Curious about Certain Aspects of My (Primitive) LD to DVD transfers

I don't know if your method of capturing is "primitive", you should be able to easily get pretty good results this way. Never captured LD's myself, but I guess the quality of player, recorder and cables will ultimately decide the outcome, but have you tried to use S-Video instead of composite? heard the results can be better than composite on some players. Maybe there is also some other settings in either the player or the recorder that could improve your results besides the recording mode you described. 

An easy way to spot the blown out white levels I described in the other thread is the snowy mountains when the Falcon fly from Hoth with Luke in the foreground. But this could perhaps be how the LD transfer look and not something in your set-up.

Maybe you're able to find some info regarding your player on this site: http://www.laserdiscarchive.co.uk/default.htm

For which cable to use it depends on your player and viewing/capturing equipment. Standard composite video allows for your TV or capture device to do any filtering and because it is likely that it is newer and better at doing this than your player then you should go that route. S-video is typically reserved for units older than your player because that makes your player filter the image though its own processors. It's all your own preference though. You have to see for yourself which gives you a better image with the equipment you have.

I don't think keeping the PCM is a bad idea. In fact the lossless audio was one of the things that got me interested in the big shiny discs. If you're burning back to DVDs though it might cause some space issues. When I did some transfers I eventually had to go back to 448 kbp/s ac3 in order to not cut back on the video bitrate. I think it really depends on if you enjoy the sound fidelity. Some don't care whether audio is lossy ac3 or a lossless codec so it's really up to you or the disc size.

Since you're capturing straight to a DVD recorder, I don't think there's much more you can do to improve things. From what I always understood there's only so much that those can handle. Originally when I set out to capture VHS I had looked at this method but then ran into Macrovision issues. Then I found a DV bridge and began using a computer to capture LD footage. So I'd say if you find a way to do things that works for you then keep at it.

As far as your player is concerned, looks like you've got one of the Pioneers that was designed for Karaoke. I don't think there's any significant difference from a regular player, save for if you really like Karaoke. From the ldarchive photos it looks like it's from the early to mid 90's judging by the parts and buttons. In my experience, be sure and stick with Pioneer for players. As long as the picture is relatively clear and there's a digital audio out you should do pretty well. It has no relation to the earlier V8000 which was a real workhorse. The first player I used was a lesser version (V4400) which was built like a tank and had a giant brick remote. There are always better players out there, so keep an eye out for something local. I got my Pioneer D702 for $25 on craigslist two years ago. It's got an auto flip for side changes which is something you might enjoy.

Your caps look quite good for a DVD recorder. I like some of the coloring on the SWE edition. The blown out whites can also be a part of that particular disc and transfer. As msycamore pointed out the snowy mountains in the background of the Falcon-Luke shot are blown out and non-distinguishable in the first clip and more defined in the SE clip. Then again there are about 5 years difference in their pressing, so these things really improved with time due to better technology and quality control.

captainsolo said:

Since you're capturing straight to a DVD recorder, I don't think there's much more you can do to improve things. From what I always understood there's only so much that those can handle.

I think DVD recorders have come a long way since the early players hit the market, some players comb filters can be very good. Look at the captures SilverWook, Jaitea and Nerfherder made of THX 1138, looks pretty damn good to me. All captured on recorders. Some good examples by Moth3r in this thread: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Laserdisc-players-screenshot-comparison/topic/12907/

In the end you will always need to do some post processing to get LD-captures to look any good, tweak the levels, multi-cap average/median, IVTC and resize etc. The clipped white levels have nothing to do when the transfer was made, there are shitty transfers made today just like there were good ones made in the old days. Could be just that LD pressing as mine doesn't look like that at all, quality of recorder/player. Be sure to turn off all "picture enhancements"-presets on your Laserdisc player if you have any, besides the clipped white levels it looks oversharpened.

Otherwise you could always track down a new copy of that LD (Pioneer-pressing), the SWE LD's are very common and are often up on ebay.

The Aluminum Falcon said:

I actually was thinking of getting another laserdisc pressing of it, but am holding off since I am getting a DVD transfer of the whole Special Widescreen set (including a fixed ANH) in a trade right now. After I get the DVDs, I'll still probably end up getting an LD copy of my own. I'll tell you my findings.

Nice, don't expect to much of the Technidisc-pressing of ANH though, I recently got it captured by a friend of mine on his set up, and what I thought could be a possible problem with my player wasn't actually the case. Even though I am glad that my player is alright, I was dissapointed to discover that this pressing indeed have the "crosstalk". This film really have an home video-curse.

