev Haw]

Yeah, only a tiny handful of players had a comb filter worth worrying
about. The HLD X9 was quite good, also the R7G had a nice comb filter.
My Elite 95 actually has a chroma design bug in the s-video output so I
only use the composite output, which is stellar.

[shower_urinator]

> DVL 909

I've read repeatedly that the DVD Laserdisc combination players aren't
as good as a cld-704. Why are you using this player?

[Kev Haw]

I'm using the DVL-909 because... I have the player on my stand :)
It's got AC-3 output, but my best player is the Elite 95, but no AC-3
mod.
Kevin