Aleksbmw

Murry Sparkles said:

What part 2 mods are left for the player ?.

 Well lets see, putting in even more Black gate caps. Reclock the Tbc chip (with superclock4-s)  reclock the Runco, put in some BG caps there and "os-conize" the powersupply. Im glad im not engaged or something, would be fun to explain several hundred bucks in a week to just get some Caps and small parts.

At least i dont have to worry about audio too much, got access to my stepfathers recording studio when the time comes. Might use Hairy_hen's mix at least for Anh, real time EQ with Pro tools looks fun tho :-)

alphabetty spaghetti said:

Aleksbmw have you watched any the original trilogy laserdiscs on your mighty laserdisc player?, was there a difference from watching them on a standard ld player . Im looking forward to the release of this , do you have any idea when that will be ?

 If there was a difference ? :-) you could say that.. in stock form the Sony C2ex is not bested by many (X0 and the X9; Slightly sharper but more smearing and a more digitized picture). When im done with all the part 2 mods it will hopefully be the best player in the world (for Ntsc video) Muse (Hi def. Laserdisc) is no more, all that hardware is sacrificed for less noise.

Sneak peek at the power "filter" i'm making (Ironically from the chassis of the first Nec 3D y/c video processor i picked up (IDC-3000)- rack mounted, green quartz lined chassis and filled ferrites, several kilos of led weights to keep it from vibrating etc. All in the name of video quality.

[img]http://j.imagehost.org/t/0187/1_120.jpg[/img] [img]http://j.imagehost.org/t/0558/2_29.jpg[/img]

This looks pretty good, i wish you luck with it. Since this is Pal and my gear is Ntsc the difference is not huge, mostly player noise and detail.

1010 and LD-V8000 sounds good to me, the 1010 has some of the hardware that the LD-S1 has but no audiophile components and copper plating. The red laser is a bonus that the S1 doesn't have. The Rf demodulator for Ntsc video is newer in your player so dont be disappointed if the others have a softer image.

Here is some more pictures, many more black gates now (short black/gold):

http://www.audioasylum.com/cgi/vt.mpl?f=tweaks&m=171972

Im considering getting a used Pci-x osprey capture card since the machine i will be using is a 64 bit multi proc Xeon server. But that card seems nice, maybe i will try it out. The Dc30 is out the window now after consulting with some specialists, i would lose abit of resolution and detail if i used it because of the onboard compression.

About the Special collection (for those who dont know, it was released before the definitive edition and does not suffer from the DvNR from Thx processing wich is apparent on the GOUT Dvd release wich came from the US master tapes), no i dont have that yet. Would be interesting to see if i could merge the two, but the work could be immense.

After looking at the defintive Japanese release i must say im impressed with the detail if i turn up the brightness. Japanese superior pressing tricks maybe, but the US version is not this sharp.

Im at the stage of finishing the player and starting to put together the server to crunch the editing.

Murry Sparkles said:

 Welcome back , i always wondered what happened to your project.

 Thanks, i will push to finish this. Alot of people seem to be watching and it seems Lucas is not willing to put in the $ to author/splice/restore the original and release it. (Pretty sure the tapes exist and some collectors got 35mm reels) Im putting together a multi proc Xeon server to grind the capture and mastering, so this might turn out good if i get response on the electronic gear-sponsor requests i have sent out.

And just to say it if any of Lucas's representatives are looking here; This is not a commercial project to earn any money, im doing it for the community/fans of the OT.

Sorry for being away for so long, real life takes its toll. Im going to try and get some material uploaded for you to look at as fast as i can. For the time being the player is not that far off, still trying to get the best capture card for raw avi. The Pinnacle Dc30 card compresses the stream and i dont like the compromise after all the hours spent.

I will make a Dvd also, for now im trying to finish the mechanical bit of the project.

check it out, i almost laughed my ass off:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbvqGEhRssw&feature=channel

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lrDVkiJnz0&feature=channel

Hi Moth3r, the pal model is hardcoded to playback pal. Its my understanding it uses a different crystal oscillator because pal is of a different frequency than Ntsc. Its a solid model for sure, on the downside the (old) electronics in it was made with industrial use in mind. The engineers didnt have picture quality in mind when designing the PCB, but for countless hours of use in military classrooms etc. Once the composite signal leaves the Tbc chip (wich is poorly isolated from DC noise with very few inductors on the PCB) its put through several old noisy output amplifiers wich doesent help the situation lowering sharpness as a result. It has almost the same optical pickup as some high end models but the poor PCB layout is its downside. You will find it has a solid picture but abit softer compared to your D925.

Its not dead, ordering parts at the moment. I hope people understand building gear at this level costs money and time. Its almost re engineering at this point, not simple recapping and basic mods.

Correction on direct composite, there is no direct composite output on CLD-99/CLD-HF9G. I looked on my archive picture to be sure, two s-video outputs and two composite outputs on shared sockets. The only consumer players with pure output direct from TBC is my C2EX and Pioneer X0 (Both BNC). The older players people think got direct since they dont have s-video goes through outdated hardware that softens the picture. V-8000 is a good player for this purpose but its not as sharp as the two Bnc players. I would use S-video on the X-9 with most filters off except chroma with a low setting.