I will post a sample in Mallwalker's thread later...

msycamore said:

captainsolo said:

Since you're capturing straight to a DVD recorder, I don't think there's much more you can do to improve things. From what I always understood there's only so much that those can handle.

I think DVD recorders have come a long way since the early players hit the market, some players comb filters can be very good.

I don't know about the early players, but I think the quality of DVD recorders peaked around 2005-2007. Users then moved on to DVR-type devices (e.g. Sky Plus in the UK) or on-demand (catch-up) services.

What model Toshiba recorder are you using? The RDR-XSxx and RD-KXxx models are reportedly very good.

In the end you will always need to do some post processing to get LD-captures to look any good, tweak the levels, multi-cap average/median, IVTC and resize etc. The clipped white levels have nothing to do when the transfer was made, there are shitty transfers made today just like there were good ones made in the old days.

I agree with the above; you may even find that some of the clipped whites are recoverable (I found this with an LG recorder). I'll take a look at your sample.

The good news is that some of the clipped whites can be recovered (click for full size):

Bad news is that in other shots the clipping is too severe, and some detail is irrevocably lost.

Moth3r said:

I don't know about the early players, but I think the quality of DVD recorders peaked around 2005-2007. Users then moved on to DVR-type devices (e.g. Sky Plus in the UK) or on-demand (catch-up) services.

Interesting, do you happen to know if some of the newer players have worse comb filters/recording quality than the older models of the same brand to cut down on cost or something? I really hate the rainbowing and dot-crawl I'm seeing on most LD captures, and the avisynth filters to reduce those artifacts always destroys the picture in some ways no matter how effective they are.

As with any of these things, the only way to be sure is to carry out tests yourself. For example, the Panasonic DMR-ES10 is supposed to have excellent built-in filters for stabilising wobbly VHS images in pass-through mode, however from my tests I found it blurred high frequency detail coming into its composite input.

This page seems to have some comprehensive advice on DVD recorders. The general consensus is that later models (2007 onwards) tended to drop features, such as built-in tuners, additional recording modes and filters to improve the video signal, in order to reduce costs.

Thanks for that link! :)

The Aluminum Falcon said:

Is it worth capturing my laserdiscs with PCM audio or is it a waste of space?

It is definitely worth it IMO, but be aware that recording in PCM may affect the overall picture quality on your recording on some DVD recorders, in that case you'll have to record it twice to get the most out of it. Something I learned when capturing ANH on a friends recorder recently.

I agree with msycamore. If you do one recording where you set the video quality to high and audio to low and then do another but with the quality settings reversed then all you need to do is sync the two video tracks with each other and you can have the best quality video with the best quality audio. :D

Aluminum Falcon, could you do me a favor and post some more screenshots of your Empire capture, I'm beginning to suspect that the Mitsubishi pressing and perhaps the Technidisc pressing may be superior in the colors compared to the JSC and Pioneer-SWE, going by your screenshots here: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/topic.cfm/Smear-free-93/post/517316/#TopicPost517316 the red seems to be red instead of pink and the blue seems to be blue instead of cyan. Some examples of the ugly hues to be found in the Special Collection and SWE (Pioneer pressing):

This can of course be corrected:

But I would like to know if the Mitsubishi pressing is a better starting ground for such a project, so can you please post screenshots of these when you have the time. I'm curious to know how your laser look on these sequences.

msycamore, is your Pioneer made in Japan or USA factory?
I've got one from PVI in California, as well as Technidisc copy.

Now that I think about it, seems I never finished ripping the PCM audio from Technidisc.
IIRC got sides 1&2 then became distracted before finishing side3.
Perhaps I should pull it out again and try some screen grabs...

Darth Mallwalker said:

msycamore, is your Pioneer made in Japan or USA factory?
I've got one from PVI in California, as well as Technidisc copy.

I just double checked, my Pioneer is manufactured and printed in USA, didn't even know there existed Pioneer pressings made in Japan! It's nice we have experts around here.

Darth Mallwalker said:

Now that I think about it, seems I never finished ripping the PCM audio from Technidisc.
IIRC got sides 1&2 then became distracted before finishing side3.
Perhaps I should pull it out again and try some screen grabs...

Please do. The PCM audio ripped would be fantastic :) and I'm also very curious to know if the weird color hues are present in the other pressings.

PVI / Technidisc



PVI / Technidisc


Who the fuck is Magenter ?

Looking at those examples of yours again, the Technidisc is nicer looking, it's subtle but there is a difference alright.