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Pioneer DVL-90 (Made In Japan) Laserdisc/DVD Player Settings

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Hey all,

I have the Pioneer DVL-90 Laserdisc machine, made in Japan.  It's got a lot of nice features to make use of.

Does anyone here own one and if so, what kind of settings might you suggest I use on it when playing LD's for the best playback.

I use the Cinema 2 option with no V-DNR and seem to get a pretty nice picture.  I am planning on keeping these settings when transferring some LD's for archival purposes.  

My other question is, are there any upgrades that can be made to this player to enhance it's playback capabilities?

Thanks much,

Shawn 

 

 

 

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Here's another question......

 

Can my Panasonic AG1980P be used as a pass through between the LD and the DVD recorder to maybe make use of the S-VHS filters...TBC and such and if so, how?

 

Thanks

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You could possibly make use of the comb filter in the SVHS deck:
connect the composite out from the LD player to the composite in on the deck,
then the s-video out from the deck to the s-video in on the DVD recorder.

Any benefit would depend on whether the SVHS deck's comb filter is any better than the comb filter in the DVD recorder, or whether the LD composite out is a "recombined" output instead of a pure composite.

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Thanks Moth3r for your response.

 

Is there anyone here who owns these components that can shed some light on the technical aspects of each machine to know whether it's worth trying or not?

The DVD recorder is a Panasonic DMR CA18 DVD Recorder.  The S-VHS is a Panasonic AG1980P Desktop Editor.

Here is what I found for info:

Panasonic AG1980 S-VHS Desktop Editor -

FEATURES:

  • Still the only VCR in it's class to provide near frame accurate editing. When used with edit controllers from Videonics, FAST and FutureVideo, the AG-1980 achieves an accuracy of +-2 frames And, the 5-pin edit terminal on the rear panel makes it very easy to set up an editing system.
  • Performs all assemble and video insert edits as well audio video dubbing. Also has independent linear audio input and output for more flexible audio dubbing.
  • Hi-Fi stereo audio with a frequency reponse of 20Hz to 20kHz and a dynamic range of 90dB. It also has Hi-Fi recording level control, headphone monitor terminal with volume control and a mic input terminal.
  • Advanced dual-loading mechanism features a quick reponse time, requiring only 0.5 seconds for a picture to appear from Stop mode and 1.9 seconds from FF/REW.
  • Digital Processing:
  • Digital Comb Filter using advanced 3-dimensional system provides complete Y/C (luminace/ chrominace) separation. This practically eliminates color and luminance blurring.
  • Field coefficient Digital Noise Reduction (DNR) circutitry processes the Y and C signal separately, thereby boosting the signal-to-ratio and reducing noise during playback.  
  • Built-in-full field TBC (Time Base Corrector) eliminates even the smallest of jitter, skew, head impact error and color bluring.  
  • Ivaluable for editing, the TBC helps maintain high picture quality even through the third-generation.  
  • Besides digital circurity, the AG 1980 has laminated video heads.  
  • Clearly superior to conventional ferrite heads they provide more vibrant color reproduction and a higher S/N ratio.
  • Made In JAPAN.

 

  • Connector Type 1.0 x Headphones ( 4 pin mini-DIN ) - Rear , 1.0 x RF input ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Rear , 2.0 x S-Video output ( F connector ) - Rear , 1.0 x Composite video/audio input ( BNC ) - Rear , 1.0 x Composite video output ( Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ) - Front , 1.0 x Composite video/audio input ( 4 pin mini-DIN ) - Rear , 1.0 x Composite video input ( BNC ) - Front , 1.0 x S-Video input ( 4 pin mini-DIN ) - Rear , 1.0 x RF output ( F connector ) - Rear , 1.0 x S-Video input ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Front , 1.0 x Microphone ( RCA phono x 3 ) - Front , 1.0 x Composite video/audio output ( Mini-phone stereo 3.5 mm ) - Rear

 

 

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Okay, here is the deal...the VCR doesn't have the Red, Blue, Green component in.

My Pioneer doesn't have the Red, Blue, Green component out.

It has the yellow, red, white plugs out and the VCR has the matching in's for these.

 

What is the difference between these two?  Which is better?  I'm guessing S-Video is a toss up between the two.

 

I'm SO confused.................................lmao!!!!

 

:)

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Normally component is better - however laserdisc is a special case as the video is stored on the disc as a composite signal.

I'll explain in more detail when I have some more time.

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Hi Jetrell

From what I can tell on the net, the AG-1980 is really a very good deck and uses a very similar  chasis as the PAL FS100/FS200 machines which are also rated very highly.  Sweet.

Sorry to tell you that the TBC/DNR stuff on the VCR only works on tape playback and will not fix an incoming signal.  This means that looping the video from your LD player through the VCR will not have any effect WRT TBC/DNR etc.  It may even degrade the signal, but you'd have to try it to find out.  You may find that the best option is to capture the LD signal as clean as possible and do some post processing with Avisynth to lower noise etc.

