Laserdisc Players with Component Output??

There is NO LD player that has Component output for LD. The DVL-9XX series has component for DVD but NOT LD. LD is recorded in composite format so you would have to add an entire extra electronic section to take the composite filtered to S-Video and then decode and mix the chroma signals to form the component output. That would add a lot of cost for circuitry already in TV sets. DVD is recorded in a different format that decodes into component easily, they actually add extra mixing in the digital realm to get the S-Video output.

You likely saw a DVD/LD combi player such as the Pio DVL-919.
The component output is for DVD only as does not function for LD.

Even if you have seen it, that is not possible, you wouldnt have any advantage to have it for LD.
LD is a composite format... I dont even use the S-Video on my players, always composite.

What gives you the best picture depends on how your TV handles the composite input internally. Does it perform advanced processing while separating composite into Y/C signals.

As for the cable there are many good cables, with Monster you will send a lot extra just for the name. Look for cable made with 99.9% oxygen Free cables and quality insulation between the cabling. The junk cable are the free ones that come in the both with equipment.

Any decent composite cable will do. Forum sponsor Monoprice.com sells good cables for great prices. I'd pick up a S-video and composite cable and compare for yourself, others have stated since LD is composite you may actually get better PQ using composite. Not necessarily doubting them(I've never used LD) but it's something I'd like to see with my own eyes. I haven't used composite for years, S-video(for DVD players) but the last time I used composite was when I use to use VCRs.
I wouldn't go so low as to use audio cables for composite(they may be the wrong impedance) but any decent video cable should look the same as a $30+ Monster cable.

I have seen a few LD players with component out. They were not the NTSC consumer LD players but rather a component analog video LD that is encoded differently. Their were recorders and players. Some I saw were I think for military flight simulators. They look like industrial pioneer machines. Their also was a short lived variant of LD with native component video for consumer market that never was released along with HiDef muse LD's.

Yes I agree that there were players that recorded in another format and the discs look the same as the laserdisc used in the consumer market but they are a completely different product. Those players do not play LDs and LD players cannot play a disc made to those machines.

There was nothing ever made to play a NTSC LD and provide a component output. There were variants of digital encoded discs the size of an LD, I have a Sony player and one disc at home. If I was at home I could provide more details but I have not turned it on in years.

If you cannot get an acceptable picture using the composite output to the LCD then the NTSC processing in the TV is just not as good, doesn't matter if it is composite or S-Video. You would need an external scaler to output 1080p to the LCD.

No consumer LD players were released with component, The true industrial players I've are usually Composite only.

I have a s-vhs deck with component as well as SDI... but I still use composite on it.

You are right [you COULD HAVE] been dreaming

WHY don't you post the brand and model number?

I'm also interested as I know of D-VHS units that also play S-VHS that output component for S-VHS but I have never heard of a S-VHS unit that does component and SDI.

The AC-3 signal from a Laserdisc player must be demodulated. In the mid-to-late '90s, some high-end receivers offered a dedicated "AC-3" input with a demodulator circuit built-in. However, after LD went obsolete, manufacturers stopped including this. Your receiver seems to be from circa 2009. You'll need an external demodulator.

We used a high end Panasonic SVHS machine on the post production of "America's Funniest Home Videos" in the late 1990s that may have had SDI. I can't remember. But it did have at least a TBC built in and could be operated under standard Sony edit protocol. The latter was the most important function to us as it saved dubbing to a broadcast tape format for editing.

Ah the good old hardware days. Now we just suck everything into a PC and output a show in full broadcast quality HD!

I do remember the last Panasonic Industrial machine had Component connections, did not remember SDI.

I was thinking consumer units as these units cost $5K each.

That's the feature I'd like to have on a LD player, but so far as I can tell it doesn't exist. I've been considering building an interpreter to control my Pioneer LD-V8000 from my Sony editing controller, but I'm really hoping there was a product for that at one time, which I can get surplus somewhere. Sadly, I don't really know where to look.

Get a copy of the "Sony 9pin protocol". I assume you have a copy of the LD RS232 commands.

Take an old PC with two serial ports and write a translator. I would use C but a compiled BASIC could be used as well. Even an old 16mhz DOS machine can easily handle this task. When you get it working you can even port it to a single board computer with a FLASH disk boot.

P.S. you will need an RS232 to RS422 converter on the PC port the editor id plugged into. Check out B&B electronics for that.

I was thinking of possibly using a semi-custom microcontroller board with two UARTs on it, one set up for 232, the other for 422. The real difficulty is that, from what I've seen of the Sony protocol, it doesn't quite map 1-to-1 with the LDP protocol (which is completely covered in the V8000 manual). One big issue is that the frame code on a CAV LD can be assigned arbitrarily, to any number of consecutive fields (well, there's probably a limit, but many discs have them assigned per film frame, 3-2-3-2) so I can't just interpret the frame numbers into drop-frame timecode via a lookup table. Maybe the complete 9-pin protocol documentation will help sort things out.


My preference would be to use an external demodulator or decoder. All kinds of things may fail on a receiver over time, such as power amplifier or control circuitry. If you use an outboard unit, you can change receivers, or possibly go on to "separates" in time. I currently have two Yamaha DDP-1 units, external processors which take in the AC-3 RF signal (as well as Dolby Digital via coaxial or optical SPDIF) & output 5.1-channel analog. One of these will work on any receiver which has analog multichannel inputs.

I'll probably be looking to sell one soon, as I have arranged to acquire a Pioneer unit which includes some other functions & a volume control. It doesn't handle dts, but I'm not likely to need that, so I could just use it directly with a power amp if my receiver gave up the ghost.

An older receiver will not have support for Dolby TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio or other Blu-ray sound formats, not to mention a lack of ProLogic II or ProLogic IIx processing. (You'll be stuck with the original ProLogic for all 2-channel audio.) Ask yourself how much of your viewing will Laserdisc really comprise.

Dolby Digital 5.1 is a pain in the neck to implement on Laserdisc, there's a very limited title selection, and all of the discs are encoded at the lowest 384 kb/s bit rate. You can frequently get better sound quality by listening to the 2-channel PCM tracks on the same disc when played through Dolby ProLogic IIx processing.