Yep still alright, the project has been put on hold for a little while. Working on this level costs alot of money to be honest, family comes first. Still another 1000 bucks to spend before its finished i reckon, not that far off now tho.

Orinoco_Womble said:

I'm suitably impressed. This must have cost you a fortune, forget about the time taken to do the mod etc!

A couple of questions though:

What was the reason for the 3 powersupplies?

You mentioned painting the plastic pickup surround on my player; any idea what type of paint to use? (I don't want to melt it).

Any chance you can please list or give some links to the suppliers for your parts used eg R-core transformers, exotic capacitors etc?

Can't wait to see the end result of all this hard work.

Hobby paint meant for toy soldiers etc. (plastics safe), make sure its flat black or flat dark grey. Petrolium based spray paint is probably what you mean by melting plastic. On the Powersupply side there is 1 P.S for the clock crystal, 1 for the mainboard and 1 supply for the soundboard and servo section. Part of the reason is that crystal oscillators can create feedback noise on the dc voltage side wich i dont want in the circuit. Plus i dont want fine noise from the standard power supplies going into the crystal. The mainboard with green caps (Nichicon Muse ES) is work in progress by the way, it will get new caps all over the signal path from pickup to tbc section. 

Since im in europe i have ordered most of my stuff from www.banzaieffects.com, impressed with the service so far.

For some of the special caps i went to www.ebay.com and http://www.partsconnexion.com/ for black gate caps.

vbangle: Yea i know it looks sort of deformed, i went back in to get some flux impurities and the solder followed the iron up a bit. The silver sometimes does not mix all the way with the rest but its 100% connected the shiny solder makes it look suspect too.

Looking good, its very much like my player before mods, depends on the X-9 noise reduction settings for luma and chroma. I dont know what setting you had those in when capturing. I assume you use s-video because of the 3D comb filter in the X-9 ?

Yes i agree on the DVNR issue, some scenes in my DC are pretty bad.. one time in the ice base when the general turns around and they cut to outside is just a blue / grey mess.

 Back of runco, almost naked now

Hehe i feel with you Puggo, even tho im spending insane amounts of time on my set up i cant change what was put on my laserdiscs to begin with. The goal is getting all of it in the best way possible with minimal loss. Also grats on your completion by the way.

Hey guys, been working on the Ac~ power filtering system. Its coming along nicely, its still some work left but im making progress. I got a 120kg 20kva transformator in my workshop but i figured it would take too much room at home so i settled for a nice little 6kg lump for line isolation to the gear :) Over 300 bucks just on this part alone so im not going to settle for any hum, it is a little overkill but thats the way i want it tbh. The hardest part so far was upgrading the upper disc clamp mechanism to higher spec. Was just plastic with metal insert, now its using a micrometer aligned metal clamp plate from an old Pioneer Cld-1750. I just got my silver solder and other gear so ive been hard at work.

Orinoco_Womble:

I will explain the bypass in a few pictures soon.

Yes the Runco uses several patents from Faroudja, funny it does it better than my Nrs. Less rainbowing etc.

No it does not output progressive, the output boards has been removed. Only the 3D processed analog video via S-video.

After looking at options im going to modify all s-video connections to screw on metal 75 ohm type found on s-video.com, will use even better cables tho. Twin dual shielded 75ohm Rg59.

Also, are you planning on upgrading the clock in the C2EX or is the on board one good enough? What is the Runco video scaler mentioned? I thought all of those video scalers put out progressive for use on projectors, not interlaced, or did you mod it for a more pure interlaced output?

 

Regarding the clock i will probably try the 28.125mhz low ppm and jitter ones i can find on a standalone card with its own powersupply. I got enough Ps laying around from old video procs. This clock is pretty important since it decides how precise the D/A conversion (after basic TBC) is and will impact final image quality.

The Runco is a Vfc-4404 from 1999, 20k retail. 25 pounds. Has been extensively modded, did some hard surface mount bypass on the 3D-Y/C card with silver mica caps. Removed fine noise a bit and brought out more warmth and analog feel to the final picture from s-video (monitor out, found it very nice when looking at solid reds and they are more like dvd (thanks to many chips working together to improve chroma bandwidth). It was originally a full scaler yes but the output cards has been removed and motherboard changed to one that is just a doubler with many fewer chips and regulators. Now it only does 5xBnc composite input and 1xS-video output. Will also try a very powerful Proc amp, Elite video Bvp plus for the pre SE sets to see if i can color-correct (JSC especially) and fix it up before input on the DC-30

On the DC30+ i will just have to wait and see, i got a card on the way from Canada. Looking at the hardware it certainly was ahead of its time, Professional design all the way. No wonder it was 1k$ ( Retail with software) back in the day. I most likely wont do audio capture myself since a friend of mine got a full fledged recording studio we will capture some Ac-3 streams from the 97 SE into his pro tools system and see. (via Hercules and a modded Meridian demodulator)

And yes i might try and do some tutorial on the modding im doing and done, i never talked about it before but i have gone pretty far in my quest for better picture. On my Denon LA-3500 (panasonic lx-900 based) i removed the laser glass lens itself and polished it with a special 3M glass polish compond till it looked like a diamond. I  thankfully dont have to do it again since the C2ex got an almost new pickup. Putting the unit in total level and on dampened spikes also got the picture a bit better.