Here's a brain teaser for everyone, especially our Nintendo-loving friend. Say you have an audio file called audio.mp3 -- you convert it to .wav or .aiff format and then back to an .mp3 called audio2.mp3. Are "audio.mp3" and "audio2.mp3" identical???

I can't wait to hear the answers to this....

Mike Adams, It is clear now that you have no own experience with laserdisc and really don't know that much about you are writing. So I will not take my time to answer you when you are not willing to learn. Please respect that.

What are you trying to prove here??? I have a couple different players, but not in the Pioneer Elite range, which are widely believed to be the best. I've already said I am a big fan of Laserdisc, I'm just saying that your comprehension of the video technology involved in both formats is apparently quite limited, and from the screen grabs you provide, it looks like you're partial to analog fog over actual picture clarity, so there's nothing further I can do here.

If you want to paint me as the stupid American, feel free. You choose to remain ignorant of the true facts of video technology in the same way that you want to remain ignorant of what DVD shows you that's been hiding under all that analog blur. If you're determined to stay in love with Laserdisc and plug your ears at any attempt to educate you, I've nothing else to say.

In America, we call this "the pot calling the kettle black". I know plenty about Laserdisc. Just because you've discovered it in spite of the fact that you weren't born when it was introduced, and never got into video until it had already failed, it doesn't mean it's in any way better than what we have now.

The funny part is that I can prove my point and you are only talk talk talk. Everyone can see that the Anchor Bay DVD of Repulsion have bad contrast boosting and losing details over this. I have many other comparision I can prove that the LD is better. So please, stop talk about things you clearly don't know anything about.
Things like "analog fog over actual picture clarity" is just too funny.

Well, it's been almost 4 months and I haven't even hooked it up yet.

I didn't stumble across any super deals on LD lots, so I'll probably end up getting rid of this behemoth. I have too many hobbies anyway...

But thanks all for your input. I appreciate it.

Well Trevor, the LD-V4400 is not the best player but it will work. But if you are not into horror/b-action/odd movies, than LD maybe is not for you. Most bigger blockbuster are already out on DVD and i 99% of the cases, in a better version. It's mainly older and b-movies that are exclusive for the format. Give the player to someone else

Your argument would be a lot more compelling if you had any idea what you were talking about. Here's a newsflash: All DVDs are encoded in 480i interlaced video. There is no such thing as a "progressive" DVD.

The flagging on DVDs merely tells an external deinterlacing chip how to reassemble the fields into complete frames, but 99% of all DVDs contain incorrect flagging. A decent deinterlacing chip will ignore the flags and read the cadence pattern of the video instead, and it will do that whether the source is DVD, laserdisc, VHS, or what-have-you.

In your arguments here, you seem to be stuck on this notion that a DVD will always be superior to a laserdisc no matter what. While DVDs do certainly have the technical potential for that to be the case, and in most instances it may be true, each movie should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis because it really comes down to the quality of the transfer used on each disc. As nin74 has pointed out, there are a number of cases where DVDs are poorly transferred and look inferior to a better transferred laserdisc.

Have you ever seen the original Highlander DVD? That disc looks worse than most VHS tapes.

Thanks Josh!
Btw, did you worked out anything for your HLD-X9? The external comb filter I got was broken

No, I'm still interested in trying one of those CSVI-1s if I could find a working one.

I will try to fix mine or get another ASAP. I know Hunter (avsforum) prefed it over the comb filter in both X0 and X9

I appreciate the benefit of your knowledge Josh, but in the same way that I can't be held responsible for incorrectly-flagged DVDs, I can't be held responsible for bad DVD transfers.

All I'm trying to get across here is that if a DVD transfer looks like crap, it's a bad transfer, not the fault of the format. People who think Laserdisc looks better simply because it's not compressed just bug the shit out of me, as do people who don't understand that you can't re-create lost detail.

It further infuriated me to have this person claim I didn't know what I was talking about simply because I don't currently watch Laserdiscs on a daily basis. What he fails to realize is that I speak from past experience, and the opinions I'm expressing are based on his own screen grabs. As I've said, I've done the Laserdisc thing, and have probably forgotten more about it than NintendoMan will ever know.

I'm not above admitting mistakes... when I make them. In this case, I haven't. The point is that you're still getting the same 480 or 576 lines of detail, regardless of how big your display is and how sophisticated your scaling hardware is. Just because I was mistaken on progressive flagging on DVDs, it doesn't mean everything I say is 100% crap and should be ignored.

