Laserdisc players with optical outs? Optical to MiniDV?

[average joe]

1) Does anyone know of LaserDisc players that have optical outs for better video?....

2) Does anyone know of a way or workaround to take the optical out of a DVD player and break that down to go straight into a MiniDV camera to retain all the resolution?

[Popee]

Optical out is for audio only.

There are several ways to transfer video from a DVD player, depending on the player. Among them are DVI, Component, RGB, SVideo and Composite (RCA jacks). No optical output that I know of.

LaserDisc players have even less choices. I believe they have either SVideo and/or composite out.

[Yirkin]

Laser discs are digital arn't they? What format is the data stored in? Is there any way to read the data into a pc? For instance to convert old Laser Discs to DVD. I'm just curious if people are doing LD to DVD conversions other then through an analog capture.


Howard

[thxkid]

yes and no on digital, yes the audio was digital, no the video was strictly Analog and some of those Laser discs Rival its DVD counter parts on video quality, 2 I can name off hand Stargate and True Lies both were THX certifed and were at the top when Laser was King.
Sorry the only way to record a laser disc is through Svideo or RCA Video jack, but the qaulity of Laser disc itself also depended on the player at the time the Pioneer 900 series was the king of players, I had a 970 and it had every digital filter and TBC, pioneer could add at the time, really improved the allready great picture. So if your looking to transfer Laser Discs, try to find either a Pioneer or Sony Player that had Digital filters and was a side changer, I am sure used you can find one of these for less than a $150, the cheaper models can be had for less than $50, but will lack the side changer and digital filters.
I was happy to get my extremely rare lasers over to DVD before my player crapped out - Song of the south, Aladdin, Lion King, WOW THX Demo Disc, Star Wars Box Set, etc.....

[version20]

Anyone know if there is a way to preserve Dolby 5.1 audio all the way from Laserdisc to DVD?

-v20

[Vcdtron]

First of all, I ask you if you have the proper hardware to listen the laser disc 5.1 audio track. You need a LD player with ac-3 rf output (the Dolby Digital track is encoded in the right channel of the analog audio track). Then you need a receiver or decoder that can handle that signal (different than the one used by today DVDs) and finally you need a movie printed on the laser disc with the 5.1 audio. You could find now on auctions laser discs only with analog sound, others with analog and digital and finally those with stereo digital y Dolby Digital 5.1 together (and a few ones that had DTS sound encoded instead of the digital stereo track).
I know it sounds very complicated, but the trick is the ac-3 rf signal (ac-3 was the first name given to Dolby Digital, meaning audio coding 3). Without that signal, you could use any disc, any player and any receiver or decoder and the result would be the same, only digital stereo (the PCM audio of the CDs) sound.

[Hardcoreruss]

If you are in the UK there are three players which have ac3 out as standard the pioneer 925, 909 and 919. The latter two play dvd's also. However any laserdisc player can reproduce ac3 sound if it has an ac3 mod board inserted in it. There is only one company in the UK that advertises to doing this, namely videotec (the come up on google if you search). I myself have a pioneer 2950 with ac3 mod, cost £700 brand new and another £250 for the mod but you could pict it up on ebay for around £250. Star Wars is the absolute dogs on it.

[Hardcoreruss]

I forgot you will also need a demodulator to process the sound aswell

[version20]

So you are saying that even though my laserdisc player has both optical and coaxial outs for audio, it still needs the RF doohickey? Why would a manufacturer even bother to add these to a piece of hardware if only stereo sound could be achieved? odd.

-v20

[Vcdtron]

What I say is that even tough you have a laser disc player with optical, coaxial and rca outputs, without the ac-3 rf signal output terminal, there's no way you can use the Dolby Digital 5.1 signal printed on the laser disc and connect it to a decoder, receiver, amplifier.
Don't picture it as a manufacturer problem, is like the first attempts to use digital sound on the cinema, you had the film with the picture on the center and the soundtrack on one side and no place to print something else, the solution was print the Dolby Digital signal between the holes of the film, after that to print the signal for Sony SDDS they use the outer edges and for DTS a little mark beside the analog soundtrack to sync the audio from a CD carrying the digital sound to use.
On laser discs you have two pairs of stereo sound, one analog and other digital (and some only with analog sound). The laser disc format was the king in the 80's and 90's, never defeated by VHS and the year 1993 was presented to the public the first THX certified laser with the movie "The Abyss", the image and sound (stereo, not 5.1) was amazing, after that every studio wanted to reprint a rematerizate the films they knew were gonna kick sales, the first widescreen editions appeared, and the only missing thing was the sound. At the time you could find excelent receivers or amplifiers to enjoy movies and most of the laser used the dolby surround to decode an analog signal into five speakers. Almost anyone today have witnessed the quality of a home teather with DD, DTS DDEX, DTSES. But ten years ago, there was only surround. The manufacturers knew they had to change that into a digital domain, but there was no place to put another signal, so they use one of the analog track channel and place a encoded signal, non of the laser disc players available at the time could handle it, a new one had to be purchased and as no receiver or amplifier "knew" how to use it, a demodulator had to be use between the player and the amplifier. After a little while appeared the monsters that until today take away the sleep of us little mortals that were the holy grial of home cinema around the world, the first digital audio proccesors. Oh, I was forgetting, a few titles were available os laser discs carrying a DTS signal, the difference with the Dolby was that the signal for DTS was printed instead of the digital stereo track, but you didn't need a decoder to listen to it, only a player with digital ouput and a receiver DTS decoder with digital imput. Time passed and another thing was appearing on the Horyzont, the DVD and after only four years it took little by little the laser disc king throne, until the biggest laser disc company stopped his production (Pioneer)...... an the rest is history.
Until now, who could deny the importance of the DVD format, it has almost killed the VHS market (one thing the laser disc never could), why I as manufacturer should worry about things that 99.9 % of the consumers doesn't care or know. I'm not sure where are you from, but I can tell you this, I live in Southamerica, and if only purchase one movie on laser disc was an adventure itself, if I wanted to change my receiver for another with rf imput (I have the proper player and the 5.1 discs) it would be like changing my expensive receiver for other 5 times the price of the mine. For instance the Yamaha DSP-A1.
I hope this could explains some things to all of you.

[vance43211]

ahh laserdiscs and the yamaha DSP-A1 (or A1000 i don't remember which one)

the good old days

2 reason laserdisc didn't take over vhs

they broke real easy (i probably broke 5 of them)

they costs $50.00 for each disc

that was the trick dvd use to destroy laserdisc

they sold you a player for a $1000.00

but the movies were only $20.00