Pioneer Elite CLD-59 grainy picture

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

Hi,

I don't have much experience with LD players. In fact CLD-59 is the only one
I ever owned. Got it from Ebay a few months ago. When I play a few 80s and
early 90s LDs, I notice that the picture looks grainy. And I'm wondering
whether it's a problem with my LD player or with LDs. This is a snapshot from
1985 LaserDisc that I did using my capture card.

http/us.geocities.com/leonid_makarovsky/Maiden/maiden.JPG

Can expert here tell me whether it's an LD disc or it's an LD player that
'cause the problem. If it's an LD player, what can I do about it?

--Leonid

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

I am no expert.
What I can tell you is that I've checked out many thousands of
laserdiscs over the years. Some do have very bad, grainy transfers,
worse even than VHS.
These are few and far between. You'd be better off listing some of the
titles you are having trouble with so that people here can tell you if
the transfer is poor or not.
Kevin.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

Kevin Hawerchuk <KevHaw@webtv.net> wrote:
: I am no expert.
: What I can tell you is that I've checked out many thousands of
: laserdiscs over the years. Some do have very bad, grainy transfers,
: worse even than VHS.
: These are few and far between. You'd be better off listing some of the
: titles you are having trouble with so that people here can tell you if
: the transfer is poor or not.

Sure,

Coroner - Live In East Berlin
Iron Maiden - Live After Death

I'll check the rest. I only have a few.

--Leonid

 

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Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

It was actually Pioneer CLD-52. Sorry for mistake.

--Leonid

Leonid Makarovsky <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote:
: Hi,

: I don't have much experience with LD players. In fact CLD-59 is the only one
: I ever owned. Got it from Ebay a few months ago. When I play a few 80s and
: early 90s LDs, I notice that the picture looks grainy. And I'm wondering
: whether it's a problem with my LD player or with LDs. This is a snapshot from
: 1985 LaserDisc that I did using my capture card.

: http/us.geocities.com/leonid_makarovsky/Maiden/maiden.JPG

: Can expert here tell me whether it's an LD disc or it's an LD player that
: 'cause the problem. If it's an LD player, what can I do about it?

: --Leonid

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

"Leonid Makarovsky" <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote in message
news:co3k43$2bh$1@news3.bu.edu...
> It was actually Pioneer CLD-52. Sorry for mistake.

The problem is a combination of old 80s discs with dodgy video transfers
and a middling laserdisc player.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

On 24 Nov 2004 16:55:02 GMT, Leonid Makarovsky <venom@cs.bu.edu>
wrote:

>Hi,
>
>I don't have much experience with LD players. In fact CLD-59 is the only one
>I ever owned. Got it from Ebay a few months ago. When I play a few 80s and
>early 90s LDs, I notice that the picture looks grainy. And I'm wondering
>whether it's a problem with my LD player or with LDs. This is a snapshot from
>1985 LaserDisc that I did using my capture card.
>
>http/us.geocities.com/leonid_makarovsky/Maiden/maiden.JPG
>
>Can expert here tell me whether it's an LD disc or it's an LD player that
>'cause the problem. If it's an LD player, what can I do about it?
>
>--Leonid

You've done a wise thing by starting to hang out at Doom9. Regardless
of whether your player or disc is causing the grain (I predict it's
something like 75% disc/transfer and 25% player: Pioneer is good, but
I don't believe the CLD-59 is spectacular), the gurus on the forum
will get your material looking as good as it can look.

Or, you can hang out here, and start to think about spending several
thousand dollars on the best LD player money can buy. Also fun, I'd
assume.

But even then you'd want to end up at Doom9 to get the best out of
what you've got. So your question here is almost moot.

If your cap card is halfway decent, use composite in. Since your
source is probably field-based, separate fields and use something like
MSU denoiser. Or use some sort of motion-compensated deinterlacing.
You might try Tweak to get the colours right (and/or Levels to get the
brightness and gamma good), and then you're done! The very best purse
that can be made from a ca. 1985 sow's ear.

