How to set up a LaserDisc player to a reciever to hear.

[Jamisonia]

don't forget to check out http://www.lddb.com/ for info about your LDs. It will tell you what audio tracks the LD has on them, whether is digital, AC3, analog or DTS.

A fully set up system will consist of you connecting the AC3 output to an AC3 demodulator. A toslink or digital coax cable to a receiver, and the analog R/W RCA cables to a receiver.

You want to connect your LD player to your receiver at minimum digitally and analog. Not all movies have digital tracks, however; movies that have AC3 tracks often have sacrificed one of the analog tracks to put it in. Its technical and its complicated. Point is you would to connect using at least an digital way (usually toslink) and an analog way, the Red and White RCA cables.

The analog and digital PCM tracks encoded into a Laserdisc are in stereo. This was before true surround was feasible at the home level. Many of these tracks were encoded in Dolby Surround or Pro Logic meaning they are technically stereo tracks, that can be played pefectly fine through 2 speakers, but you can also choose to have your receiver process these tracks and make them into surround tracks. Its not true surround, and you can do this with any stereo or mono sound source, however; these tracks listed on the LD as being Pro Logic or Dolby Surround compatible were meant to be undergo that type of processing. So if you have a 5.1 speaker setup and you're listening to an LD that has that sort of marking turn on Pro Logic, or Pro Logic II.

Dolby Digital or AC3 requires an AC3 demodulator to work properly. Its over complicated but it was tacked on well after LD was established. However this is true surround sound, like you find on DVDs.

Then they added DTS later. Note all the DTS discs are special discs just for DTS. They are much more expensive then their AC3 counterparts. DTS output through the digital output, just like on a DVD, so no messy demodulators like with AC3, but DTS discs are much more expensive.

An interesting tidbit about LD is their AC3 and DTS tracks are superior their DVD cousins, as this website details. http://www.videophile.info/Graphs/JP/JP_01.htm

This is for two reasons, 1 the DD and DTS tracks were encoded at half the bit rate on DVDs compared to LD, and because Dolby Digital had to be the main track on all DVDs. If you didn't have a receiver your DVD player would downconvert the audio to 2 channel analog and output this to your TV. In the mixing process the movie company would have to decided whether to optimize the DD track for how it would sound on a 5.1 channel receiver, or for how it would sound downmixed through TV speakers. They usually optimized for TV Speakers. LD DD and DTS tracks were optimized for 5.1 setups.

I suggest against using s-video with an LD player. Composite is actually better in this one single case.

[isiolia]

An interesting tidbit about LD is their AC3 and DTS tracks are superior their DVD cousins, as this website details. http://www.videophile.info/Graphs/JP/JP_01.htm

This is for two reasons, 1 the DD and DTS tracks were encoded at half the bit rate on DVDs compared to LD, and because Dolby Digital had to be the main track on all DVDs. If you didn't have a receiver your DVD player would downconvert the audio to 2 channel analog and output this to your TV. In the mixing process the movie company would have to decided whether to optimize the DD track for how it would sound on a 5.1 channel receiver, or for how it would sound downmixed through TV speakers. They usually optimized for TV Speakers. LD DD and DTS tracks were optimized for 5.1 setups.

Honestly, that's not all necessarily true (though it can be, as in the specific case linked to). If you look at the (handful) of tests that site has though, others were different. http://www.videophile.info/Graphs/Page_01.htm

Their Phantom Menace test actually had the reverse - DVD preferred over LD.

Incidentally, Jurassic Park was released in two separate DVD versions, one with DD, one with DTS, so space limitations were minimal (it did include a DD track, as per requirement of the DVD spec, but it was two-channel only). It was a mixing error. They did release a fixed DTS disc, which was not reflected in testing (and would be hard to, since it's got the same SKU, so it's luck of the draw when you buy a copy).

Anyway, point is more that this would be a case-by-case kind of thing. Some DVDs made more space for video/sound, got better mixes, etc. Some didn't.

If you're really a stickler for this sort of thing, HD audio codecs on Blu-ray are far better than either (from a technical standpoint, poor mixes are still possible).

[ATARI800XLfan]

don't forget to check out http://www.lddb.com/ for info about your LDs. It will tell you what audio tracks the LD has on them, whether is digital, AC3, analog or DTS.

A fully set up system will consist of you connecting the AC3 output to an AC3 demodulator. A toslink or digital coax cable to a receiver, and the analog R/W RCA cables to a receiver.

You want to connect your LD player to your receiver at minimum digitally and analog. Not all movies have digital tracks, however; movies that have AC3 tracks often have sacrificed one of the analog tracks to put it in. Its technical and its complicated. Point is you would to connect using at least an digital way (usually toslink) and an analog way, the Red and White RCA cables.

