Mark repairs a Pioneer DVL-919 Laser Disc Player, which doesn't like to play a whole video disc. The machine is a marvel of mechanical automation, and is stopped in its tracks by very simple problems.
@@Setsuna_Kyoura Suppose it's needed for the DVD part somehow. My player (a slightly earlier LD only model) the laser cradle simply goes on curved track from bottom to top.
@@cbmsysmobile Greetings: That would B called the "Dragon . Each of the 3 types had advantages. 4 near uninterrupted play the 4 track was best, 3rd in line of record quality. 2nd, and my preferred was the swivel head. It offered the near best of the 3 types.
In 1974 I had the pleasure of meeting one of the inventors of the Laser Disk. We shared a room in hospital for a week. When he told me what he was working on I didn't believe him. A few years later I saw a billboard advert for it and realized he was telling the truth. He described a problem they were having in the development phase when they were trying to work out how the system would deal with scratches on the disk and the pre-read technology being developed to skip over the damaged parts. He was a great roommate and I found his technical knowledge fascinating. He thought I was irritating because I was always asking him questions. Sometimes he would just politely ask me to stop prying in what he really wasn't allowed to disclose at the time. I think he only confided in me because I was 16 years old and so ignorant he didn't feel like I would tell anyone. MCA really lost out on development because few people could afford the $749.00 retail price in 70's which was equivalent to almost $5.000 today.
@@mindrover777 5000$ 5K$ Pre-read means the system need to analyze what kind of disk is in... DVD, Laserdisc, and if its a laserdisc, the player need to know the type of laserdisc... CAV or CLV....Once the player know the exact type, it begin reading the disc.
@@mindrover777 "Pre-read technology" was a laser system that reads optical code on a disk before the decoding laser does. If the pre-read laser sees a damaged spot on the disk it tells the optical decoder laser to skip to the next frame. Without it you'd see see bright flashes on the screen where the system can't read code due to damage, so I was told.
I agree. Sadly it's mainly the more moronic and dumbed down RU-vid channels grow their subscriber counts at a rapid rate, anything intelligent and genuinely interesting like this brilliant channel takes a long time. Quality over quantity and all that. Keep up the great work Mark.
I agree Mark is a very clever bloke. I have been watching his videos for a while now and really enjoy watching them and find them quiet relaxing. Thanks to him I found out about JIS screws and the appropriate screw driver sets. I bought a set of Vessel and Sunflag screwdrivers both top quality tools and both Made in Japan and the tell tale punch mark on the screw head a good indicator the JIS screw. I do model railroading and some of Marks cleaning products and tools have been a good guide what to safely use around electronic equipment. Proto 2000 locomotives from the nineties have a terrible grease in the bogies (trucks Americanese) that dries like bees wax. I used shellite to degrease the crud off and a wood tooth pick to clean the gears. I lubricated them with excellent Labelle USA white grease with teflon and they run smooth and quiet. No split gears either. Keep bringing out those videos Mark. I love those retro Amps and various players with the Made in Japan on the back. Cheers from Australia .
I repaired one myself, it worked for about a year and then went back to skipping tracks on the B side of the laserdisc. I repaired it again and it worked for a few months, but eventually the mechanics gave out. TOP video as always, best channel ever!
The bottom line is, if Mark can't fix it, it can't be fixed. You can take that to the bank. Mark is "Stunning ", in his abilities to repair electronics. OUTSTANDING !!!...
What an amazing piece of kit. No wonder it cost £900 when new! But still not as amazing as your ability to understand and repair almost anything electronic, and produce compelling videos! Thanks Mark.
I didn't think I'd watch a 30 minute video of someone fixing a Laser Disc, but it was very enjoyable and informative to watch. I like the format and presentation of your video. I like fixing and tinkering with electronics too, but have a lot to learn. I'm probably never going to take a Laser Disc player apart, but this taught me some good diagnostic techniques applicable to all sorts of things!
Repaired one of these myself. Looks like the "Gear Box" has already been changed. They are usually made from brittle plastic (the brittle plastic one looks lighter and fibrous) and the nub breaks in transport (the nub that keeps the laser assembly level on the B-side). For the other commenter that said it worked for a year, then skipped again; try a different grease. I've run into lithium greases that tend to bind on plastic some time after use, never had an issue after switching to a thicker grease. edit: it's AMAZING that entire drive and laser assembly lift is driven by one motor and one belt!
This is likely close to the zenith of consumer electronics. The LD Combi-Player design was brilliant in that it did things no optical disc player was ever envisioned to do when the various optical discs it played were made. To say it breached so many technical hurdles which seemed to be impossible is no understatement. The amount of moving parts and electronic systems boggles the mind. Mark shows his usual fearless never say never mindset to tackling this "kitchen sink" optical player. You, sir, are a prince among paupers in the electronics repairs scene on RU-vid.