 

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Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

Karyudo <karyudo_usenet@yahoo.com.remove.me> wrote:
: You've done a wise thing by starting to hang out at Doom9. Regardless
: of whether your player or disc is causing the grain (I predict it's
: something like 75% disc/transfer and 25% player: Pioneer is good, but
: I don't believe the CLD-59 is spectacular), the gurus on the forum
: will get your material looking as good as it can look.

You know what I noticed. I noticed that when I plug it in to my capture card,
it looks grainy. If I plug my LD CLD-52 to the regular TV, it looks fine. If
I plug my VCR to my capture card, it looks fine. So there's something in
between I can't figure out. I actually boost the Sharpness on my capture card
all the way up. Then I see the grain. If I set sharpness to 0, there's no grain,
but it's a bit blury.

: If your cap card is halfway decent, use composite in. Since your

FlyVideo 3000FM - it's Philips based. When I capture from VHS, the end result
looks exactly the same as VHS.

: source is probably field-based, separate fields and use something like
: MSU denoiser. Or use some sort of motion-compensated deinterlacing.

I haven't used any denoiser yet. But I was just wondering... there're some
expensive LD players out there with Noise reduction. Can the same noise
reduction be achieved digitally to already captured noisy AVI?

--Leonid

 

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Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

"Leonid Makarovsky" <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote in message
news:co42b3$lts$1@news3.bu.edu...
> I actually boost the Sharpness on my capture card
> all the way up. Then I see the grain. If I set sharpness to 0, there's
> no grain,
> but it's a bit blury.

Have you ever calibrated a display with something similar to Video
Essentials or Avia? Turning your sharpness all the way up is a terrible
idea. Don't do that.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

On 25 Nov 2004 07:41:23 GMT, Leonid Makarovsky <venom@cs.bu.edu>
wrote:

>You know what I noticed. I noticed that when I plug it in to my capture card,
>it looks grainy. If I plug my LD CLD-52 to the regular TV, it looks fine. If
>I plug my VCR to my capture card, it looks fine. So there's something in
>between I can't figure out. I actually boost the Sharpness on my capture card
>all the way up. Then I see the grain. If I set sharpness to 0, there's no grain,
>but it's a bit blury.

Try a good composite cable? I'm astounded that you'd think the VCR
looks "fine", but the LD doesn't. Maybe it *is* a player problem? But
the cap you showed as an example looked OK.

>FlyVideo 3000FM - it's Philips based.

I have the same card. I think it's very good. This is getting almost
OT (no more OT than Steve and Kraig's ongoing drama), but I use
VirtualVCR and like the results. I can't adjust gamma when capturing
(which cards can, I wonder?), but I usually cap with the saturation a
bit above default, the brightness down a few, and the sharpness no
higher than 1.

>I haven't used any denoiser yet. But I was just wondering... there're some
>expensive LD players out there with Noise reduction. Can the same noise
>reduction be achieved digitally to already captured noisy AVI?

I've got a Pioneer CLD-D925, which is about as nice as you can manage
for PAL material, and it has an NR (HQ?) circuit. Which I don't use: I
think the captures are sharper and cleaner with NR off. An off-line
AviSynth filter will do a much nicer job than the internal NR circuit.
Which one? That's part of the fun...

 

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Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

Joshua Zyber <jzyber@SPAMMERS-BITE-ME.mindspring.com> wrote:
: Have you ever calibrated a display with something similar to Video
: Essentials or Avia?

No.

: Turning your sharpness all the way up is a terrible idea.

Why?

--Leonid

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

On 25 Nov 2004 14:50:49 GMT, Leonid Makarovsky <venom@cs.bu.edu>
wrote:

>: Turning your sharpness all the way up is a terrible idea.
>
>Why?

Because it's fake sharpness. If you look at the picture as you adjust
the slider, you'll see that there start to be halos or rings around
objects, especially at boundaries between light and dark objects. This
isn't natural; it's over-processing. That's not what's coming off the
disc, and it's very difficult to undo without losing something else at
the same time.

Capture neutrally, and if you want more sharpness, use iiP or
LimitedSharpen. Those algorithms use super-sampling and much better
cut-off schemes to increase sharpness without messing up edges.

