Pioneer LaserDisc / DVD thread - Page 26

All I can find out is that the H9 was the last ever made by Pioneer and may have had a better comb filter than the X9, I'm interested to see what the performance is like.

IMO, the comb filter technology found in '90s era laserdisc players should be bettered by today's technology. You'd likely be better off using the composite output of the laserdisc player and bypassing it's comb filter altogether.

The best unit I've seen is the HLD-X0 with its internal DNR to really have an unbelievable clean picture on my Pioneer Plasma. I turn off all DNR and other processing to get a beautiful picture.

But I must say I can take a LD-S2 and use the Pioneer Elite Plasma internal DNR and get just as good of a picture feeding composite input the Plasma.

I'm Portuguese and live quite close to him in fact. By your statement, and since I have been conned by an US citizen in the past, should I just avoid 310 million Americans (besides people in Canada and Mexico too)? I hear they're close to you guys....

Well let me give you an update about Ricardo Tomas.

He now tells me it got lost in the post and he is making a claim. And I have to wait till he gets the money.

Which ofcourse is ********. If he can't deliver he should refund me my money right now. since I have nothing to do with the shipment or insurance. But I guess these are just more lies.

So please let everybody know not to go in business with this con artist.

(@Ricardo Cruz: Sorry, but your fellow country man does give Portugal a bad name. Especially since he changes his name all the time it is hard to tell who he is and who he is not.)

That's about as daft as saying Bernie Madoff gives the US and it's citizens a bad name . Should I infer most US citizens are greedy Ponzi swindlers?

PM incoming anyway, let me gather some data

As I am only using this system to archive discs via a Blackmagic Extreme composite capture system, would I be better off getting a Pioneer S2?
I'm looking for the cleanest composite feed possible, (Or an X0 under 2 grand

i guess I'm in the market for an S2 or X1 then

I have a Pioneer CLD-M90 carousel player that has started getting very temperamental - it works when it wants to. I haven't used it all that much and I'm wondering whether it's (a) cheaper to get it repaired and if so, where or (b) get it replaced with a different laserdisc playerand what would be a decent upgrade? Cost for both options definitely plays into the consideration (I'm cheap - I really don't want to pay more than $100, if at all possible). I may be able to get a Pioneer CLD-V2600 in decent shape for about $50 - is that a good option? What say the experts here on the forum?

I had a CLD-M401 5 disc changer. It can be very expensive to repair. It's not a carousel, but an arm grabs the disc and drops it in the center to play. They're not high performing players. For $100, you can find better.

If you want to save money try to get a CLD-D406, it has an AC-3 RF output and digital optical and they go for under $100. If you don't need the digital output then a 504 is fine. The CLD-V2600 is a single sided player. The 406 or 504 will give you two sided playback. If you are happy with a 2600 then $50 is the mid to high range for that machine.

Thanks for the info. I'll pass on the V2600 and look around for a decent replacement.

The CLD-D704 is largely considered the best non-elite player ever made. Equivalent to the elite CLD-79. After about 25 years of my CLD-M401, I upgraded to the 704. I found it on ebay for $120. The picture quality was quite striking. Otherwise, I would recommend a newer player ('95-'96) and "both sides" play, I've always liked the look of the CLD-D606. It can be found at a reasonable price, it's from '96, has ac-3 out and plays both sides. Good luck!

Mister Ricardo Tomas that guy from MV_CInema consulting and many other names told me the insurance will pay him back. But of course I have not heard from him again..... He is probably ripping them of as well.

Anybody still in contact with this crook? Tell him to refund me.

The Blackmagic is excellent, except for the crappy comb filter. Everything else is amazingly good.

I just need to find a standalone comb-filter now. I believe that some of the DVD recorders out there had excellent ones that outperfomed some high priced scalers?

I have a CLD-99 and it won't power up, there's no standby led. Checked the fuse and its ok. What should I do next, how can I eject the tray with no power to view the power board to diagnose.

First thing to do would be to procure the service manual. If you can't find one drop me a line and I'll see if I have it.

Check the power switch is working with a multimeter, if that is working then it is easy enough to trace the power from the circuit diagrams and test as you go to isolate the problem area.
In the meantime check over the boards looking for any black marks or capacitor leakage.

Thanks I discovered that the solder joint for power switching regulator had worked loose and resoldered it and all is fine now.

Excellent news!

Ricardo Tomas a.k.a. MC_cinema consulting and well-known bad guy in the laserdisc world has changed his ebay name (again). he now goes by the name of laserdisc_temple and is trying to sell some over priced laserdisc player.

Please avoid this crook. I have stilll not recieved my player I bought a year ago, nor did he refund me after the player arrived broken. He prommissed me to sent it 3 weeks ago, but nothing happened. So just beware with anybody from Portugal that sells stuff.

Laserdisc Temple of Doom.

(sorry for the cross post, but I'm new here)

I have been using my Elite CLD-99 for many years, but today the drawer would not open and the display indicated an E3 diagnostic code. It was also making a grinding sound. I opened it up to look inside for the source of the noise. I could see a white plastic rack and pinion gear. The pinion was turning but the rack was not moving.

Thanks for any help,
Ken

^
Load belt may need to be replaced?

