Laserdisc players only really ever had Composite Video. Even models that had an S-video output were just outputting the composite signal over it. The only difference was the comb filter. The composite output would rely on your TV's comb filter while the S-video output would use a comb filter built into the LD player.
Yes but, the comb filter in the LD players were better than most TVs in the day, they used a 3-D comb filter that gave really impressive results. Keep in mind the only other media content in the day was VHS and LD even over composite blew it away in every aspect...
Totally, right on. These days, LD enthusiasts use composite video out into the best modern comb filters (released in 2011) before going to a modern TV because the comb filters built into the old LD players (accessible via the S-Video) don't cut it like they probably did with TVs older than the players.
I have an RCA VCR/DVD combo that has S-Video out that I use for digitzing stuff, does it work the same way? I figure the comb filter in the VCR is better than the one in my HD PVR
@@Evildandalo It's my understanding that it would be the same - the composite out will use the comb filter of the next device in the signal chain whereas the S-Video out will use the comb filter built into the VCR. Whichever device has the better comb filter would be the one you want to use.
1. I had never even heard of Mega LD games until now :-O 2. I love that you labeled the console with work completed and when 3. Your videos are just the greatest and have inspired me to brush off my soldering skills to start doing some of my own mods this year
Amazing work, but it seems like the wires going through the chassis should have some sort of heat shrink tubing or something over them. They probably will never see much movement or stress, but still scary seeing thinly insulated wire rubbing on metal.
@Nbomber its not the voltage its the current, if you have crappy insulation and your wire is crossing a bunch of sensitive components you might have problems. its more of a precaution than anything; if the item you are going through the trouble of fixing has value etc etc
Awesome install video. Should point out that anyone playing MegaLD or LDROM games will be limited to Composite because of the video signals needing to mix and it’s only possible through Composite. It is still a lot of fun though to be able to do all of this in one system.
@@erik3371 Mixing the LaserDisc video data with the PACs video game data. If you played a MegaLD or LD ROM game and only had Svideo hooked up from this MOD, you'll only see the Video playing from the laserdisc analog data. Anything Game related from the PAC wouldn't output to the screen.
LaserDisc movies are literally encoded as composite on the disc. The players with native S-Video literally use a comb filter to generate S-Video from the composite video on the disc, which is why it doesn’t look any better. The comb filter could be better than what is built into many TVs and S-Video cables are going to be able to transmit the video without as much interference but you can’t get any extra resolution with a LaserDisc.
Yeah, the S-Video addition to the board seems odd when it doesn't work with the PACs, which would benefit from it and LaserDisc would see no benefit. Another surprise is that the breakout board doesn't include an AC-3 breakout, which is another common mod for the LaserActive. and would fit nicely in place of S-Video. The composite video from the LaserActive is really phenomenal, but doesn't play well with many of the modern components I have. The FrameMeister doesn't support it, for example. I've had luck with a Koryuu through an OSSC, however.
This was an incredibly interesting video showcasing a console I had only ever heard about once or twice. I can't wait to learn more after work today, and I would love to see more videos featuring this beast of a system! Thanks for all your hard work!
It's a neat console but, the wow factor was awesome in the day but, today not so much. A lot of the games had video playing with game infront. So if you shooting in space, you would have a video of space behind you, it was neat in the day, didn't age very well.
i love the production value and seeing the sub growth you deserve. I have only ever hacked a 3DS but ive been contemplating taking on a project similar to your SP projects. Thank you for the inspiration, keep up the fantastic content!
I am a big laserdisc fan, I have 4 players at home and over 300 titles. Even with my LD-S2 which is known for having best s-video output of all Laserdisc player, I still get a better picture using composite which is then processed by an external 3D-line comb filter rather than using the standard s-video output. As for my CLD-V5000, the composite video is separated and y/c are processed individually and then recombine, but you can skip all those shenanigan by using the y/c line from the s-video where you tap directly on the y line where no processing is done and output it to rca jack, it does allow you in the need to get a cleaner composite signal.
@@MachoNachoProductions When it comes to dedicated player, the more expensive the better. The best north american player you can get is the LD-S2 followed closely by the CLD-97 and CLD-99, but they are pricey. I won't suggest Muse player that you have to import from Japan as the gain you got from it is pretty small, but for myself and someone like you who seems to love repairing stuff. I would go with a player where parts are fairly available and reparability, this is why I would recommend an industrial machine as they are built strong to last. So if you want to enjoy this hobby long enough, I would go with a CLD-V5000 chassis. Easy to calibrate, easy to find parts and LD enthusiast have started building replacement parts that have become unavailable. LD-V2200 chassis are built like tank but dang they are terrible to calibrate, V5000 are fun and easy to calibrate. The choice is now yours :) Good luck with this fun hobby
It's going to depend on the setup if S-video looks good. Since Laserdisc is Composite natively, they had to install a comb filter in the player to get the S-Video output. If the TV is older than the player, it's likely to look better than the composite signal. If it's newer, stick with composite as the TV likely has a better comb filter.
I am glad to say that I purchased a LaserActive today for $400 at a record store in San Jose, CA. And the lady threw in an unopened MegaLD game of Pyramid Patrol for free. Didn’t come with a remote and still looking for the PAC-S10.
I like that you labeled the date of refurbishment. Makes a lot of sense! The composite on the Laser Active is actually waaaaay better than the composite on the original Genesis. That said, it ain't RGB!
Please make a video on soldering basics and the tools/setup to get started for beginners. I love the channel and appreciate all the info. Great video as always!
