There is a device available called the Domesday Duplicator that would allow you to capture the video from Laserdiscs at the best possible quality for archiving the contents.
This really is the way to go — it captures the signal directly from the disc, which is then processed using the open-source ld-decode software. This allows for some fairly advanced recovery, including dropout correction/repair. As the software is improved over time, the captured data can be reprocessed, resulting in improved conversions. One downside, though, is that each capture can take as much as 40-80GB per disc. Unfortunately, setting up a capture environment is not the most straightforward —among other things, it is necessary to calibrate the LD player using a GGV1069 calibration disc. I'm not sure these are still available, but as of 6 months ago or so they were from Donberg Electronics and PacParts. More detailed information on this process can be found at https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=978 <https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=978> and assistance can be obtained at the project Discord which is linked from https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=416 <https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=416>. If the quantity of discs does not justify setting up a capture environment and VCF is willing to mail the discs to a project member for capture, it might be possible to arrange for this as well — they are very much interested in getting non-movie LaserDisc titles captured. David
On Jun 20, 2021, at 4:29 PM, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 4:23 PM Jeff Salzman via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I have a laserdisc player, time base corrector, and video capture card. How soon does this need done?
There is no rush for this, but I would like someone to work on it steadily so that it doesn't get forgotten. A player was donated, but don't know if it works or if it is better or worse than your player. I will leave that up to you. Alex Jaccocks has offered to do this, but maybe both of you can figure out between you two who wants to do it or collaborate.
Jeff Salzman
On Sun, Jun 20, 2021, 3:23 PM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
So called “Video Game Enhancers” are simple time-base correctors and will remove Macrovision.
On Sun, Jun 20, 2021 at 3:07 PM Wil Birkmaier via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Laserdisc has a few different formats: all analogue, analogue video with mono analogue audio and digital audio, or analogue video with all digital audio.
They key to a good capture these days is to get the best composite video converter you can find as the video is stored like a vinyl record, as an analogue composite video stream. So yes using the svideo on some of the newer players, the conversion of composite to svideo is still not the best. I need to find a link to a decent converter to 720p I have been using with vhs and am happy with.
On Jun 20, 2021 14:45, Jeffrey Brace via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Does anyone know if it is possible to transfer laserdisks to a modern digital format? There are 16 laserdisks recently donated that have C programming training from 1984, which was part of a UNIX and C training program. The reason for the transfer is that we don't know how rare these disks are nor how long laserdisk will last.
There are 16 laserdisks as well as supplemental floppy disks and some paper manuals.
========================================= Jeff Brace Vice President & Board Member Vintage Computer Festival East Show-runner Vintage Computer Federation is a 501c3 charity http://www.vcfed.org/ jeffrey@vcfed.org