Looking for a cost efficient / solid laserdisc player..

[sirhcman]

Started looking at laserdisc players last weekend and I know absolutely nothing about them... Are there any recommendations for players you guys can give me? I don't really care about the laseractive or the modules to play games - I just want a solid economical player for movies

[Ji-L87]

Solid and economical? Sounds like you could use an industrial player to me.

Pioneer industrial players are rugged, will most likely last a while not to mention pretty common on eBay and doesn't have to command a high price. I've got two players, one Pioneer CLD-V2800 and a Panasonic LX-600. Guess which one works without problems?

Most industrial players are single side play only, except like....one, they won't win any design awards and othen they get beaten by high end players in sound and video quality. But they're a good start and makes for great back up players.
Also, there are some models which actually are sought after like the Pioneer LDV-800/8000 which people say have great picture. I have some comments saved down from somewhere:

We did test a lot of players I personally checked the X0 against the X9, and we have looked at the 95, 97, 99, 704, most of the elite series, the V800, the V8000 the V4300D, the CLD-925, the CLD-2950 and a piece of crap Sony.

If you want to test players you need a few items.
S
1) A really good capture card - you don't want the capture card giving you problems.
2) The Video Essentials laserdisc.

Then you can capture test patterns like standard colourbars, S&W etc. and you can check resolution, colour reproduction, cross talk etc. in an empirical way. You can also calibrate your system to make sure the image is a good as you can get it.

Basically the 4300D and V8000, V800 outperformed all of the consumer LD playes we checked, the X9 was better but the X0 outperformed them all.
For capture I wouldn't bother with any of the consumer models.

Take that with a grain of salt, and you'd be good to go : )

If you're not interested in industrial players, Pioneer still is a pretty safe bet with their consumer models. But really, the best advice is probably just to be wary of Sony players, as people have reported they're usually not as good performers as Pioneers or the rebadged Pioneers (Yamaha, Mitsubishi, RCA etc)

[ProfessorProfessorson]

Pioneer made both some great and some really shoddy players also build wise on the consumer level. The carousel type players, LD/DVD combi players and others like the Laseractive are not built to last and use crappy parts and construction. Other players of theirs, mainly the composite video only based ones, tend to have pretty bad video quality unless your tv has a really solid comb filter built in. The CLD-V2600, CLD-D503, CLD-D504, Elite CLD-95, and CLD-D704 are good quality starter players by Pioneer.

Panasonic made some solid players on the consumer level, and they supplied the player that was tweaked and rebadged as the Runco LJR II THX. Personally I have owned both the Panasonic LX-200 and LX-101, and both surpassed any Pioneer player I have ever owned performance wise (back when I was a heavy ld collector I had around 10 different players, so I have quite a bit of experience with the stuff).

You need to be aware that unless you are using a high quality line doubler/upscaller, and have a Lcd that will allow native 4:3 ratio support, that this stuff is not going to work well at all with HD televisions. You really need to have a solid non-HD crt based Tv in order to get a really good experience without having to toss out tons of money. A nice solid 4:3 ratio TV by Toshiba or Sony or something along those lines, that has a good comb filter built in would work well if you plan to use a composite only player. If all of this is out of your range or more then you want to f*ck with, then honestly I suggest you stick with dvd/booray since it is more cut and dry and less problematic.

[Ji-L87]

You need to be aware that unless you are using a high quality line doubler/upscaller, and have a Lcd that will allow native 4:3 ratio support, that this stuff is not going to work well at all with HD televisions. You really need to have a solid non-HD crt based Tv in order to get a really good experience without having to toss out tons of money. A nice solid 4:3 ratio TV by Toshiba or Sony or something along those lines, that has a good comb filter built in would work well if you plan to use a composite only player. If all of this is out of your range or more then you want to f*ck with, then honestly I suggest you stick with dvd/booray since it is more cut and dry and less problematic.

Depending on what LCD you have, it might not be all too bad. For example, my Sony Bravia 32'' LCD has much better comb filter than my Sony Trinitron 32'' I used to own. I watched that moving platter test on the LD Video Essentials disc and the Bravia beat the crap out of everything else I had. Still, CRT generally looked better, rainbow artefacts aside. And all LCDs I've seen nowadays allow the viewing of 4:3 content, so that should not be a problem as long as one doesn't pick the cheapest TV available.

But it's not even sure the LD-player is will be hooked up to an LCD in this case

[ProfessorProfessorson]

No LD player is going to look good connected straight into a LCD without a decent upscaler/line doubler, regardless of it being able to support the 4:3 aspect ratio. Everything's going to have a muddy washed out look lacking definition. This is simply a fact when trying to use analog interlaced formats like VHS and Laserdisc on any HD tv. They don't put in decent deinterlacing chips in HD tvs. If you're going to be serious about it, and actually care about the image quality, you'd invest in a Faroudja or iScan if you plan to use the stuff on a HDTV, or buy a good CRT. Otherwise, what it amounts to is pussyfooting it, just buying the shit simply to say you have it.

