My HDTV doesn't like my LD. Hope me.

May 8, 2006 8:46 PM

So, I just hooked up my laserdisc player to the HDTV, and boy does it look bad. Looks like I'll need a scaler/upconverter, but they seem prohibitively expensive. Help!

Now, this isn't the place for cheap laserdisc jibes. I've got a nice progressive-scan DVD player and a sizable DVD library that look great on the HDTV, but I've also got many LDs with material that never quite made its way to DVD. I've also got a realistic expectation for how good laserdisc can look (almost as good as DVD with a nice player and a well-mastered disc, both of which I have).

However, the deinterlacer built into my HDTV apparently isn't good enough to keep from displaying all kinds of deinterlacing artifacts when using the SD inputs, and reading the AVS Forum, it seems like this is a pretty common problem. To make matters worse, the common answer appears to be to buy one of the DVDO iScan or Algolith Dragonfly units, which run in the four figures, or to build an HTPC to do the conversion through with Dscaler, all of which seem rather absurd just to make things look as good as they did on my old SDTV set.

I did find this Startech unit for $200 which looks like it would suit my needs, but unfortunately, I can't find any reviews that speak to the quality of the unit.

Anyone have any <$300 suggestions for deinterlacing the output of the LD player? I have a free HDMI/DVI port on the TV I can use, and the laserdisc player will output either S-Video or composite.

posted by eschatfische to technology (4 comments total)

What brand of TV is it?

Have you tried other NTSC devices? If it varies on a device-by-device basis, maybe try putting the video through a Tivo?
Maybe get an HD Tivo with SD inputs?

While this may be impractical based on the size of your library, ripping all the LDs to DVD-Rs would not be a bad idea, and you'd only have to do it once.
posted by blenderfish at 9:25 PM on May 8, 2006

What brand of TV is it?

It's a Philips CRT-based unit, bought cheap at Costco. No reason to expect it would have a great built-in deinterlacer, but I would have expected it'd have a better one.

Have you tried other NTSC devices?

Yep, and it seems to display the same artifacting (although it's far, far less noticable on lower-res sources like VHS).

Maybe get an HD Tivo with SD inputs?

I'm patiently waiting for the Series 3 before making the move into any type of over-the-air HDTV. We use the TV primarily for watching DVDs, and don't currently have satellite or cable.

While this may be impractical based on the size of your library, ripping all the LDs to DVD-Rs would not be a bad idea, and you'd only have to do it once.

While I'd love to do this, the thought of the time necessary makes my head swim. A lot of the material on the LDs are in supplements that I'd find difficult to transfer -- multi-disc sets with multiple commentary tracks and step-by-step text & video supplements would seem like they'd take far more time to master than I'd want to spend. If you've got any suggestions for doing this, I'd be open to it, but I don't see many ways of automating the transfer into something reasonable.
posted by eschatfische at 9:55 PM on May 8, 2006

If returning the TV is still an option, you can get units with much better deinterlacers. Sony's low-end HDTV CRTs are in the $900 range. I bought either a 32" or a 36" model, and the image quality is phenomenal, both with SD and HDTV sources. Out of the box, it comes set to 'Vivid' mode, which is almost cartoonish. There are three other modes that are much more natural. The "Pro" mode was so accurate that I didn't have to make _any_ changes when I calibrated it with AVIA. I've never seen a set that didn't require any calibration before; Pro mode was perfect. (well except for a little bit of barrel distortion, but it's not at all visible in normal viewing, only with a grid up.)

From what I've read on the forums, Sony's build quality isn't apparently very good anymore, so you may end up returning 1 or 2 before you get one with a picture you really like. My screen has that touch of barrel distortion, but it's not visible in normal viewing, and ye GODS does it look good.

They only have a 90-day warranty (unless you go up into their $1800-range sets), so you may want an extended warranty. I opted not to get one, and so far it hasn't bitten me.

These are _extremely_ heavy units, so if you get one, recruit a friend to help you install it.
posted by Malor at 10:07 PM on May 8, 2006

If you bought it at Costco then returning it IS an option. They're very good about returns.
posted by aubilenon at 11:12 PM on May 8, 2006