This is great and did not know it existed. Love that this is a no cut mod and the solder work doesn't seem too invasive either. Great job on the video! fyi, I was able to find a compatible remote replacement last year for a reasonable price. Seems like a lot of oem Pioneer remotes will work ok with this device, so that's potentially an option to work around the s-video overlay issue. For reference, the remote model I'm using is CU-CLD106. Appears to be for a different Pioneer laserdisc player but it works fine with the Lassractive.
Also I very much recommend using this with a CRT specifically for laserdisc playback. It's been mentioned several times in the comments: laserdisc is natively a composite video solution. You won't get better native quality than that and aside from what maybe a Retrotink5x can give you for an upscaled image you're gonna be better off enjoying these laserdiscs on a (preferably large) low resolution CRT. This device and a VCR for VHS videos are the only reasons I still own a beastly 36" CRT consumer set - those devices and that TV pair so wonderfully. In both cases it was was meant for 80s & 90s era display technology and I don't really see a purpose in upscaling a laserdisc or VHS composite video image aside from preservation purposes.
The MD/GEN looks terrible on modern displays, even with the best upscalers it won't look anywhere near as nice as on a CRT with native scanlines, not to mention the horrible lag, response times and awful motion clarity.
They'd also be fine on a high resolution CRT TV, due to the way CRT displays work. It would be pretty cool(but no doubt expensive) to have one of the late model, widescreen HD CRTs, some even had HDMI inputs!
I actually have 2 laser disc players with S-Video. Ironically. The S-Video units end up being some of the cheaper ones and I don't belive either has digital audio out. I think one does play both sides of the Disc (the laser flips), but Pioneer made it really difficult to get one player with all of the best features. In terms of video, I did see a moderate improvement with S Video on an SD projector, but even that may have just been my imagination. I didn't do any pixel by pixel comparison. I actually have a few laser disc's sitting in front of me, but I haven't played a movie in maybe 5 years and all of my players are buried in the garage. With the exception of Star Wars, I think most laser discs are cooler to look at than to actually play.
I definitely appreciate the packaging of laserdisc movies. I think I want to get a better more premium dedicated laserdisc play to play movies. Perhaps one day
This could have been a cool standard if other systems were also onboard with the integration. Would have been interesting if they had nes/snes and even the portables as add on packs. Makes me wonder if someone is going to try and make some lol. Would be interesting for sure.
I’m pretty sure the signal on the LD itself is composite so even the models with S-Video and SCART (in Europe) were simply carrying the composite signal over a different cable. Great video, I’d love to own a LaserActive 😊
@@MachoNachoProductions I like the fact that most movies are film transfers. Which retain a lot of the grit and warmth of these movies. Plus you can see original unedited movies. Not going to mention which franchise. And the artwork in some editions is a treat in itself.
Hi Tito I have an NEC Laseractive that I bought faulty and managed to fix it with a total recap and drive belt change. I have also RGB and S video modded it prior to purchasing Zack’s kit which a have for another unit I am looking at buying. I would recommend doing the PacAttack mod as well as I have just done that and it sounds excellent well worth performing. I also have the rarer NEC PCE-LP1 PAC for pc engine games which is excellent I would fully recommend buying that PAC. All PACs needed recapping especially the Sega S1 as the caps were already leaking and damaging the mainboard even though it worked. Seems they are at that age now
Back in the day, I only ever found a discernible difference in image quality when using S-Video to record and play back using an S-VHS capable VCR. Even better, one with an on-board timebase corrector (TBC). The results were especially noticeable when you kept the entire signal chain as S-Video (e.g. S-Video output from satellite or cable box -> S-VHS VCR -> TV or monitor with S-Video input.
It was important for recording / transfer from cameras back then, to avoid excess degradation, even if the end target was regular VHS from S-VHS camera. And unlike LD, VHS actually is Y/C separated. Still seen non-modded Laserdisc players with RGB though. But it was probably mostly for practical reasons. In Europe.
@@AltCutTV Yes, I believe most of the players released in UK and Europe would've featured a SCART socket, though this may have been for the convenience of not only having one cable to handle everything, but also for auto-switching the TV to the correct A/V input and aspect ratio.
Oh man, this video is gonna be awesome for the handful of people that end up installing this mod! 🤣 That being said, I watched the whole video even though I’ll never have one of these. Thanks for allowing me to live vicariously through your videos.
The way laserdisc worked was it was literally a composite signal etched into and read from the disc. Any "native" S-VIDEO signal from a player would've only been a conversion of this composite signal. Audio was a much higher quality digital signal, but video for standard laserdic was literally just a composite signal stored in a less defect-prone format.
Everytime you showcase an upgrade to an obscure console, I want one! I overpaid for a Nomad when you did that video and when I received it, it powered on, but would not load games!
Sometime the connector is just a little dirty. If you insert and remove a game a couple times sometimes that removes some of the oxide layer on the contacts.
back in the early 90s the sega genesis RGB was unknown in the united states for many years no one had cables connectors or TVs with that kind of plugs ins the output was useless for western gamers in the early ninetys however in some euro pal territories it was well known .beacuase they had the cables and conection on rear of a tv pal sets
Great video ! I got several laserdisc players and the s-video always seams pointless on these, since LD movies uses an analog video stored in the composite domain
While these are very expensive many were prone to failure (all the bad caps back in the day). I would be very worried to take this apart being so complex inside but give you all the credit for doing so.
Probably answered already, but laserdisc was a composite based format just like VHS. The later players with s-video looked better, but the major advances were more because of quality comb filters and the such not because the disc were created with the ability to output higher quality video like how DVD evolved over its lifespan.