[sirhcman]

WOW! You guys are awesome, thanks so much for all the info! This should be a good starting point for me to look further, however you guys have giving me some doubts as well. I think I will take some time and read up on the LD more before diving in head first

[PunkicCyborg]

look on craigslist for laserdisc lots and then look up reviews of the player online and what outputs it has to see if it works for your system

[Ji-L87]

If you're going to be serious about it, and actually care about the image quality, you'd invest in a Faroudja or iScan if you plan to use the stuff on a HDTV, or buy a good CRT. Otherwise, what it amounts to is pussyfooting it, just buying the shit simply to say you have it.

For LD (and other composite sources) I'd probably recommend with a Faroudja based scaler. While I have no personal experience with Faroudja, I have a DVDO VP30 and the comb filter in the DVDO/iScan units isn't all that great to be honest.

[SignOfZeta]

I just noticed this thread...

First off, only buy Pioneer. I'm not saying that Sony and others didn't made some interesting stuff 15 years ago, but none of this stuff is in production anymore and Pioneer still sells parts. Also, since Pioneer was the most popular manufacturer of LD gear all through the format's life, repair advice, selection of players, etc are all massively on Pioneer's side.

If you are just getting into LD I recommend getting anything with "LDV" in the name. These are boring featureless models that are nearly invincible. They were used in museums, schools, etc and are now basically free. You can find them on almost any Craigslist in the city for as low as $0 on a weekly basis.

If you decide you really like LD, then you can get serious with a mid-90s consumer model. Buy something recently serviced and expect to pay $200+. The models the Professor suggested are all great. I would also suggest the D604 since it has a very fast turn mech, AC-3, full trick play, and the best remote.

I disagree about Laseractives being mechanically junky though. They certainly jam up, but the f*ckers are 20 years old now and most of the people who own them barely even turn them on. If recently serviced and used occasionally they aren't much different than other players. My biggest complaint is just that are too lightweight and therefor just make too much noise. This was my main issue with my old CLD-S204 as well, which is mechanically very similar. They are immune to many problems, such as busted sled gears common to the Gamma turn-era. If you do get an LA though, pull the PAC out when playing regular LDs for better trick play features.

The CD changer models though, yeah, those totally suck.

A lot of people like the 909 and 919. I was never a big fan of this thing. The DVD playback is pretty naff by today's standards, the LD playback is decent but not amazing. The good thing about them though is that they are common and some of the most recently made decks so they might not be all frozen up from lack of use or worn out from decades of play. It's also really easy to hack the DVD side into playing any region you want. Since a lot of people ask, no, the LD output will not route through the component outputs, and similarly Dolby Digital LDs will only output DD from the AC-3 output (ie: no RF demodulator).

[majors]

I recommend getting anything with "LDV" in the name.

Truth, my FREE LD-V4200 does not know how to die...or freeze frame, switch audio tracks. Missing the "wired" remote so I lose some functions.

sirhcman -> Why are you 30 years late to the party? Did you hit the mother load of discs?

[thesteve]

from recent work on a few LA units, the construction is about average for early 90's pioneer.
i didnt see anything that was sub par in them, other than the composite boards (same as the TG16)
all said they should be solid as long as your using them to play discs, not football.

[ProfessorProfessorson]

from recent work on a few LA units, the construction is about average for early 90's pioneer.
i didnt see anything that was sub par in them, other than the composite boards (same as the TG16)
all said they should be solid as long as your using them to play discs, not football.

Try owning some really good LD players, then compare construction, or just frequent a few LD forums enough to see how many LA's have died on people compared to other players. The LA internally was just a budget player. It prob looks ok when comparing it to like a Sega Cd internally, but when you compare it to other higher quality players its very subpar.

[thesteve]

im not questioning that
its quality is average for consumer pioneer equipment (slightly better than their cd changers)
sad thing is sometimes it doesnt matter (clarion is well made, and doesnt hold up)

[SignOfZeta]

Like I said, the LA has largely the same internals as the S20x series. Those were $400 players as opposed to $1000 for a LA. The LA had all that other crap in it though, and a much smaller market.

If the LA was built like a CLD97 then, yeah, that would have been awesome. But Elite decks were $1500-3500 already without the LA stuff.

Nowadays all but the most high end decks can be had for $200 or less from Craigslist. You have to keep in mind though that this was before "the great shit-en-ing" of the early 2000s when people decided they'd rather upgrade every year than buy something well made. The cheapest LD player EVER on sale in the US was the S104 at $299.99 (same price as the US Duo, widely considered to have been way too expensive to succeed) and "mid-priced" decks were three to four times that. Pioneer did what they could to keep prices low, but it's just inhearntly impossible to make an LD player for a low price.

I would never recommend that someone who wants an LD player only for movies buy an LA. They aren't a good use of funds. However, I think their reputation as being somehow uniquely junky is BS. The main issues I've seen with them are the loading belt slipping (something that happens to virtually every Pioneer and costs about $5 to fix) and the spindle clamp jaming up (which only happens from a lack of use, it won't jam if used regularly). If you set any LD player on a shelf for 5-10 years without using it its probbly going to stop working.

BTW, anyone looking for LD player repair advice, parts, which units to buy, and sometimes even sales, should talk to Duncan at Bayview electronics. He's absolutely the Western Hemisphere's foremost expert on LD repair having worked on them since the Discovision era. He still has a shop...with an actual store front even.