The analog and digital PCM tracks encoded into a Laserdisc are in stereo. This was before true surround was feasible at the home level. Many of these tracks were encoded in Dolby Surround or Pro Logic meaning they are technically stereo tracks, that can be played pefectly fine through 2 speakers, but you can also choose to have your receiver process these tracks and make them into surround tracks. Its not true surround, and you can do this with any stereo or mono sound source, however; these tracks listed on the LD as being Pro Logic or Dolby Surround compatible were meant to be undergo that type of processing. So if you have a 5.1 speaker setup and you're listening to an LD that has that sort of marking turn on Pro Logic, or Pro Logic II.

Dolby Digital or AC3 requires an AC3 demodulator to work properly. Its over complicated but it was tacked on well after LD was established. However this is true surround sound, like you find on DVDs.

Then they added DTS later. Note all the DTS discs are special discs just for DTS. They are much more expensive then their AC3 counterparts. DTS output through the digital output, just like on a DVD, so no messy demodulators like with AC3, but DTS discs are much more expensive.

An interesting tidbit about LD is their AC3 and DTS tracks are superior their DVD cousins, as this website details. http://www.videophile.info/Graphs/JP/JP_01.htm

This is for two reasons, 1 the DD and DTS tracks were encoded at half the bit rate on DVDs compared to LD, and because Dolby Digital had to be the main track on all DVDs. If you didn't have a receiver your DVD player would downconvert the audio to 2 channel analog and output this to your TV. In the mixing process the movie company would have to decided whether to optimize the DD track for how it would sound on a 5.1 channel receiver, or for how it would sound downmixed through TV speakers. They usually optimized for TV Speakers. LD DD and DTS tracks were optimized for 5.1 setups.

I suggest against using s-video with an LD player. Composite is actually better in this one single case.

Okay so are saying it would be a good idea to hook the red and white to the receiver so that if it is analog only it will go through the speakers. Couldn't I just hook those up to the TV then if they are not digital. Will probably go with a 2.1 system for now. and Yes composite is better.

[Jamisonia]

mmm, I had read at many sources that LD sound was almost always trumping DVD sound. I have moved to the clarity of BD, for some stuff I collect laser for. The NC 17 cut of Scream, only available on laserdisc is one example.

Its weird that yellow plug composite is better, and flies against our understanding especially in the video game world where is goes RF, Composite, S-video, Component, HDMI, in that order and always apply. This assumes the source is encoded with the colors and brightness information already seperated, so all we're doing is maintaining the seperation.

With Laserdisc the signal is literally encoded all together in a composite signal already. Using s-video means the LD player is seperating the signal. So it all depends on what device is better at seperating the signal, the LD Player for the TV, and thats usually the TV unless you have the high end American or Japanese players.

You can connect the Red and White straight into the TV, however; if you have a receiver, and you're connecting speakers to said receiver you would be better served to connect to that. They will almost certainly sound better, no matter the quality of loudspeakers you buy.

[isiolia]

mmm, I had read at many sources that LD sound was almost always trumping DVD sound.

It often does, and I wouldn't dispute that. Technically though, there's little that couldn't be duplicated or improved on over LD with DVD. DVD does support the same (or greater) DD/DTS bitrates. It's a matter of including them and mixing things the same, which (unfortunately) was rarely done.
Technically, the DVD spec also allows for using PCM audio tracks as well.

IMO, it's a similar thing to CD mixing trends. It's less the capabilities and more how they were used is all.

[ATARI800XLfan]

would this be a good system of speakers.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0588338113

[isiolia]

would this be a good system of speakers.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 0588338113

Well, it's essentially a computer speaker system - decent in a small room, at moderate volume, but I wouldn't expect too much out of it in the overall scheme.

[ATARI800XLfan]

Would this be closer to what I would need. The room is really not that big where the movie areas is going to be it is not very wide but is long. Half will be a living room the other half if I have room will be a dinning table, maybe.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

[isiolia]

Would this be closer to what I would need. The room is really not that big where the movie areas is going to be it is not very wide but is long. Half will be a living room the other half if I have room will be a dinning table, maybe.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

That looks to me to be (mostly) this, which IMO would be a step up from the speaker system you linked earlier, but still not at the same level as the gear you were originally linking to.

From similar systems I've used, you are at least getting a real receiver - but one with a fairly limited feature set. Speakers are still not great. It should be functional though.

[ATARI800XLfan]

Well it looks like I had to get another LaserDisc player. First one refused to read certain movies and would not play CD though it is a model that can. Found one locally for 40 bucks. My old one was a Pioneer CLD-1070. The new one is a Pioneer CLD-909. Little older though the digital sound output on the back seems to work with my tv as I hooked it up and put in a CD and it played fine, same with movies that have digital stereo. Can't seem to find much information about the player though, does anyone know much about it?