That flipping mechanism was one of the coolest things ever. Ya can see why the unit was so expensive and it wasn't the electronics, but would have taken some time to build from scratch even in the factory.
When you put the top plate back on I said NOOOO you didn't plug in the laser! Good job over all. I hate jobs that seem too simple to be true. Here's hoping it stays good!
All across the land, little old ladies have noticed your upload, got up to put the kettle on before watching, and are currently saying to themselves "I wonder if he gives himself a shock again in this one".
A very enjoyable and inspirational 30 mins of viewing … particularly as I still have the previous 909 model sat in my living room!! Wouldn’t be surprised if mine needs similar treatment as it hasn’t been run for some years now. I also still have my LD collection in the cupboard (must be pushing 75 of them) … but mostly now superseded by DVD … then Blu Ray … and now with 4k where possible and where the movie still works for me. Even when I was moving over to DVD, a couple of my LDs were starting to suffer the dreaded laser rot😢. This was the attraction of this series of LD players… they allowed us to cut across to the new DVD format without the anguish of having to have multiple types of player and still access our LD collections. I was, however, always puzzled as to why Pioneer went down the road of the complexity of the rotating head mechanism … I could never understand why they didn’t simply double up on the laser heads and avoid the labour and material costs and reliability warranty risks of that mechanism. I guess the only reason must have been component costs at the time … but the mechanism they came up with and all the additional associated tooling costs really defies belief to me 🤯😵💫🤯😳😱 I do worry now about keeping our current 4k hardware going … there being fewer and fewer optical drives and associated components available to support repairs.
Just a hobbyist here... I remember once repairing a late era Philips home stereo mini-set that would not turn off (go to stand-by) when asked. I was reluctant just to trash it, so I removed the hood and watched the thing go through its paces... as far as mechanical things go, there was just the CD tray. And I noticed it wouldn't close completely. Tracked the problem down to a loose rubber string / micro belt-drive. Once I replaced the original rubber belt with a kitchen variety rubber band (much too elastic), the CD tray drive would regain enough muscle to fully "close the door", the "door closed switch" would click, and the set was willing to turn off! That door closing belt was the whole problem! Soon after that, I noticed that the original speakers supplied with the set already sounded like yoghurt cups. Well the woofers' "elastic" suspension/seal around the circumference of the diaphragm was not proper rubber, rather some softened plastic, and as the softeners evaporated over the years, the woofer would no longer woof... And when I attached some decent broadband speakers, it turned out that the mini-set's tone controls were pre-adjusted for the small-volume speaker boxes, and would produce an ugly "boom" on generic broadband speaker sets... so I just scrapped the darn thing anyway. Now watching Mark wading through this beast, I was clutching onto my table with a gut feeling like "just back away and return this to the owner, with a pointer to the nearest scrap yard". A modern fighter jet must be easier to maintain than this clockwork marvel. Ohh those flagship toys of yesteryear... (yester -year? -decade? -century? millenium actually :-)
What a wonderful mechanism. I do love the tech of the late 90s. I did have the little brother of this player, the DVD only 717. Beautiful machine that didn’t quite survive a lightning strike.
I remember a guy in Vermont, of all places, who had a player in the mid to late 1980's. There was a local store that rented these discs out. The same store where you get your gas, milk and other sundries. This was in the middle of nowhere. So cool.
Pioneer were the masters of the complex mechanism. Their 'reference master' cassette mechanism is a thing of beauty, though can be a complete nightmware to service and align until you have a few under your belt and a lot of frustrating hours learning from your mistakes. Plenty of neat touches in this that you wouldn't really notice, like the way it spins the tray motor at high speed and then gradually decreases teh speed of the motor as the tray closes to overcome the initial high torque required to get that massive tray moving. I don't know much about laserdisc but I'd imagine many of them required you manually flip the disc over, so the automation in this is another plus albeit with added mechanical complexity. The only thing you didn't do (or show at least) was cleaning the lenses while you had it open. Great video.
questa macchina è meravigliosa . Mark al solito ha dimostrato nessun sconforto davanti la complessità . In definittiva un oggetto molto bello che avrebbe meritato un tentativo di riparazione anche per il display
Mark I believe you'll find the dim fluoro display issue to be the 2 Electrolytic cap's for the displays required high voltage on the power supply board. As for screws, it is important to make sure you use the screws in their intended location as I had a Pioneer laser disc player in for repair which a local service tech and Pioneer service agent were unable to repair. Believe the original tech had used a case screw in the wrong location which was able to cut a PCB track preventing the unit from powering up properly. Oh and that units original fault was tray would not go in properly just needing realignment. Oh and very entertaining video. Brought back memories of repairing them back in the day & also used to own (with 240v step-down transformer) a 110v twin tray varient so never needed to get up to swap a disc to watch a movie (fortunately didn't own a 3 disc movie in my library collection).