As far as upgrades for the DVL-90 machine goes, I'm not aware of anything specifically mentioned for this player.  Alek talks about some interesting things to have a go at for improving the over all picture quality of LD players in his thread here (very interesting and definitely worth a read).

From what I can tell from the reviews of the DVD/LD combo players, they all compromise on both DVD and LD playback.  If you are unhappy with the quality of picture from the DVL-90 then it may be simpler and cheaper just to go for a better dedicated LD player.

As mother said, LD is a composite format and it may be that the best picture from the DVL-90 is from the yellow composite output.  You may want to just try it and see how it compares to the S-video output.  Interestingly, Moth3r did a comparison on this thread between S-video and composite output on his D925 awhile ago which you might find helpful.

Hope this helps.

If television is chewing gum for the mind, then the prequels are the worlds first visual laxative.

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Thanks Orinoco, most appreciated and detailed.

The DVL-90 is a very nice machine but with digital standards as they are it can fall short even with composite.  I did find that the composite does present a better picture when testing.  Maybe finding an affordable but well created video processor to run in-between the DVL-90 and the Panasonic recorder would be a better solution unless I find a PCI video card that can offer the same quality options as a table top processor.

I will keep searching.  I really want to put my Japanese 1997 SE sets to DVD without any retouches or edits.  Just straight transfers to at least keep them archived for posterity.

:)  :)

 

 

 

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For learning about video signals, Wikipedia is a useful reference, but here's a very quick summary:

Component video comprises three connections: a luma (brightness) signal "Y", and two chroma (colour) components "Pb" and "Pr.

In S-Video, there are just two signals, luma (Y) and chroma (C).

In composite video there is just one signal which is luma and chroma combined.

So you know that laserdisc stores video as a composite signal? Well, in order to display or capture this signal it needs to be decoding into its constituent parts. The first stage in this process is to separate the luma and chroma signals. This is where the comb filter, or Y/C separator, comes in. However, perfect separation is difficult. A cheap and simple comb filter may produce imperfections such as dot crawl on the boundaries between different colours, and rainbows (aka cross-colour) on black and white edge transitions.

A good 3D comb filter, such as the one in your AG1980, should reduce these effects.

To further complicate matters, some (most?) LD players do not output a pure composite signal on the yellow RCA. What they do is run the signal through the internal comb filter, do a bunch of processing (for things like DNR, RGB frame store, etc.) before sending a Y/C signal to the s-video socket. The composite video from the yellow RCA is just the same Y and C signals recombined. This means that the signal has always been put through the comb filter in the LD player (which is probably not as good as the one in your deck) and comb filter artefacts may be introduced into the video at this stage.

This is why a close A-B comparison of test patterns (or scenes with strong colours or black/white edges), is essential IMO.

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Okay, here is what I chose to buy.........

Dazzle Video Creator Plus HD

 

My laptop has the requirements to go after the higher quality.  I haven't opened it yet as I wanted some opinion on it's usage for this project.  It does WAV for audio which is awesome and of course it handles the higher quality output formats.  I don't think I need HD or AVCHD for my LD transfers but it's nice to have the option.

I am excited to get started.

 

:)

 

Moth3r,

Thanks for your descriptions and help understanding what I'm looking at.  Maybe it's time for a capture as long as what I purchased is enough to do the trick.

My LD allows me to turn off the V-DNR which may be helpful with the AG1980 in the mix.

:) 

 

 

 

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Jetrell Fo said:

Okay, here is what I chose to buy.........

Dazzle Video Creator Plus HD

Beyond what audio/video inputs it has, I can't find any meaningful specs for that product (e.g. chipset, ADC, comb filter and so on). Also, I've not had any experience with USB capture devices myself. So... I can't really offer you any opinion on your purchase.

My laptop has the requirements to go after the higher quality.  I haven't opened it yet as I wanted some opinion on it's usage for this project.  It does WAV for audio which is awesome and of course it handles the higher quality output formats.  I don't think I need HD or AVCHD for my LD transfers but it's nice to have the option.

Having an audio input on the device is good, as it means that audio sync should be locked to the video (thus avoiding the sync problems you sometimes get when using the PC's audio input). It doesn't capture HD of course, the blurb is slightly misleading on that (the bundled software is able to edit video from a HD camcorder to make AVCHD discs). 

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Yeah, I noticed that the description is misleading in regards to HD.  My main concern was getting at least the mpeg2 with lossless audio instead of just the Dolby 2.0 as an option.

I did a search myself on meaningful specs and was hard pressed to find any mention of them.  I MAY just spring for the Hauppauge HD PVR with a little crimping of my budget so that I have something more high end right out of the gate.