old skool! laserdisc piooner ld-v4300d problem

[spartacus007]

hi, have this player which should play both pal and ntsc disks. i can play ntsc OK but the pal disks spin up and spin back down and generally mess about spinning up and down without playing. i have tried several pal disks. any ideas?

[jman98]

As I bought my laserdisc players in the USA they can't do PAL and anyway, dual standard TVs back in those days were insanely expensive in North America so there was no real demand for such players here. Nobody imported PAL laserdiscs either. So I have no personal experience with dual format laserdisc players.

Having said that, Pioneer made some good players. I've got 2 that still work, although they aren't used much. I'd like to make a guess. Maybe the problem is specific to your PAL discs not because the player can't play PAL any more, but maybe the manufacturing wasn't too good on those discs and they've got problems like laser rot. Most of my laserdiscs are still fine but I've got one or two that have bad laser rot so it wasn't unheard of in the NTSC world. I'd suggest if you have a friend with a working player that you play a problem disc on that player and if it plays OK then the issue would seem to be one of PAL support being somehow broken in your player.

[hech54]

i have tried several pal disks. any ideas?

It can't play PAL discs.

[spartacus007]

i bought about 15 sealed pal discs and they look ok, but i will get another and confirm that it plays pal somewhere else.
thanks a lot , i'll let you know the outcome

[spartacus007]

i think you're right about the PAL electronics having a problem. I have obtained a PAL disc that should play and it does the same as all my others. I have taken the cover off and there are PAL pcb sections with pot adjustments, I might have a twiddle.
A bit worried about that laser though!

[hech54]

iI have taken the cover off and there are PAL pcb sections with pot adjustments, I might have a twiddle.

Now THAT sounds like fun.
On the other hand....If you do get to twiddling and get it to accept the PAL discs and play them....they'll probably show up as black and white on your NTSC-based television.