@faustoalencar1509 the caps in question are on the power supply board. After having a quick refresh of the 919 circuit found this actually uses 3 caps for the Fluro AC with -27V DC offset - C711 (likely culprit), C712 & C713. There is also C195 on the -27V rail, but this is on the Fluro Display PCB & least likely to be at fault.
That's the funkiest mechanism I have ever seen especially the rotation of the laser head to read the other side of the disc! Thanks for a great video Mark!🤣
Indeed it's also crazy watching and listening to the laser disc spinning down to a complete stop and then spinning back up again but in the opposite direction!
Another terrific repair job. I'm amazed at how you can remember where everything goes once you start reassembling it all again. I guess the filming is useful in that regard.
ive done some fixing on some of the pioneer laser disc models in the late 90's, i remember one of my customers complaining he cant turn on his laser disc, as i checked it the primaryu fuse had blown, and when i checked the back side of the unit it says 120 volts, here in the philippines we have 220 volts probably he plugged it directly to the power outlet and as ive told him he says he got the unit from his brother from the USA so yeah great memories, btw thanks for the great video
I am in complete awe with regards your skill, knowledge, attention to detail and problem solving. Skills I hold in high regard. You are truly a superb artisan.
Hi Mark found your channel a few weeks ago have watched most of your videos, brought back memories of when I worked in the TV repair industry before moving into computer repairs ( Main frames )
I really enjoyed that video! Most of these players you don't find them in such good condition and this one was very clean! Thanks You for a great Video! 😁
Mark, thank God you were able to get this unit working, so that we could all see the "Greatest Rapper" video ending. As always great job what a beast of a machine.
nice to see that there is someone around that is repairing old electric equipment as i have an old xenon 2 tape cd and radio 2 speakers that is looking for repair
Sticker on the back says April 2000 so it must've been one of the latest models made! 5:13 how COOL is that! Bet the disc wobble is killing the bearings though!
Laserdisc that,s rare , my friend has a Philips Laserdisc player , it looks the same as that Pioneer LD player , greetings from Assen in the Netherlands , and great job Mark !!
Mark, you're the best, hands down! I'd love to purchase an older Sansui receiver from you if you ever come across one or have one! I've been looking for YEARS! ANYBODY???
Mark: making this ancient player work very well with so many brittle plastic parts. I mean the next time it needs serviced imagine those clips that lock the sections down snapping off to not lock the component to the other piece. Of course I can see Mark making a special clip holder to hold it down. That grease is like 10 times the quality of the original grease which oxidised a bit. You saved it Mark. It is a fine piece of kit as you Brits say.
Great job sir. While my own TV career focused mainly on video recorders and early satellite boxes such as Amstrad and Salora, I did do my fare share of CD players. Never got to work on Video Disc but all the mechanics looked so familiar, I would have gladly jumped in, feet first, to tackle any fix that came into the workshop. Thanks again for sharing and stirring up some very happy memories from 30 years ago. Cheers 🍺
Seem to remember the "jitter" on still frames is because the disc has 2 frames stored per circumference so there's a very slight movement between these two when paused or seeking
No CDs, no DVDs, no DVLs. Nothing is available today as a storage device for your music. Well, you could make your memory stick, but... . We all rely on some "cloud", etc as a storage for our collection. The only problem is that one nice day our provider may say: sorry guys I am closing down because my revenue is below expectations. It applies to all forms of "external" storage systems. Do you remember Tivo? Just push a button and your movies stream down. Now I can use Tivo box as a stand for my pot plants. Remember, if you don't have your music, or movies on your shelf, you have nothing.
How do you mean? I still only use physical media for music and regularly buy cd's new and second hand. Just recently bought a very expensive cd player. I don’t even use cloud services.
Greetings: Near true. I store everything in more than 1 place on various mediums. Never Online, So far I have about 80Gs of CD ripped, vinyl ripped and downloaded music and the rest is movies downloaded, ripped. Stripped and dipped on my 12T drive. Which reminds me. I have 2 get another drive soon.
im very surprised you didnt have ago a fixing the led display mark, you always seem to have a fix for everything else in your videos, grest to see a true craftsman at work
It's a VFL (vacuum fluorescent) not LED. When they start to go dim like that, it's usually the filaments starting to break down. You have to replace them, and most likely will be unobtainium.
@@AstrosElectronicsLab In many devices the power supply for anode voltage goes low. Usually there are electrolytic caps in series from the transformer winding, those pass the current through. As they loose capacity, the display dimms. Fixed that on various hifi units.
