[lindafern]

I would appreciate knowing if the Silk 100 would be suitable for and would do anything for Laserdiscs? Is this, so far, the best solution for them? I have a lot of laserdiscs and would really like to enjoy them. Also, could the player be modded? Or doesn't this do anything for Laserdiscs? Thanks in advance. Lindy

 

[ChrisW6ATV]

Lindy-


The SDI Silk board is a "serial digital video" interface board, and is probably only appropriate for devices that have SDI signals internally to begin with, like set-top DVD players, digital satellite-TV receivers, Tivo recorders, etc. Laserdiscs are an analog video format, so to feed their signal into a computer, you will have to digitize it at some point. If you specifically want to use DScaler, then you need to use an analog video capture board as discussed elsewhere on AVS Forum. If you would rather have the video digitizing done outside of the computer, then an analog-to-DV device like the Dazzle Hollywood DV Bridge or one of the direct-pass-through DV camcorders, along with an IEEE1394 ("FireWire") board, is probably the best way to go. There are analog-to-SDI devices that you could use with the SDI Silk board, but this combination might be close to a 'cost is no object'-type plan compared to the prices of the DV/1394 stuff. I don't know if the SDI equipment would really give you a big quality improvement over DV for the much higher cost.

 

[dschmelzer]

Hi Linda--


I think the person with the username "shokunin" has tried inputting laserdisc with an SDI Silk card. The video is converted to SDI using an AJA D5D converter (~$700?).


Perhaps shokunin can give you a rundown on quality.


Chris: I wonder whether some of the later laserdisc players didn't have some digital chips in them. Laserdisc just isn't my bag, so I don't know.

 

[ChrisW6ATV]

Dan-


I have been involved with laser discs from the original Discovision days (around 1980). Starting about 1988, there were players with digital memory for slow-motion and other effects on extended-play discs, but it was only a 'field' memory that was output interlaced but with only half vertical resolution. Nothing close to what SDI does, as far as I know. The laserdisc format was always 'on the bleeding edge' with features compared to the rest of the home-video world, and that also sometimes made things difficult, like the way Dolby Digital sound is output for example. Still, I won't give up my player or discs for a long, long time...