 

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Karyudo <karyudo_usenet@yahoo.com.remove.me> wrote:
: Because it's fake sharpness. If you look at the picture as you adjust
: the slider, you'll see that there start to be halos or rings around
: objects, especially at boundaries between light and dark objects. This
: isn't natural; it's over-processing. That's not what's coming off the
: disc, and it's very difficult to undo without losing something else at
: the same time.

: Capture neutrally, and if you want more sharpness, use iiP or
: LimitedSharpen. Those algorithms use super-sampling and much better
: cut-off schemes to increase sharpness without messing up edges.

Thanks. So do you recommend the default (50%) of sharpness?

--Leonid

 

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Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

"Leonid Makarovsky" <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote in message
news:co4rg9$750$1@news3.bu.edu...
> : Have you ever calibrated a display with something similar to Video
> : Essentials or Avia?
>
> No.

You should. Right now. You still at BU (per your email address)?.
There's a Best Buy at the Fenway Landmark Center mall. Go there
tomorrow. They usually keep the calibration discs in the "Special
Interest" aisle next to the Imax movies and Girls Gone Wild videos.

'Digital Video Essentials' or the 'Sound & Vision Home Theater Tune-Up'
are both less than $20. They are both very good. There is no excuse to
not own one.

> : Turning your sharpness all the way up is a terrible idea.
>
> Why?

Oh dear. Really, get a calibration disc right away.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

The reason you see more grain with the LD player plugged into your capture
card is that a VCR only has 220 lines of resolution at its best, TV is 300
lines of resolution at its best and laserdisc is close to 425 with the
higher end players. With the lower resolutions formats they do not output
enough detail to see grain. Then you add that to turning your sharpness up
to 100% and that adds ringing to edges and falsely make them look sharper.
The lower resolution formats do not show the grain as their is not enough
detail to have the grain in the signal so their is nothing to falsely
enhance. Set your capture card to whatever setting does not suppress or
enhance the signal.

Connect a DVD player and turn your sharpness up to 100% on the capture card
and see how much grain is in that picture.

Kurtis

"Leonid Makarovsky" <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote in message
news:co42b3$lts$1@news3.bu.edu...
> Karyudo <karyudo_usenet@yahoo.com.remove.me> wrote:
> : You've done a wise thing by starting to hang out at Doom9. Regardless
> : of whether your player or disc is causing the grain (I predict it's
> : something like 75% disc/transfer and 25% player: Pioneer is good, but
> : I don't believe the CLD-59 is spectacular), the gurus on the forum
> : will get your material looking as good as it can look.
>
> You know what I noticed. I noticed that when I plug it in to my capture
> card,
> it looks grainy. If I plug my LD CLD-52 to the regular TV, it looks fine.
> If
> I plug my VCR to my capture card, it looks fine. So there's something in
> between I can't figure out. I actually boost the Sharpness on my capture
> card
> all the way up. Then I see the grain. If I set sharpness to 0, there's no
> grain,
> but it's a bit blury.
>
> : If your cap card is halfway decent, use composite in. Since your
>
> FlyVideo 3000FM - it's Philips based. When I capture from VHS, the end
> result
> looks exactly the same as VHS.
>
> : source is probably field-based, separate fields and use something like
> : MSU denoiser. Or use some sort of motion-compensated deinterlacing.
>
> I haven't used any denoiser yet. But I was just wondering... there're some
> expensive LD players out there with Noise reduction. Can the same noise
> reduction be achieved digitally to already captured noisy AVI?
>
> --Leonid
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

Joshua Zyber <jzyber@SPAMMERS-BITE-ME.mindspring.com> wrote:
:> : Have you ever calibrated a display with something similar to Video
:> : Essentials or Avia?
: You should. Right now. You still at BU (per your email address)?.

Close enough.


: There's a Best Buy at the Fenway Landmark Center mall. Go there
: tomorrow. They usually keep the calibration discs in the "Special
: Interest" aisle next to the Imax movies and Girls Gone Wild videos.

Wait a sec. Are you talking about the calibration for my computer display
or for my LD player? You mentioned display. But then you're talking about the
calibration disc. Sorry for the dumb question (-;

--Leonid

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

Karyudo <karyudo_usenet@yahoo.com.remove.me> wrote:
: Because it's fake sharpness. If you look at the picture as you adjust
: the slider, you'll see that there start to be halos or rings around
: objects, especially at boundaries between light and dark objects. This
: isn't natural; it's over-processing. That's not what's coming off the
: disc, and it's very difficult to undo without losing something else at
: the same time.