Great to see one of these again Mark. That florescent display may have just been tired capacitors in the supply. Aside from the filament there is (usually) a negative supply of around 30 odd volts supplying the anodes. Many times on similar displays I've found that the capacitors on the 30Vish rail have gone high ESR...virtually open circuit and replacements bring the display back to life.
This is a beautiful machine! I‘m always amazed by this kind of engineering, which combines tiny mechanics with electronics and computer chips. I used to have one of these, but sold it, as it took up so much space… but I still regret it somehow. This machine never let me down, had amazing funcionality and I used for about 10 years, even though I had already bought it used with the added bonusses, that the previous owner had had the copy protection removed and had a chip added to let you switch between the region codes. I also loved the solid housing in shiny gold and the nice display. I miss the days of home electronics that actually amazed you and weren‘t just boring black plastic boxes.
Hi Marc , you dont have to put the motors to a power supply to check, the unit has a test mode where you can check all Motors and Servos by pressing buttons on the front panel. You can activate it by short the test mode PIN to GND and switch on the Unit, the display changes an test mode is active. The Test mode Pin is on the main Bord and sign as "test". If you have a Porblem with spindle low RPM the main Spindle Motor is defekt. The collector is litte burned and you have to change the motor, so the change from A to Side B goes much faster ! Also the time for reading the TOC is much faster. The Motor lost thrust by this Problem. But here it works in perfect conditions, Greetings from an old Pioneer engeneer. Lovley content !
Laser disc, never seen one in the wild, and I'm almost fifty years old 😂. Incredible technology, very interesting to see one taken apart and back while again.
Wow, size of those discs…that mechanism is old school cool. Respect it, and respect you to my good man for tackling an intricate job, not for the faint of heart, I would wager! Lol well done
I think it is more fun and interesting to watch the mechanism working and that huge disc spinning that fast than the picture quality it produces... Great video as always keep it up Cheers from Greece!
Ahhh JIS screws! The motorcycle guys know that a Philips does not work as well. and nearly every Honda brake rotor/drum will have its retaining screws cored out by people trying a Philips... Great video as usual Mark!
I remember those - could not afford one then. I also remember the competing video player product, the RCA CDA player. No lasers, but used a capacitance pickup from the disk surface. Good image quality (1980's), only 4:3 ratio (no HD then) and a movie needed 2 disks to play the whole thing at only 30 minutes a side. Then Beta and VHS came out with 2 Hours+ on a tape.
I was factory trained by Pionner to service their Laser Disc players. The difficult ones were the players that rotated the Laser head assy to play both sides, some players didn't. Try aligning one of those. That was a heavy mass spinning very fast in constant angular velocity, or Liniar velocity. Not easy. Spindal motor bearing failures cause outer disc wobble.
Hi Mark, great job again I have been working on such a machine aswell. Also the display was dark. But I could clean it I was amazed you didnt took it out. There 2 parts a filter for color sometimes it's blue or orange. And the display it self is most off the time blue. But after years of use those display's do atract a lot off dust and do burn a bit in. Also the plastic what before. I would say give it a go. If you never shoot it's allways a miss. Cheers.
Thanks for the video. Brings back memories as I had the top of the line Pioneer LD player back in the 90's in my theatre. Quality was the best you could get in resolution at the time and a lot of us used line doublers to improve the picture even more. Now it's all streaming etc and the only disc player I own in my X-Box.
One reason why Laserdiscs didn't take off in the UK was because of the way they added digital sound to the format in the mid '80s. In NTSC regions they left the original FM soundtracks in place, so new discs were fully compatible with old players. In the PAL version there wasn't enough room for both, so they dumped the FM soundtracks leaving old players unable to play new discs, effectively making them boatanchors. Not surprisingly that didn't win the format many friends.
I used to assemble a grabber for a robot. It had SS bars that little pillow blocks rode on. Fiddly things to get to run smooth. There were no slotted holes for the screws. I would get it in the end. I was very pleased with that.
Ive worked on some old old laser discs many years ago, some older generationm than this model. when it comes to more older disceet circuitry not easy some times to fix it. later generations of laser disc dvd came better to fix . i was fan of pioneers they always supproted very well the service shops.
Interesting seeing an original disc from The Box, which has only just closed down, but moved to hard disk playout a long time ago. I remember watching it on cable back when it was still run off laserdisc, and it wasn't unusual for playback to skip or stick. For a while, there was a particular video that clearly corresponded with a damaged or dirty part of the disc, because within the first couple of seconds it would stick; you'd see the same video frame and hear the corresponding audio frame repeated for the full length of the track, after which the jukebox would switch to the next track.
