Best comb filter for Laserdisc transfer? Panasonic LQ-MD800P?
 

This is a medical grade DVD recorder with higher quality components than the consumer recorders.

After going through about 50 or so DVD Recorders (sony, rca, toshiba, etc) and prob every Panasonic Machine over the last several years. I have determined with the Essentials Video test Disc and countless hours of tests and comparing screen captures, that the Panasonic LQ-MD800P has the best comb filter of any DVD Recorder I have tested. This recorder does NOT have line-in noise reduction. I was able to add a DMR-E55 to the chain to add a more modern noise reduction. Other recorders tested for this purpose added various signal noise issues. The Panny DMR-T6070 MAY be able to replace both of these as it has higher quality components AND Noise reduction, but I never got my hands on one to test.

I have settled on the following signal chain for my preservation needs:

Pioneer CLD-97 (DNR off) > composite to the Panny MD800 > composite to Panny DMR-e55 (for Noise reduction on Line-In and Blacklevel Controls) > component to Blackmagic Component to SDI Converter > SDI to Blackmagic Video Assist for lossless recording to ProRes.

While I admit, I can only record the analog laserdisc audio with this setup, I haven't noticed the benefit of Digital audio for my purposes, primarily concert laserdiscs. Is there a difference? Probably. I can't tell.

Finally I'm using TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works to handle all my video conversion and color correction needs.

Thought my years of testing may benefit others. Your results may vary. :D

I highly recommend a composite to SDI capture device since you have the SDI digital interface already, Ensemble Designs makes two models BE25 and BE26 that have good comb filtering, With your projected setup you are converting from analog to digital and vise versa at least 6 times, With the BE it is done in one step. They are in the range $200-$400 used and they don't have Y/C, just composite which are perfect for Laserdisc transfers.

Isn't it kind of counterproductive to send the signal from one DVD-recorder to another via composite? That would mean that the E55 would have to re-separate y and c.

EDIT: Interesting unit, the manual mentions NR, contrast brightness and other adjustments, but not clear if it's only for DVD playback or for the input. That's not something you get in the consumer panasonics. EDIT2: apparently some of the very old ones do.

Yeah, that's too many components in the stream for a composite signal, though laserdisc composite is way better than VHS composite but still a lot of losses, I wonder if the OP is aware of the Doomsday duplicator, though it is not for everyone as it requires a set of skills in electronics and Linux scripting.

LD composite output shouldn't have the instability that a VCR would have (which can cause Y/C filtering to fall back to primitive filtering rather than fancy 3D filters), though there is a lot more high frequency detail. Standard VHS barely has enough bandwidth for the color and luma sidebands to reach each other.

grabbing from component output to utilize a different comb filter should have marginal quality impact as component should be pretty transparent, but I don't get the use of the E55, especially the use of composite instead of s-video between the DVRs. The NR in the dvd-recorders isn't that impressive. If it's not for direct viewing, it may be better to leave that noise reduction to post-filtering.

No.

"medical grade", in terms of consumer video formats (VHS, DVD), has been a marketing term for the past 40+ years. It's fairly meaningless.

In fact, I purposely avoid "media grade" anything, for two reasons:
(1) it means the device was (ab)used by non-video users,
(2) it was used in a nasty "sterile" environment, where certain germs are known to sometimes last for years and years, and I don't want to bring that risk into my home or office.

And that means, what, exactly?

For example, we have Youtube goobers proclaiming that certain capture cards are "best" after only testing 2-3 cards -- whereas I've tested probably 100 cards in the past 20 years. So ... who's advice would you trust here? If you want us to trust your tests, you need to state what it was tested against. I'm not generally harsh in terms of "show me ALL the data", because I know it can be time consuming. And yet, I do want some quantitative and qualitative data. Numbers, %, models, common issues found, etc.

I see this is a potential good thing here, for the exact LD use.

It's not only NOT modern, but Panasonic NR is overly aggressive almost always.

Noted. :2cents:

I have settled on the following signal chain for my preservation needs:

No.

You lost me when you started to convert the signal to component, using a Blackmagic HD card for SD conversino. This won't end well.

You're just going down the wrong path here. :unsure:

You want benefiit? Add a mixer to the workflow. Since this is music, you need to contain yourself to smaller adjustments. But don't start espousing nonsense about "that how they wanted it, blah blah blah", because the A/D conversions long ago muddied that. Your goal here is to simply restored the tonal ranges that may have been lost.