S-video sharpens the soft edges on movies, making small text for example more readable, you can try this with Back To The Future, there are plenty of scenes with text in the background, and it should ad a small more color accurate benefit to the movie, although it's only visible in specific conditions
Oh my god that mounting bit for the board is genius. No need to modify the shell, it always pains me to see rare hardware get irreversibly modified/drilled into.
Great video. I researched adding RGB years ago and the lack of movie support through that connection was a bit of a turnoff. But it didnt matter as my laser died and it just wasnt worth the $$ to fix (or even recap). So I passed it on to another person who I believe was able to fix everything and currently enjoys it to this day. I kept my LD movies though... in case i ever wanted to just get a regular player.
Emulating the Mega LD and LD-ROM2 games is currently the holy grail to complete emulation of their respective consoles. I’m guessing that this would require the emulation of the LaserActive components, since it’s more than just a Laserdisc player.
@@MachoNachoProductions Sadly no, the laser disc player didn't make the move to our new house. I knew it could do karaoke, but wish I had known about the Sega CD functionality. We had Sewer Shark and Batman Returns!
Yeah it depends on the Player itself as the Video is in RF that is made from Composite video. Some players Composite output is made from the S-Vdieo making the S-Video the best on them. I myself use a DVL-H9 that plays both DVD & LD (as well as VCD, CDV, VSD, CDs) and it's S-Video is best for LD but does component for DVD. (LaserDisc can be seen using Component but is Black & White only. It's almost like they only needed to add one little part for color to work.)
Honestly, composite video is about as fancy as most people got in the 90s. S-video *existed* but it wasn't widely used. Also Laserdisc video is stored in composite format so as long as your TV had a good comb filter it would look as good as it could
I bought the LaserActive with the Genesis module back in ‘93 or ‘94, don’t remember. I think I paid around $2,000 or so and returned it before the 30 day return policy was up. Now I wish I kept it as I regret returning it now.
Im so excited you finally got this bad boy up and running and in full rgb at that very sweet man nice work tito id love to get my hand on one of these some day with the pc engine drive too of course
Thank you dude! It was one of the most satisfying restorations I’ve done! I was so convinced I wouldn’t be able to revive it, but thankfully it is 100% running now 😁! I also need to track down the pc engine pac!!
@@MachoNachoProductions i bet! That cap replacement is no joke wow! I glad you were successful. If i ever come across a pc engine pac ill let you know👍👍👍
If this mod can't output both the LaserActive graphics and the LD video through the same connector, wouldn't that mean any dedicated MegaLD games would be completely inoperarable, since they involve layering Genesis/MegaDrive or TurboGrafix/PC Engine graphics over analog video?
Yeah... I think it would be fun to Hook up three displays with one Connection each. One has everything, one ist movie only and one is... Sprites and a HUD in a black screen?
I used to have one of these. Sold it in 2014! The lack of RGB, and no auto-flip on the player made it a sub-par Genesis, and a sub-par laserdisc player. It's super cool, but for me just not that useful. This mod definitely addresses the shortcomings of the Genesis portion though!
used to have a lazer-disc system growing up and loved it. boys-n-the-hood and conan and tom&jerry were the only three movies I had on it but damn it would of been awesome to play games on it.
The problem is they also made devices that were inbetween devices, which would have been a disappointing purchase/waste of money at the time, like MegaCD, 32x and so on. I do kind of wish I'd bought a new MegaCD or several(as investments) when I remember them clearing them out for a much lower price($nz50 at the time, which was super cheap, but they were considered next to useless by then). Ironically from the 'DEKA' store here in NZ, which went out of business later.
I owned one of these when these were new in the early 90s I think around 93-94 I had the NEC turbo grafx pac and I thought I was so cool renting Laserdisc movies while everyone else had VHS. I had it connected to a big Sony 27” console trinitron CRT and two giant pioneer tower speakers.
You may want to keep your PAC-S10 in original condition, but I you haven't already, they all need capacitor replacements otherwise they'll leak and destroy themselves. The same goes for the PAC-N10/N1. That's something you'll not want to wait on. I think one of the biggest disappointments with the LaserActive is that digital, PCM game audio isn't output from the optical digital audio jack. While I haven't looked at it, I'm sure audio is converted to analog in the PAC. I've not tried it, but I wonder if CDDA audio from games gets sent out of the optical out, pre-mix. Time to play some Road Rash and find out.
Yep, that was the first thing I did was replace all the caps. I bought my s10 unit brand new in box and thankfully non of the caps leaked but I replaced them nonetheless 👍
Pioneer probably skimped out on RGB for convenience & simplification purposes they probably didn't want to add cost & confusion for end users who might use RGB & not get any laserdisc video (without having to add additional circuitry)
I had one back in the day. Would have really liked to have seen a EMU for Mega LD games since it’s only been about 35 years 🤓 Hyperion!!! S-Vid cleaned up some dot crawl and colors. It was the next step up, but nothing earth shattering. Component showed a much bigger difference.
@@MachoNachoProductions Wow that's absurdly lucky. I hope your able to get that broken sega genesis / sega cd pak fixed so you can get a better sound quality.
For your LaserActive video, keep in mind there was a very rare clone from NEC, model PCE-LD1. I have one of these in working condition, so let me know if you’d like to talk a bit more about it. Also, which output is used when playing a Mega-LD or NEC LaserActive game with this specific mod, since Laserdiscs output S-Video and the PAC outputs RGB? S-Video?
Wow that’s awesome! That’s right, I totally forgot about the NEC version of the LaserActive. Those are super rare! Definitely reach out to me on discord! Would love to include that that (or at least photos) if that in the video 👍 The LD based games would be output through composite. I don’t think they’ll work through a video because the game pac overlays graphics which wouldn’t display unfortunately.
