As I live in Europe (PAL country) there is always a problem finding good
players. As far as multi standard players go, none of the Pioneers
(including the praised CLD-D925) gave a satisfactory picture on NTSC,
although others may have a different opinion. The only player that was good
in that respect was the Philips LDP-600WS.
I stopped using it because of the lack of digital capabilities and because
it is single side. My current setup is a Pioneer CLD-98 (champagne version
of the Elite CLD-97) with an Elite CLD-99 as backup and an Elite DVL-91 as
second backup. For PAL playback I use a Pioneer CLD-1050, the PAL version of
the CLD-1010, which is the player rumoured to have a red laser.
I have also owned a CLD-D704 and was pleased with its picture quality. I
agree with you that the Elite CLD-99 is in practice just an expensive
CLD-D704. Both suffer from the spindle slip problem, same as the multi
standard CLD-2950.
I have never seen the super players like a LD-S2 or a HLD-model. In Europe
these are really scarse.
All this tends to corroborate your comments: early full analog video
processing seems to be better, and if it has to be (partially) digital, go
for an Elite CLD-97 with a CLD-D704/Elite CLD-99 as second bet.
The reason Pioneer (or Philips and Sony for that matter) did not have all
the NTSC features available on PAL and multistandard models is probably that
the PAL market was very tiny as compared to the NTSC market. For example:
the CLD-D925 and the multistandard DVL-models DVL-909 and DVL-919E are the
only three PAL capable Pioneer LD-players with digital frame memory. To give
you an idea: in Holland, where I live, there were approximately 20,000 LD
players in use at the height of the LD era. About half of these can playback
NTSC discs; the other half is PAL-only. That number is nothing compared to
the U.S. or Japan.
Regards,
Nico de Vries
Post by Kurtis BahrYou are correct, the CDV-600 was the NTSC version and the LDP-600WS was a
multi format model.
If you liked the 600 you should have seen the CDV-488 that was the model
before it. The CDV-488 has both pure analog and digital picture modes,
multi-bit D/A and a better looking picture in my opinion. All LD players
starting in the mid 80's (except for the Pioneer entry models CLD-S201, 104,
etc) all digitize the signal for TBC, the 488 performed an analog TBC and
gave you the pure analog option in a high end player. The 600 did not have
as good of a reputation as the 488. But people prefer the dual sided
playback. Also Philips does not support LD anymore so if it breaks you need
to find another player to get the parts.
Now is Pioneer Elite or Philips better, depends on your preferences. I used
my CDV-488 for best enjoyment until I got my first CLD-97. I do agree a
properly aligned CDV-488 in my opinion is a touch better than the CLD-97 but
for the small difference I went with the 97 as it is dual sided. Now I know
others that say the Pioneers have better color control and prefer the
Pioneer players. Also the Philips player took me years to finally get it
adjusted to its optimum performance when it would play clean from inner to
outer edge. Now the Pioneer LD-S2 may not have as sharp of a picture but it
has the most stable picture I've seen and it's only drawback is that it is
single sided. I'd still love to see a HLD-X0 but am afraid I would get
hooked.
Now if you don't mind the look from using DNR then the CLD-D704 is a great
option at a lower cost than the Elites.
The US models have many options that were not available in PAL players.
Don't know why this happened, Pioneer should have made these available
everywhere.
Kurtis