I have a Matrox G550 TV out card. I plug it to my TV. I also plug my VCR to
my TV. And another output from the VCR goes to my capture card. Switching
between VCR->TV direct and VCR->Capture Card->Matrox G550 TV out->TV looked
exactly the same only if I boosted sharpness all the way up. I did the same
thing with my LD player. Connected it to TV via composite and another composite
output was connected to my capture card. Here I got it grainy boosting sharpness
all the way up. But lowering sharpness to 23% gave pretty much the same picture
as direct LD player->TV connection....

Thanks.

--Leonid

PS. Do you know any AVISynth plugin to remove grains from LaserDiscs?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

"Leonid Makarovsky" <venom@cs.bu.edu> wrote in message
news:co5uni$3qd$2@news3.bu.edu...
> Wait a sec. Are you talking about the calibration for my computer
> display
> or for my LD player? You mentioned display. But then you're talking
> about the
> calibration disc. Sorry for the dumb question (-;

It's meant for a TV display, but if nothing else it will teach you the
basics of why you shouldn't turn up the sharpness or the contrast, and
how to set your colors.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

On 25 Nov 2004 15:23:07 GMT, Leonid Makarovsky <venom@cs.bu.edu>
wrote:

> So do you recommend the default (50%) of sharpness?

Here's what I did -- although you should do some experimenting on your
own:

I picked a scene from an LD where there were very light objects on a
dark background (or vice versa), and put the player on pause. I then
fiddled with the Sharpness slider, and, without looking at the number
or the amount, I adjusted the picture so I liked it. Too low, and it
was soft. Too high, and there started to be ringing/ghosting around
the edges. In the middle it looked as sharp as possible without
discernable EE (edge enhancement). I found that the best compromise
for me and my discs was Sharpness level 1 (in VirtualVCR). Level 0
wasn't bad, either. Any higher and I noticed bad things happening at
the edges; any lower and I may as well be capping from VHS or playing
my LD with a mediocre player: just too soft.

You may want to do similar tests for Contrast, Brightness, and
Saturation. Pick scenes that will let you decide properly (this is the
tough part, actually!) and then play with the sliders. Don't blow out
your whites, don't crush your blacks, don't oversaturate your reds. I
feel these are the classically easy-to-get-wrong problems. Almost any
other parameter can be fixed/tweaked to your satisfaction with
appropriate filters (including per-colour saturation tweaking, gamma,
sharpness, contrast, levels, etc., etc.). I'm no genius at this, but
I've done a lot of reading, a bunch of goofing around, and a lot more
reading during/after goofing around!

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

Karyudo <karyudo_usenet@yahoo.com.remove.me> wrote:
: I picked a scene from an LD where there were very light objects on a
: dark background (or vice versa), and put the player on pause. I then

Mine CLD-52 outputs a blue screen on the pause (-;

I'll probably just compare the output on titles connecting an LD player directly to TV and to capture card until I see that the image looks pretty much the
same. I actually noticed that setting sharpness to %26 gives a very good picture
quality.

--Leonid

 

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Archived from groups: alt.video.laserdisc (More info?)

Kurtis Bahr <kbahr@comcast.net> wrote:
: The reason you see more grain with the LD player plugged into your capture
: card is that a VCR only has 220 lines of resolution at its best, TV is 300
: lines of resolution at its best and laserdisc is close to 425 with the
: higher end players. With the lower resolutions formats they do not output
: enough detail to see grain. Then you add that to turning your sharpness up
: to 100% and that adds ringing to edges and falsely make them look sharper.
: The lower resolution formats do not show the grain as their is not enough
: detail to have the grain in the signal so their is nothing to falsely
: enhance. Set your capture card to whatever setting does not suppress or
: enhance the signal.

I'll try to play with it. Although I think CLD-52 is also not the best player
overthere.

: Connect a DVD player and turn your sharpness up to 100% on the capture card
: and see how much grain is in that picture.

I did. I didn't see any grain. That's the thing.

--Leonid