Would you feel comfortable opening to see if there is any difference in the actual internal boards used? I would think it was just a rebadged CLD-A100, but nobody has provided any information on it.
S-Video output on LD players was touch and go. Sometimes the TV had a better comb filter than the LD player so composite out was better than S-Video. YMMV.
You should always use composite for Laserdisc films because 99% of the players that also have S-Video have a rather poor lowpass filter between them, which makes the picture darker and even more blurred. This may have brought something to an old CRT TV, but if you want to operate it on a more modern TV, it makes the picture worse. Especially since the signal on laserdiscs is only available in composite anyway. So you can't get anything better out of it if the signal isn't better than a composite
I know this has probably been answered but Laserdisc videos were all stamped with Composite anyway. So, there's no upgrade when using S-Video compared to composite video for Laserdiscs.
when you compare the S-Video to Composite by playing The Fifth Element movie, aside form the flicker from your capture I think the composite is CLEARLY BETTER... you don't see any of those color changes that appear once in a while (very prevalent when showing Mila's face and Bruce's face a bit too) - IDK if this is ALSO from your capture card though.... if it isn't then they seem to be identical and idk why you would care lol BUT during the game caparison it CLEARLY IS MUCH BETTER than composite.... BRAVO!
I would still prefer to find a way to do a FULL UPGRADE to HDMI but I know that would be SO MUCH MORE COMPLEX... and I'm only thinking about as it only being one wire for everything... I know you aren't gonna see much quality difference between HDMI and RGB until you are able to apply some processing with the chip(s) it require... but I really know nothing about it :)
I need to dig mine out. It was a Laser disc player first and a Genesis second. Haven't had it hooked up for at least 15 years. Sad I never got the TG16 module.
This is coming from someone who used to collect Laserdisc and had nine players and a fairly large library of films at one point. I got out of it because honestly, during multiple moves, it was a pain in the ass to transport all the stuff. But anyway... S-video quality on players that featured it largely depended on the model and what comb filter the player had for its s-video output. Laserdisc was designed with analog composite signal in mind, and all the composite only players varied in quality as far as noise levels in the picture went. So if you combined a lower end player with a lower end crt TV that did not have a solid comb filter, you got really subpar results. If you combine one with a LCD and don't use a line-doubler/upscaler, you should expect even worse results. S-video later being added as a feature to LD was nice, as long as you got one of the more solid players that featured it. But it was always possible to have a crt display that had a better 3-line comb filter in place that, combined with a solid composite LD player, could outdo a lower end s-video capable player, like one of the RCA re-badge players, combined with a so-so Tv that was s-video capable but in general was a lower end CRT. Its one of those things where, if you are serious about getting into collecting LD, you have to do your research. Its not cut and dry and to get the most out of Laserdisc picture quality, or anything analog composite video based like VHS, CED, VHD, and Beta, you need the right combination of equipment. In the case of you modding the Laseractive for s-video, the Laseractive featured no internal comb filter. It was designed for composite only, intended to rely on whatever comb filter the tv or monitor itself was using. Since you are feeding s-video out with no comb filter in place, you risk producing a worse quality image because nothing is in place to clean up the video signal. You also have to factor this in with the fact that the CLD-A100 itself quality wise, was actually a budget/entry level player with one of the worst video signal-to-noise ratios present during its time, being on par with players released in the 80s. Embarrassingly bad enough that Pioneer made little effort to list its signal-to-noise ratio in marketing, which is something they were usually proud to do with their medium and high end players. If you want to get the most out of your CLD-A100 for Laserdisc playback, you either need to be using it via composite out with a higher end CRT like a Trinitron, or if you are stuck with a LCD display, use it via composite out with a older line doubler/upscaler that was designed with Laserdisc and VHS in mind, like a older DVDO or Extron unit, that will have a decent comb filter in place. If you have a higher end player combined with a decent CRT display and have everything calibrated fairly well, you can get close to DVD quality depending on the disc you are playing. Some LD releases exceeded early DVD releases picture quality because early DVD tended to be slip shod minimal efforts. Laserdisc had the benefit of not having to suffer compression artifacts too. Also worth noting, LD was designed to be displayed on a crt, which means scanlines, so when using on a plasma or LCD display, having a line doubler/upscaler on hand is basically essential if you don't want your LD's video quality to look like blurred out mud.
nice video, great work, but next time i would love to see a more in-depth comparison, not just a close up of sonic looking to the camera. A real gameplay comparison would be nice. Cheers!
Wow you finally did it. I still had no time to do it. I wanted to use a PC Engine RGB booster board. It seems you still didn't got a PC Engine Pak? If you still searching one, don't buy the US Turbografx16 variant as i already mentioned before.
You know todays gaming trends have become stranger and stranger when you see this video title and immediately think: "No, don´t do that!" Only to realize he´s just going to mod the video output.
Laserdisc players only really ever had Composite Video. Even models that had an S-video output were just outputting the composite signal over it. The only difference was the comb filter. The composite output would rely on your TV's comb filter while the S-video output would use a comb filter built into the LD player.
Thanks for the insight!
Yes but, the comb filter in the LD players were better than most TVs in the day, they used a 3-D comb filter that gave really impressive results. Keep in mind the only other media content in the day was VHS and LD even over composite blew it away in every aspect...
Totally, right on. These days, LD enthusiasts use composite video out into the best modern comb filters (released in 2011) before going to a modern TV because the comb filters built into the old LD players (accessible via the S-Video) don't cut it like they probably did with TVs older than the players.
