Moth3r

I predict that this thread is going to get really boring from here onwards. To be honest, I'd much rather read feedback and reviews of the actual project than requests for PMs.

I know you're not allowed to post the links on the forum, but could you copy the URLs to somewhere like pastebin and then just point people to that?

Dark scenes may be better for showing the motion smearing on the PAL THX LDs. Look at the pan across the Tatooine evening landscape when Luke is looking for R2, and the pan across cantina just before Han meets Greedo.

(Slightly off topic, but interesting - at least to me, anyway.)

The pattern above, from the Jason LD, is actually the BBC's Test Card G. A slightly modified version of a pattern from the Philips PM5544, it was first broadcast in 1971, and was the first electronically generated pattern to be used by the BBC.

The frequency sweep (the waveform pattern below centre) ranges, I think, from 1.5 MHz to 5.2 MHz. The upper limit of LD bandwidth is listed in various places as around 5.5 MHz (or an equivalent resolution of 440 TVL) so any player that shows some definition in the 5.2 MHz region is doing very well. The D925 shows a little definition here when using the s-video output, but it's still almost flat.

(I've also since found the PM5544 pattern used on a clock and a pillow!)

dark_jedi said:

... I still find it amazing that people are even still messing with LD's LOL.

I wouldn't say amazing, I'd say disappointing.

Disappointing that the GOUT DVD that was officially released is so plagued by DVNR, telecine wobble, aliasing and a loss of vertical detail that a capture of a laserdisc is actually a worthwhile consideration.

Of course you have to contend with the limitations of the format - reduced bandwidth (horizontal detail) and the difficulties in getting good separation of composite video. But each to his own - some people may prefer a blurrier image with dot crawl over 4-eyed stormtroopers. 

Do you have the PAL Jason and the Argonauts disc? The test pattern at the end of side 4 is an excellent way to evaluate both frequency response (i.e. resolution) and comb filter performance.

I tested the D925's composite and s-video outputs with both a Panasonic DVD Recorder and a BT878-based capture card.  

1. D925-composite-Panasonic (right-click/view for full size):

Complete loss of detail at higher frequencies (right hand side of the waveform pattern), bad dot-crawl between colour blocks.

2. D925-s-video-Panasonic:

Dot crawl improved, but still present. Much better definition, although there is some residual reflection of the waveform pattern into the solid grey on the RHS - this should be flat. There's also a small amount of vertical colour bleed (tops of the colour blocks into the grey bars above).

3. D925-composite-BT878:

Awful dot crawl, and terrible rainbows (cross colour artefacts) on the high-frequency part of the waveform pattern.

4. D925-s-video-BT878:

Similar to the Panasonic image, but without the vertical colour bleed. Best results at the moment, but dot crawl could be improved and again got those reflections of the waveform leaking into the solid grey.  

I still have my other LD player to test, plus comb filters in an LG DVD recorder and a JVC SVHS deck; I also have a more modern capture card I've yet to install. Hopefully I can update this test sometime this year...

We already had this feature (click on the help link from the top menu to see all the formatting tags that you can use in the forum).

However, as you can see from the post above and this bug report, it's been broken for some time.

Spoiler:

If you can read this, then spoiler tags are still broken.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Well, AFAIK the PAL and the JSC are the same, aren't they?

No, they are different transfers.

I choose to capture just *THIS* clip because it's one of the worsts...

Infact, in the GOUT the pedestrian before the landspeeder seems to has "invisible" legs; in the PAL master they are there, also if they are not too much defined.

It seems that this low definition is caused by repeated composite shots, aimed to cancel the obvious wheel under the speeder, and not caused by the DVNR.

The motion trails are definitely a result of DVNR. If you check any of the pre-THX discs (JSC or SWE), you will see that they are free of this type of artefact.

Wasn't there a previous thread for keeping track of useful quotes? If not, there should be.

_,,,^..^,,,_ said:

Well, I decided to do a little test with my PAL french THX laserdisc; because it's a decent PAL master (with 20% more vertical details than NTSC and no problems with IVTC) and in particular because it's DVNR FREE!

The PAL THX disc is not DVNR free - as you can clearly see in screenshot 2. It does however have less DVNR than the equivalent NTSC release (no 4-eyed stormtrooper).

Looking forward to seeing more details.

Hi all, just back today from a short break. Did I miss much?

Frink, IIRC you are already on a first warning, so just point me to an offending post (too lazy to search through your posts myself) and I'll arrange your temp ban pronto.

bkev, your signature image is 25% too tall. Please resize it.

Image links are dead?

A couple of guys have recommended the CLD-1050 for PAL discs.

Moth3r said:

Aleksbmw said:

The best of these players is Ld-1010 if you can find one in good shape, it got much of the hardware from the LD-S1.

Funny you should say that, as I recently added the CLD-1050 to my eBay favourite searches. Is it reasonable to assume that the CLD-1050 would be a good option for capturing PAL discs?