Nobody is 100% right here, but for some reason people choose to ignore the glaring miscomprehension of nin74, while nitpicking every little detail of any post I make. Doesn't make sense to me....

That may be what you're saying now, but it isn't what you were arguing earlier, which was that it was impossible for a laserdisc to look better than a DVD under any circumstances ever. Clearly, that isn't the case, as there are a number of absolutely terrible DVD transfers out there.

No one has argued either of those points. You're setting up a straw-man.

No, sorry, that's always been my point. If you got something else out of that, one of us has a problem communicating. The fact is that DVD has much greater potential than Laserdisc ever had, regardless of the fact that it's a compressed format. I'm sure I don't have to tell you how many people actually think Laserdisc is digital just because it's read by a laser. People also take a bad transfer as proof that DVD is inferior to Laserdisc, which simply isn't the case. That kind of stuff boils my bottom, so I had to speak up.

Believe me, I have no desire to create people to argue with, or arguments with people I agree with. nin74 is apparently under the impression that you can get a full 1080 lines out of a standard DVD through interpolation, but he obviously hasn't stopped to think where those extra lines came from. All I'm trying to do is set him straight on that, yet he insists that "advanced scaling technology" makes it possible, which is pure bullshit. Line doubling may be more sophisticated than it was 10 years ago, but it's still line doubling. What's happening here is that the guy has bought into a bunch of meaningless marketing hype without thinking about whether it's real or not, and is fighting me at every turn when I try to tell him it's garbage. If you can't see what he's saying about "upconverting", you're not reading the thread.

As I've repeatedly said, if scaling, "upconverting", or whatever the hell you want to call it successfully re-created detail lost in the transfer to DVD, there would be absolutely no market whatsoever for HD-DVD and Blu-ray, and therefore no reason for their development. Even in the face of this irrefutable reality, he continues to debate me because of some irrational romanticism over a dead format. Why is it that I'm the one getting a lecture???

Yes, one of us does have a problem communicating. With that much, I'll agree.

No one argued differently.

Nowhere in this thread did he say that. That's an argument you've made up just to provide your own counter-argument. This is what's called a Straw Man.

This is what he actually said:

All he's pointing out there is that he watches his discs on a large, high-quality screen, in case people assumed he was watching them on some 13" TV where it's impossible to tell the difference between good and bad. At no point does he make the claim that his laserdiscs are the same quality as High Definition video. The interpolation argument is one that you've created on your own.

First off, "line doubling" means deinterlacing, taking two interlaced fields and combining them into a single frame. It's an archaic term that was used in the 80s and early 90s but doesn't have relevance anymore. Line doubling is not the same as interpolating or "upconverting".

Secondly, you've created another false argument in accusing him of watching PAL DVDs downscaled to NTSC, which is something you've pulled completely out of thin air. Again, all he's said is that his DVD player and screen are capable of displaying the full PAL resolution without downscaling, to which you then twisted his words into a diatribe against "upconverting".

You're getting a lecture because you're being needlessly difficult and argumentative. You've taken a simple comment about some laserdiscs looking better than some DVDs and drawn it out into a 3-page argument full of half-understood technical jargon that was in no way relevant to the original point.

It's time to let this go. It was a harmless comment to begin with, and what's more nin74 was right and amply demonstrated it with his screen-caps.

No one will deny that DVD can and should look better than laserdiscs. It certainly better - the technology is 20 years newer. The problem is that sometimes DVDs are poorly mastered and look like crap, which is why a real movie buff will keep a laserdisc player around so that they can get the best quality presentation no matter which format it happens to appear on.

i am almost positive blade runner is out on dvd.

Yes, as I said many times before. Thanks for taking the time and explain for Mike what I tried to say.

That says it all.

Yeah, once you move all the rare/OOP stuff to DVDs resell it.

Yes, but it's the director's cut, and not the European theatrical release that Criterion has released on laserdisc. I assume that's why he said the original Blade Runner.

Look, I don't know what you think of me, but if you actually READ my posts in this forum you'll see that I don't go looking for arguments. You obviously jumped into this for the sole purpose of trying to beat me down (and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why, Mr. Zyber), and that in itself shows I've taken the high road here. I'm just trying to dispel common misconceptions, and you seem to relish blowing apart a well-intentioned argument just because it may not be 100% accurate.

Let me point out a few things that would be obvious if you'd actually followed the thread instead of jumping in mid-stream and deciding you wanted to shine your "DVD police" badge a bit.