Perhaps Curtis can weigh in here with his well-known and comprehensive diagnosis/assessment.
Edited by erhurd - 10/22/12 at 8:23pm

Hello people, I just signed up tonight because I am hoping the experts here will be able to give me some advice. I just got back into buying LDs again after not having bought an LD since 2002. I was lucky enough to buy a CLD-D99 on Saturday and was floored by how incredible the picture was. It made me realise that I have never really seen Laserdisc until now despite buying my first player in 1998 when I was only 20. I was extremely excited when I went to pick the player up on Saturday but had this nagging feeling that there would be something wrong with it because it seemed too good to be true.

So, I got home, gave it a nice clean and made it all shiny and pretty and turned it on. To my surprise, a few seconds after I turned it on, the tray popped open and there was a disc inside and the "U1" error showed on the display. I thought "oh crap, I knew it". After a few times popping the disc in and out, it eventually recognised the disc and played and showed me its beautiful picture. The U1 error continued and it also took forever to eject the disc after stopping because it was slipping and had to spin down on its own. After much research on the net I decided it had to be the spindle slipping and needed cleaning to fix it. I could not find 95% alcohol but read that 70% swabs were fine as well. I bought some, took the beast apart and cleaned the top and bottom of the spindle thoroughly. I put the top spindle back on making sure it was nice and tight again and tried it out. It seemed to work properly after getting a U1 the first time I turned it on and the disc also stopped properly with no more slippage but there seemed to be a new problem *sigh*

One of the many things that amazed me about the D99 compared to my D590, was how damn quiet it was. I could barely hear a disc being moved into place or spinning up. The laser was also quiet. But after cleaning and stopping the U1 error, the player now sounds louder and rougher than the D590! I am now also getting wobbly disc spin up and terrible CAV tracking problems. I know the CAV thing can be a mis-aligned laser, but I did not touch the laser. So I am wondering if I may have cleaned too hard and damaged something like the spring in the top part of the spindle? Or, maybe I cleaned some vital lubricant off the top spindle by mistake and that is why the machine is now so loud? I really love this machine and do not want to send it back and before I try (probably in vain) to find someone to service it, I would like to try and fix the problem myself. The worst thing is I now have the feeling that it would have sorted itself out with some playtime, I am really starting to wish that I never opened the thing to clean it now.....

The CLD-D99 is an excellent machine, rather scarce compared to its blackface counterpart, and well worth servicing. In the US, there are experts on either coast who can whip your player into shape. If you're not in the US, well...maybe not so much. I'm sure the service manual is available online somewhere, but Pioneer's manuals assume you're a technician who knows what he's doing.

Sometimes when you take players apart the chassis is torqued a little off when you re-assemble. Try playing it with the top off or see if torquing the chassis manually helps. If the spindle motor is starting to wear out it can cause vibration.

It certainly is an amazing machine. I never dreamed I would find one for sale here, let alone only and a half hours from my house! Like the other models made for Asia, the CLD-D99 was sold here in Australia (Pioneer basically sold the Asian market versions here, Euro PAL/NTSC models were rare) and I remember seeing it in the big A/V specialty shops in Sydney and around where I lived and drooled over how gorgeous it was. Having started looking for a new player on eBay for the past 3 weeks or so, I was sure that if by some miracle I found one, it would be in Sydney or Melbourne. I am now living on the Gold Coast in Queensland and couldn't be sure this backwards place ever even sold Laserdiscs It seems I was wrong though because I did ring Pioneer and asked if they could advise me as to a service centre that still deals with LD players and thankfully the one they pointed me to said yes they can service it and they still most parts available. Problem is, it is $140 just to look at and diagnose the problem and then if it needs more than a service (which I do not think it does), they will then quote me a price to fix it. It only cost me $300 in the first place! As you said, I would be fine if I was in the US especially with Kurtis Bahr but I am in Australia. But, I will not get a better machine than the D99 until I get back to Japan and try and buy a LD-S9 or R7G so it is my baby for now. I thought on the way home from picking it up that I would love to have someone like Kurtis give it a good service and get running in peak condition so it lasted as long as possible. I can only hope the service centre I am taking it to can do almost as good a job as he can.


Thank you Kurtis. I did try that yesterday actually but was afraid to do it too much in case I made the problem worse or damaged the laser or something. It did seem to make a little bit of a difference though. One disc that had major problems, "Wolf Guy Vol.1", was only playing to around the 240000th frame before the skipping and super speed started. After playing with the chassis, it played further along before the trouble started and stopped before the end of the disc where the credits and next ep preview are. The problem seemed much more severe when I turned the disc over and played it as side B. The laser had such a hard time tracking that it gave up near the end of the disc when I tried to skip to the last chapter or the second last chapter.

I put in 2 other CAV discs today and they played perfectly so I got a little excited thinking that it worked itself back into place (yea right, I know!) but putting Wolf Guy in again produced the same result although, again it seemed to happen further into the disc and was fine at the end with the credits etc. I am hoping the spindle motor is OK because it was so quiet before I cleaned it. Could I have damaged it in some way? I was very careful cleaning it by following your instructions. I also thought that maybe I damaged the spring in the clamp when I cleaned it because it does sound a little off when I slowly turn the clamp around. It's hard to describe the sound though other than an "off" springy sound. Could the wobbly disc startup be caused by a worn spindle motor? Or could it be the clamp spring?

Thank you for your help!

It could be the clamp, definitely worth a look.
I'm also in Australia, I have an X9, A CIL2EX a 2950 and a 4300D. Who did pioneer point you to for servicing locally?
Whereabouts are you, I might be able to make a trip and help you out.
Cheers

-Peter