I have an RCA VCR/DVD combo that has S-Video out that I use for digitzing stuff, does it work the same way? I figure the comb filter in the VCR is better than the one in my HD PVR
@@Evildandalo It's my understanding that it would be the same - the composite out will use the comb filter of the next device in the signal chain whereas the S-Video out will use the comb filter built into the VCR. Whichever device has the better comb filter would be the one you want to use.
1. I had never even heard of Mega LD games until now :-O
2. I love that you labeled the console with work completed and when
3. Your videos are just the greatest and have inspired me to brush off my soldering skills to start doing some of my own mods this year
Thank you so much Daniel! So glad you’re enjoying the video! Definitely got to keep track of maintenance 😁👍
Amazing work, but it seems like the wires going through the chassis should have some sort of heat shrink tubing or something over them. They probably will never see much movement or stress, but still scary seeing thinly insulated wire rubbing on metal.
That’s a good idea! I may have to go back and do that!
its probably fine, electricity/current always tries to take the path of least resistance ;)
@@jonniefast It takes all paths. The one with least resistant has the highest current.
@Nbomber its not the voltage its the current, if you have crappy insulation and your wire is crossing a bunch of sensitive components you might have problems.
its more of a precaution than anything; if the item you are going through the trouble of fixing has value etc etc
however the wire used in this video is literally fine, its clearly insulated and has perfectly stripped ends/joints for our viewing pleasure lol
Looking forward to the main review of the console.
Great upgrade of this rare retro game beast !
Thanks dude! Yeah, looking forward to making the review 👍
Maybe it should have been done in this order... I have so many questions now.
Whichever kid had this back home in the 90s was probably crowned king of the school.
Definitely the coolest kid in school at least 😁
Scary stuff. I personally would never try to open up and mod something so rare and expensive.
It was daunting at first but after playing around with if for a while it became pretty manageable
Nothing ventured nothing gained as they would say.
Awesome install video. Should point out that anyone playing MegaLD or LDROM games will be limited to Composite because of the video signals needing to mix and it’s only possible through Composite. It is still a lot of fun though to be able to do all of this in one system.
Yes, I totally forgot to mention that! Thank you!
What does mixing signals mean here?
@@erik3371 Mixing the LaserDisc video data with the PACs video game data. If you played a MegaLD or LD ROM game and only had Svideo hooked up from this MOD, you'll only see the Video playing from the laserdisc analog data. Anything Game related from the PAC wouldn't output to the screen.
LaserDisc movies are literally encoded as composite on the disc. The players with native S-Video literally use a comb filter to generate S-Video from the composite video on the disc, which is why it doesn’t look any better. The comb filter could be better than what is built into many TVs and S-Video cables are going to be able to transmit the video without as much interference but you can’t get any extra resolution with a LaserDisc.
Thank you for the insight Emmett!!
Yeah, the S-Video addition to the board seems odd when it doesn't work with the PACs, which would benefit from it and LaserDisc would see no benefit. Another surprise is that the breakout board doesn't include an AC-3 breakout, which is another common mod for the LaserActive. and would fit nicely in place of S-Video.
The composite video from the LaserActive is really phenomenal, but doesn't play well with many of the modern components I have. The FrameMeister doesn't support it, for example. I've had luck with a Koryuu through an OSSC, however.
S-Video does still benefit the image quality of the Sega MegaDrive and PC-Engine.
@@apollosungod2819 The S-Video portion of this mod is for the LaserDisc only. :(
This was an incredibly interesting video showcasing a console I had only ever heard about once or twice. I can't wait to learn more after work today, and I would love to see more videos featuring this beast of a system! Thanks for all your hard work!
Glad you enjoyed the video Nathan! It is a really cool and unique console!
I'd never heard of it
It's a neat console but, the wow factor was awesome in the day but, today not so much. A lot of the games had video playing with game infront. So if you shooting in space, you would have a video of space behind you, it was neat in the day, didn't age very well.
i love the production value and seeing the sub growth you deserve. I have only ever hacked a 3DS but ive been contemplating taking on a project similar to your SP projects. Thank you for the inspiration, keep up the fantastic content!
I am a big laserdisc fan, I have 4 players at home and over 300 titles. Even with my LD-S2 which is known for having best s-video output of all Laserdisc player, I still get a better picture using composite which is then processed by an external 3D-line comb filter rather than using the standard s-video output. As for my CLD-V5000, the composite video is separated and y/c are processed individually and then recombine, but you can skip all those shenanigan by using the y/c line from the s-video where you tap directly on the y line where no processing is done and output it to rca jack, it does allow you in the need to get a cleaner composite signal.
Nice! I’ve been thinking of getting a dedicated laserdisc player. Any recommendations?
@@MachoNachoProductions When it comes to dedicated player, the more expensive the better. The best north american player you can get is the LD-S2 followed closely by the CLD-97 and CLD-99, but they are pricey. I won't suggest Muse player that you have to import from Japan as the gain you got from it is pretty small, but for myself and someone like you who seems to love repairing stuff. I would go with a player where parts are fairly available and reparability, this is why I would recommend an industrial machine as they are built strong to last. So if you want to enjoy this hobby long enough, I would go with a CLD-V5000 chassis. Easy to calibrate, easy to find parts and LD enthusiast have started building replacement parts that have become unavailable. LD-V2200 chassis are built like tank but dang they are terrible to calibrate, V5000 are fun and easy to calibrate. The choice is now yours :) Good luck with this fun hobby
It's going to depend on the setup if S-video looks good. Since Laserdisc is Composite natively, they had to install a comb filter in the player to get the S-Video output. If the TV is older than the player, it's likely to look better than the composite signal. If it's newer, stick with composite as the TV likely has a better comb filter.