Aleksbmw said:

Yep,  those two are brothers with just Pal playback added. Happy to help you mod that player moth3r since i think with mods it can beat any other Pal player.

(Thread here).

And:

Orinoco_Womble said:

I've not had an opportunity to test the 2950 myself, but I do have a few PAL players that might be of interest.  I don't have a decent capture card to test them definitively, but from what I can tell by doing a side by side comparison, here's how they stack up to each other:

D925 - sharpest picture of the PAL players that I've seen.  Very 'digital' looking picture and lacking in detail. When you compare side by side to the other 2 players.  The picture looks like DVNR was applied to the D925 to give it a lower noise floor which smooths over a lot of the fine detail. Consequently the detail level does not look to be as high as the other two players.

V4300D - industrial player - more detailed than the D925, although quite noisy and very soft picture. The picture looks very analogue and 'natural' compared to the D925 which looks very 'digitised' when seen side by side.  The detail level is great, but the amount of noise and soft picture might be a problem.

CLD-1050 - analogue PAL only player - again, a very analogue and extremely 'natural' looking picture. Easily looks better than the V4300D and more detailed than the D925.  Less noise than the V4300D and slightly sharper picture with better colours.  The most natural looking picture of the 3 players.  More detailed picture than the other 2, although still softer picture than the D925.

The verdict: the D925 has less noise and a sharper picture, but the V4300D and 1050 seem to have more detail and a more natural looking picture over all.  The 1050 in particular has the most natural and pleasing picture of the 3, although it is lacking in sharpness.  It would be interesting to see how the 2950 stacks up to these players.

Hope this helps.

(from here).

I have a D925 and a V4100 (one of the predecessors to the 4300D) but I haven't yet got around to doing any proper tests.

You may also want to consider whether the Hauppauge is really the best capture device for this sort of thing - e.g. can it do lossless capture, how does the comb filter perform, etc.?

In 2004 we had Starsky & Hutch, followed by The Dukes of Hazzard in 2005 and Miami Vice in 2006. All three movies are based on TV shows; S&H finished in 1979, the same year that DoH started, and Miami Vice started in 1984 one year before DoH ended.

Davnes007 said:

Dante's Inferno / Volcano (1997)

Dante's Inferno was 2007. I assume you meant Dante's Peak.

Jim Gibbins, an actor who starred as an Ewok in Return Of The Jedi, has been left housebound after a ten-year-old boy wrote off his specially adapted car. 

Read more: http://www.metro.co.uk/news/864293-ewok-from-star-wars-housebound-after-car-theft-by-10-year-old#ixzz1NNFEnshj

resonator said:

The Evil Dead "1" Treasures aren't seeded anymore. There is an 841 day old version on Usenet, I suppose that's not the latest version?

That's V1.1 on Usenet; the one on myspleen (and tehparadox?) is V1.2. The only difference is in the DVD-ROM content, the video content is identical.

Yes, the youtube video in none's link above was the first time I'd seen the SE version of this scene. I had never imagined it was that bad.

Favourites:

 - the original Atari arcade games for SW and Jedi. (ESB was a conversion kit for the original SW, and was pretty rare; I think I only ever saw it once)

 - Sega's Star Wars Trilogy Arcade (emulation discussed in my thread here)

 - Lego Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy (great for co-op play with the kids - it's just a shame that R2's flying ability is essential to complete the game...)

Not so keen on:

 - a FPS I played on the PC in the late nineties, think it was Dark Forces. Too many buttons put me off (I like something I can pick up and play out of the box)

 - The Force Unleashed on the Wii (meh.)

 - Another Wii game, some clone wars lightsabre fighting game. Also meh.

What are you planning now? I'm intrigued...

Anyway, not that I have any experience of this, but I'd be wary of relying on battery power. If I were projecting something in my garden, I'd run an extension from a socket in the house. If you are looking for something more mobile, then powering a laptop & projector from the 12V power socket in a car (with the engine running) might be a solution. Keep in mind that DC to DC convertors are more efficient than DC/AC inverters.

Your question reminds me of this stunt back in 1996...

Cap this LD first: http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/27876/

I'd be interested to see how your gear performs.

Anyway, why "10-bit TBC"? Does it matter how many "bits" a Time Base Corrector uses? (A 10-bit ADC would make more sense, but surely that's built-in to the Intensity Shuttle?)

Doctor M said:

Yup, me too.  The spammer's account: http://originaltrilogy.com/forum/user-profile.cfm/babyopp30/user/8860/

 

babyopp30

Interested in you My name is cynthia am a beautiful young girl with full of love Well, I saw your profile today which gives me joy to contact you please i will like you contact me through my e-mail daborc12@yahoo.com At the same time i will show you my picture and send me your picture Miss cynthia send me an e-mail daborc12@yahoo.com

Thanks.

Account banned.

Talking of HDTV versions, wasn't there a broadcast rip of the pre-clean-up version available at one time? It would potentially make a better source for the original version than the LD, if it can be located.