It helps if you're using reference grade (or near-reference) speakers -- not "gamer" speakers, or whatever was at Best Buy (including the "expensive" units in those low-end stores, audio speaking).

Color correction in TMPGEnc? No, no -- use VirtualDub and/or Avisynth, or NLEs like Premiere or Final Cut.

And maybe we can help you! :wink2:

:congrats:

Yep.

If I had an LD collection, I'd look into it. :2cents:

And yet, it often does.

In this exact LD scenario, absolutely accurate.

Probably has nothing to do with video quality, everything to do with leakage currents (shock hazard) and fire hazard (e.g., sparks) in an oxygen-enriched environment. It may also be a bit more robust physically to survive control panel abuse in an industrial environment.

That could be the case ... probably should be ... but more often it's just targeted B2B industry marketing. Various "medical grade" items are identical to off-the-shelf consumer goods. With video gear, there was often an insinuation of quality differences, if not outright misinformation. It's been years, maybe decades, since I saw targeted marketing info on this stuff. The same thing is still happening with optical recordable media, FYI.

I've heard of a few "special market" devices that may have been crippled with respect to a few common features, e.g., EP recording. That would just take a tweak of the firmware.

In any case the point of "convert from composite to Y/C ( or component) once" is sound advice, especially if using consumer or so called prosumer gear.

Targeted audience often allows charging a premium for an item. In some cases this may be needed to buy access to a close community that is governed by a captive standards group.

The menu interface shown in the manuals look very similar to the older DMR-Exx models, so maybe it's based on similar hardware to those, though presumably not quite the same since otherwise they would be using the E55. The ES10/EH50 and newer models changed things around a bit.

I'm just saying this setup worked for me. The LQ-MD800 and other DVD players were tested with the essentials video test disc. The LQ-MD800 showed the best results. As I stated, your results may vary.

The MD800 uses a grounded power cable, D-Plug, with BNC connectors, and marketing gimic or not, i could SEE the difference on the video essentials disc.

My signal chain is my chain, and was only shared as an FYI. After seeing the responses, I should have refrained from sharing this. lol You guys are brutal.

I know the arguments, too many components, multiple connections, leads to instability. I get it, and with most pieces of equipment this showed. And I did use S-Video from the M800 to the E55, that was a mistake in my original post. It was perfectly stable and the laserdics benefited from the aggressive NR of the Panny. Other Panny Recorders in that year's lineup DID introduce noise and instability. For some reason, the E55 worked, and for this reason, I did not invest in the DMR-T6070. That would have been my next move, or just eliminate the E55 from the chain. However, the aggressive NR of the Panny made a positive and notable difference for ME and the low light concert titles i was working with. I found it to be superior to noise reduction in post.

The Blackmagic was the broadcast converter box, not a card. All it did was convert the component signal to SDI. It did not upscale or enhance, it only embedded the SD Analog signal into Digital SDI so i could enter the Video Assist Recorder. I had tested other hardware converters and the Blackmagic proved to be the best with no noticeable degradation.

I am a hobbyist, not a professional. While this may show in my choices, the Laserdiscs I have captured, color corrected (for my preferencel) and now burned to 480i Blu-Rays (overkill, i know) look better than the original laserdisc and I couldn't be happier. Corrected black levels and colors in some cases with ZERO compression artifacts.

The whole point of this post was to recommend the MD800 Comb Filter. I have not seen any other tests or reviews of this unit, and I wanted to merely suggest it as I find it to be superior. I encourage others to at least try it.

I had made a mistake in my original post, i am in fact going S-Video from the MD800 to the E55. And you are correct, the noise reduction is only for DVD playback. This is not a 'Line-In NR' like later consumer models and the DMR-T6070 have.

-- merged --

Here are the internals. Under the lid and under the bottom plate. I know some of you enjoy this sort of thing. I'll upload a screen capture of the video essentials test later today.

http://www.digitalfaq.com/forum/atta...1&d=1612726988

Here is my Video Essentials screen grab. This is RAW right out of the Blackmagic Video Assist. I can upload the entire video material segment to youtube if anyone is interested.

A lot of people confuse the BM intensity shuttle analog capture device with a good quality SDI capture device like yours, don't get discouraged by those remarks, you know what you are doing.

The capture devices I linked in my earlier post have 3 or 5 line (selectable by menu) adaptive comb filters, The BE75 is composite/Y-C and has a fully adaptive comb filter, I don't know what works better for laserdiscs. I know you have the equipment already just in case someone is interested in doing the same thing.

I know the difference, but somehow got some threads confused. :smack:

That is the #1 criteria.