If only the LaserActive could play Hi-Vision discs
@@AmaroqStarwind Would be nice, but you would still need a MUSE decoder.
@@thatguyontheright1 I believe that the W-VHS system has one built-in
Makes sense! Thank you so much for the insight!!
@@AmaroqStarwind W-VHS didn't have pre-recorded MUSE content like Hi-Vision, so unless it was for off air content, MUSE wasn't necessary for W-VHS.
No cut mods are the best with such a rare console. I hope you do get the TG16 mod as that would be fun to see as well.
Me too! Fingers crossed 😁🤞. Thanks kill-9
I love how you present this like a tutorial; for all the people following along, step-by-step at home. 😅
I am glad to say that I purchased a LaserActive today for $400 at a record store in San Jose, CA. And the lady threw in an unopened MegaLD game of Pyramid Patrol for free. Didn’t come with a remote and still looking for the PAC-S10.
I like that you labeled the date of refurbishment. Makes a lot of sense! The composite on the Laser Active is actually waaaaay better than the composite on the original Genesis. That said, it ain't RGB!
Thank you! That’s good to know. I should have compare the composite of the laser active to the Genesis.
Please make a video on soldering basics and the tools/setup to get started for beginners. I love the channel and appreciate all the info. Great video as always!
This is great and did not know it existed. Love that this is a no cut mod and the solder work doesn't seem too invasive either. Great job on the video!
fyi, I was able to find a compatible remote replacement last year for a reasonable price. Seems like a lot of oem Pioneer remotes will work ok with this device, so that's potentially an option to work around the s-video overlay issue.
For reference, the remote model I'm using is CU-CLD106. Appears to be for a different Pioneer laserdisc player but it works fine with the Lassractive.
I've never even used a laserdisc, much less seen one of these consoles. Great video as usual!
Thank you! It is a pretty niche medium but also very cool!
You've come a long way, Tito. Great video. Here's to 100k soon.
Also I very much recommend using this with a CRT specifically for laserdisc playback. It's been mentioned several times in the comments: laserdisc is natively a composite video solution. You won't get better native quality than that and aside from what maybe a Retrotink5x can give you for an upscaled image you're gonna be better off enjoying these laserdiscs on a (preferably large) low resolution CRT. This device and a VCR for VHS videos are the only reasons I still own a beastly 36" CRT consumer set - those devices and that TV pair so wonderfully. In both cases it was was meant for 80s & 90s era display technology and I don't really see a purpose in upscaling a laserdisc or VHS composite video image aside from preservation purposes.
The MD/GEN looks terrible on modern displays, even with the best upscalers it won't look anywhere near as nice as on a CRT with native scanlines, not to mention the horrible lag, response times and awful motion clarity.
They'd also be fine on a high resolution CRT TV, due to the way CRT displays work.
It would be pretty cool(but no doubt expensive) to have one of the late model, widescreen HD CRTs, some even had HDMI inputs!
I love it when people add things to rare components and computers to show what it could have been
I actually have 2 laser disc players with S-Video. Ironically. The S-Video units end up being some of the cheaper ones and I don't belive either has digital audio out. I think one does play both sides of the Disc (the laser flips), but Pioneer made it really difficult to get one player with all of the best features. In terms of video, I did see a moderate improvement with S Video on an SD projector, but even that may have just been my imagination. I didn't do any pixel by pixel comparison. I actually have a few laser disc's sitting in front of me, but I haven't played a movie in maybe 5 years and all of my players are buried in the garage. With the exception of Star Wars, I think most laser discs are cooler to look at than to actually play.
I definitely appreciate the packaging of laserdisc movies. I think I want to get a better more premium dedicated laserdisc play to play movies. Perhaps one day
One of the most complex consoles even to this day
That is awesome I've seen a lot of consoles but I've never seen this this is awesome
The fact that you have 5th element on laserdisc makes you my hero forever Tito😌
The fifth element is one of my all time favorite movies! I love watching it on laserdisc ☺️ (but I also have it on DVD and Blu-ray 😅)
This could have been a cool standard if other systems were also onboard with the integration. Would have been interesting if they had nes/snes and even the portables as add on packs. Makes me wonder if someone is going to try and make some lol. Would be interesting for sure.
That would have been so cool, it’s like an early version of the polymega
MiSTer FPGA PAC.
Look at the Polymega
I’m pretty sure the signal on the LD itself is composite so even the models with S-Video and SCART (in Europe) were simply carrying the composite signal over a different cable. Great video, I’d love to own a LaserActive 😊
I own over 100 movies on laserdisc. This is my unicorn player. Great video as usual!!
Nice! I’m still trying to grow my laserdisc collection! I love the format!
@@MachoNachoProductions I like the fact that most movies are film transfers. Which retain a lot of the grit and warmth of these movies. Plus you can see original unedited movies. Not going to mention which franchise. And the artwork in some editions is a treat in itself.
@@stephenshelottiii3272 we know its star wars
@@jonniefast it wasn’t a secret. Lol
@@stephenshelottiii3272 😂💓
Hi Tito I have an NEC Laseractive that I bought faulty and managed to fix it with a total recap and drive belt change. I have also RGB and S video modded it prior to purchasing Zack’s kit which a have for another unit I am looking at buying. I would recommend doing the PacAttack mod as well as I have just done that and it sounds excellent well worth performing. I also have the rarer NEC PCE-LP1 PAC for pc engine games which is excellent I would fully recommend buying that PAC. All PACs needed recapping especially the Sega S1 as the caps were already leaking and damaging the mainboard even though it worked. Seems they are at that age now
OMG gran consola y gran trabajo Tito, y una excelente producción del video.