First, nin74 made no mention of what country he was posting from at the start of the thread, and the fact that he was comparing an R2 DVD against an NTSC Laserdisc caused me to assume he was in an NTSC country. I mean how could I have guessed he was in a PAL country when he was using an NTSC Laserdisc player??? People are much more likely to cross format lines with DVD rather than Laserdisc, so pardon the fuck outta me for assuming that NTSC was his native format. Beyond this, I even relented on the "PAL scaled down to NTSC" part of the argument once nin74 revealed where he was posting from, but obviously you didn't bother to read that part, did you??? No, of course not, why acknowledge that someone you desperately want to discredit is actually capable of recognizing that he made a mistake. Doesn't fit into the agenda, does it?

Secondly, nin74 is obviously under the impression that "upconverting" actually produces more detail than is present on a DVD or Laserdisc, and that the screen you view a film on determines the resolution, yet at the same time he provides actual-size screen grabs for comparison purposes. I see that you've chosen not to jump on this obvious contradiction, and one can only imagine why. Nobody took me up on the MP3 "brain teaser", which I can only assume proves my point that nin74 wasn't actually aware of how missing detail could possibly be restored by this mysterious process he insists on calling "upconverting" rather than scaling, which is exactly what it is. As I've repeatedly asserted, he is taking the term at face value, and hasn't bothered to ask how something like that could be accomplished. You're picking apart every technical aspect of what I say and exploiting the slightest mis-statement of technical theories that nin74 hasn't even bothered to postulate about, yet when he just assumes he's getting a full 1080 lines of resolution simply because a Laserdisc image fills his screen, you don't even blink. The word "bias" doesn't even begin to cover the extent of the double standard you're applying here.

I can rest easy knowing that at least I have some knowledge of the technical principles behind home theater equipment, and video in general. Sure, I may get the facts wrong here and there, and I'm always quick to concede when that happens. The important thing here is that I'm actually trying to LEARN about this stuff instead of taking marketing double-talk as absolute fact, and telling people they're absolutely wrong if they're not using a term I'm familiar with, as nin74 has done. Taking aim at mere semantics is a sure sign of someone who hasn't really thought the argument through, and the only thing they can dispute is what the proper term should be. Add to that the fact that I was actually calling scaling what it is instead of using a non-term like "upconverting", and it really baffles me why someone with your technical expertise is taking the side of someone who doesn't even bother thinking about underlying technical issues. Of course the answer that comes to mind is that "experts" are no good without know-nothings who can ask them simple questions so they can appear brilliant by comparison, so I guess that explains it. Just remember, you don't get those pretty green stars here.

Since you obviously seem to be taking nin74's argument at face value in the same way that you're not looking past minor inaccuracies in my argument, I'll assume that nin74's argument was as innocent as you'd like to believe and say that yes, DVD is only as good as the transfer, and it is very likely for telecine operators who aren't well-versed in various film techniques to boost color and contrast too much, creating lousy DVD transfers. I'd be an idiot if I didn't recognize the potential for studios to screw up the transfer, and I thought I made it abundantly clear in my posts that I recognize that this happens far too often. However, to ignore the analog haze present on most Laserdisc transfers (most evident in the "Repulsion" screen grab) is just as ridiculous. I feel no different about younger folks who accept compression artifacts as a necessary evil, but whine about the low resolution of analog video. I'm equal-opportunity here, so it's not like I'm trying to champion one format over another just for the sake of the format itself, which is exactly what nin74 seems to be doing.

I suppose that's the worst thing anyone can possibly do, especially in an internet forum where people gather not to discuss things as they actually are, but lament that things aren't as they used to be, or as we might like them to be. So sorry to be a chronic bubble-burster here, but it's called integrity.

I'm pretty much done, so everyone can put away the popcorn. Sorry, this forum is supposed to be fun, and as difficult as it is for me to ignore ignorance, I'm tired of my blood pressure rising when I'm reading what's supposed to be a recreational discussion forum.

Now, back to the fun...

How much "signal conversion" is involved? The LD signal is digitized, after which the frames are combined together with the same cadence-based deinterlacing that a high quality DVD player would use (as has been pointed out, DVD, too is an interlaced format).

I'd like to mention that I realized a huge gain in image improvement by setting my video processor to output a 1.78:1 image rather than the 4:3 of typical (at least of 2003) set-top DVD players.

Mike Adams, just give it up! You are a noobie with a lot of holes in the things you say. First, learn to read what I write. Secondly, learn from people with much bigger knowledge and experience than you.