I never knew this console existed and now I am fascinated. Great video!
Back in the day, I only ever found a discernible difference in image quality when using S-Video to record and play back using an S-VHS capable VCR. Even better, one with an on-board timebase corrector (TBC). The results were especially noticeable when you kept the entire signal chain as S-Video (e.g. S-Video output from satellite or cable box -> S-VHS VCR -> TV or monitor with S-Video input.
Thanks for the insight!
It was important for recording / transfer from cameras back then, to avoid excess degradation, even if the end target was regular VHS from S-VHS camera. And unlike LD, VHS actually is Y/C separated.
Still seen non-modded Laserdisc players with RGB though. But it was probably mostly for practical reasons. In Europe.
@@AltCutTV Yes, I believe most of the players released in UK and Europe would've featured a SCART socket, though this may have been for the convenience of not only having one cable to handle everything, but also for auto-switching the TV to the correct A/V input and aspect ratio.
Oh man, this video is gonna be awesome for the handful of people that end up installing this mod! 🤣
That being said, I watched the whole video even though I’ll never have one of these. Thanks for allowing me to live vicariously through your videos.
The way laserdisc worked was it was literally a composite signal etched into and read from the disc. Any "native" S-VIDEO signal from a player would've only been a conversion of this composite signal. Audio was a much higher quality digital signal, but video for standard laserdic was literally just a composite signal stored in a less defect-prone format.
Another very interesting video! Never even knew you could mod one of these. You always show off the craziest mods.
Thank you Addie!
Really glad to see this up and running! It was such an oddity from my childhood, I'm interested to learn more about it.
Everytime you showcase an upgrade to an obscure console, I want one! I overpaid for a Nomad when you did that video and when I received it, it powered on, but would not load games!
Sometime the connector is just a little dirty. If you insert and remove a game a couple times sometimes that removes some of the oxide layer on the contacts.
Great as always!
Thank you!
back in the early 90s the sega genesis RGB was unknown in the united states for many years no one had cables connectors or TVs with that kind of plugs ins the output was useless for western gamers in the early ninetys
however in some euro pal territories it was well known .beacuase they had the cables and conection on rear of a tv pal sets
This has to be one of the coolest tech items I've seen on UA-cam.
I'm not sure if I've ever heard of that thing before, but it's _beautiful._
I really hope you actually watch laserdiscs. Especially if you have a CRT. They are a great medium.
They are, but since they are an analogue format composite video was the best for them. S-video is actually a worse output.
I do! I absolutely love the format. Trying to grow my laserdisc collection 😁
That’s good to know
Great video ! I got several laserdisc players and the s-video always seams pointless on these, since LD movies uses an analog video stored in the composite domain
Yeah, I also don’t really see any improvement but it’s nice to have choices 😁
While these are very expensive many were prone to failure (all the bad caps back in the day). I would be very worried to take this apart being so complex inside but give you all the credit for doing so.
Once you've done it a dozen times, it's actually incredibly easy and quick. It was absolutely intimidating the first time.
It was definitely the most complex restoration I have ever done!
It definitely got easier after messing with it for a while
This has to be one of the coolest things I've ever seen. Modules?!
Probably answered already, but laserdisc was a composite based format just like VHS. The later players with s-video looked better, but the major advances were more because of quality comb filters and the such not because the disc were created with the ability to output higher quality video like how DVD evolved over its lifespan.
Thanks for the insight! Much appreciated 😁
wow this console is a absolute monster on the inside it looks absolutely daunting :o
S-video sharpens the soft edges on movies, making small text for example more readable, you can try this with Back To The Future, there are plenty of scenes with text in the background, and it should ad a small more color accurate benefit to the movie, although it's only visible in specific conditions
I've never seen one of these, this is amazing!
It’s honestly one of the coolest consoles! It’s just so different!
Oh my god that mounting bit for the board is genius. No need to modify the shell, it always pains me to see rare hardware get irreversibly modified/drilled into.
Great video. I researched adding RGB years ago and the lack of movie support through that connection was a bit of a turnoff. But it didnt matter as my laser died and it just wasnt worth the $$ to fix (or even recap). So I passed it on to another person who I believe was able to fix everything and currently enjoys it to this day. I kept my LD movies though... in case i ever wanted to just get a regular player.
The thing is LaserDisc is ONLY Composite. While some had S-Video, it's only a color difference, but the RGB thing is really good for those packs
Emulating the Mega LD and LD-ROM2 games is currently the holy grail to complete emulation of their respective consoles.
I’m guessing that this would require the emulation of the LaserActive components, since it’s more than just a Laserdisc player.
Never heard of this device. This thing is dope!
It’s definitely one of my prized possessions 😅
Growing up, we had a Laser Active, and I had no idea it was capable of playing games! If only I had known!!
Oh man, nice! Hopefully you still have it!
@@MachoNachoProductions Sadly no, the laser disc player didn't make the move to our new house. I knew it could do karaoke, but wish I had known about the Sega CD functionality. We had Sewer Shark and Batman Returns!
More colors, more frames. It's a fact! Oh wait... that's another RGB hahahaha!
🤣
Nice that this is fully reversible MOD . ! ☺️👍
Agreed!
Karaoke !! Oh my this is sooo beyond famicom controller! 😂
Yeah it depends on the Player itself as the Video is in RF that is made from Composite video. Some players Composite output is made from the S-Vdieo making the S-Video the best on them. I myself use a DVL-H9 that plays both DVD & LD (as well as VCD, CDV, VSD, CDs) and it's S-Video is best for LD but does component for DVD.
(LaserDisc can be seen using Component but is Black & White only. It's almost like they only needed to add one little part for color to work.)
Honestly, composite video is about as fancy as most people got in the 90s. S-video *existed* but it wasn't widely used. Also Laserdisc video is stored in composite format so as long as your TV had a good comb filter it would look as good as it could
I bought the LaserActive with the Genesis module back in ‘93 or ‘94, don’t remember. I think I paid around $2,000 or so and returned it before the 30 day return policy was up. Now I wish I kept it as I regret returning it now.
Im so excited you finally got this bad boy up and running and in full rgb at that very sweet man nice work tito id love to get my hand on one of these some day with the pc engine drive too of course
Thank you dude! It was one of the most satisfying restorations I’ve done! I was so convinced I wouldn’t be able to revive it, but thankfully it is 100% running now 😁! I also need to track down the pc engine pac!!
@@MachoNachoProductions i bet! That cap replacement is no joke wow! I glad you were successful. If i ever come across a pc engine pac ill let you know👍👍👍
I mean, I mainly want a Laserdisc Player for old anime. The extra consoles would just be a cool bonus.
I really need to start collecting some classic anime for the LD player ☺️
Great video. Never heard of that machine, so guessing not many people will have the system to do the mod
That Laserdisk is massive! I've never seen one of those before.
It totally is and it weighs a ton 😅
@@MachoNachoProductions nice mod work btw. Subbed recently and this made for another very interesting video.
I never noticed a difference with s-video back in the day. I remember playing around with it and not seeing any improvement.
Awesome video, also i miss the old intro song.
It might make a comeback soon 😁
If this mod can't output both the LaserActive graphics and the LD video through the same connector, wouldn't that mean any dedicated MegaLD games would be completely inoperarable, since they involve layering Genesis/MegaDrive or TurboGrafix/PC Engine graphics over analog video?
You are correct. Megald games will need to be played through composite only unfortunately. I should have mentioned that in the video.
@@MachoNachoProductions You could try to find a way to re-overlay the image somehow.
Yeah... I think it would be fun to Hook up three displays with one Connection each. One has everything, one ist movie only and one is... Sprites and a HUD in a black screen?
I used to have one of these. Sold it in 2014! The lack of RGB, and no auto-flip on the player made it a sub-par Genesis, and a sub-par laserdisc player. It's super cool, but for me just not that useful. This mod definitely addresses the shortcomings of the Genesis portion though!
these where always out of reach price wish when released.great video as always!
Thanks Lee! Yeah the only way I afforded it was I bought a broken unit and repaired it. Otherwise, these are just too darn expensive!
@@MachoNachoProductions keep up the great work.i always look forward to watching your videos on a thursday
used to have a lazer-disc system growing up and loved it. boys-n-the-hood and conan and tom&jerry were the only three movies I had on it but damn it would of been awesome to play games on it.
sega were an under-rated force. this is a great design for the time.
Sega had so many revisions of the Genesis, and they’re all also cool in they’re own way, I must collect them all 😁
The problem is they also made devices that were inbetween devices, which would have been a disappointing purchase/waste of money at the time, like MegaCD, 32x and so on.
I do kind of wish I'd bought a new MegaCD or several(as investments) when I remember them clearing them out for a much lower price($nz50 at the time, which was super cheap, but they were considered next to useless by then). Ironically from the 'DEKA' store here in NZ, which went out of business later.
Suuuuuuuuuuper interesting video man
Thank you!
Such an interesting console/device
I totally agree! 😁
I owned one of these when these were new in the early 90s I think around 93-94 I had the NEC turbo grafx pac and I thought I was so cool renting Laserdisc movies while everyone else had VHS. I had it connected to a big Sony 27” console trinitron CRT and two giant pioneer tower speakers.
Nice dude! Would have been so cool to own o em of these back in the 90s!
You may want to keep your PAC-S10 in original condition, but I you haven't already, they all need capacitor replacements otherwise they'll leak and destroy themselves. The same goes for the PAC-N10/N1. That's something you'll not want to wait on.
I think one of the biggest disappointments with the LaserActive is that digital, PCM game audio isn't output from the optical digital audio jack. While I haven't looked at it, I'm sure audio is converted to analog in the PAC. I've not tried it, but I wonder if CDDA audio from games gets sent out of the optical out, pre-mix. Time to play some Road Rash and find out.
Yep, that was the first thing I did was replace all the caps. I bought my s10 unit brand new in box and thankfully non of the caps leaked but I replaced them nonetheless 👍
Pioneer probably skimped out on RGB for convenience & simplification purposes they probably didn't want to add cost & confusion for end users who might use RGB & not get any laserdisc video (without having to add additional circuitry)
I had one back in the day. Would have really liked to have seen a EMU for Mega LD games since it’s only been about 35 years 🤓
Hyperion!!!
S-Vid cleaned up some dot crawl and colors. It was the next step up, but nothing earth shattering. Component showed a much bigger difference.
Hopefully we see an LD game core for mister 😅
WOW You have that? That’s awesome! I’m afraid to ask how expensive it was lol
I actually got a pretty good deal on it. I think around 250 or 300 because it was totally broken. It even came with a pac!
@@MachoNachoProductions Wow that's absurdly lucky. I hope your able to get that broken sega genesis / sega cd pak fixed so you can get a better sound quality.
Might be a silly idea, but once you have the RGB would it then open up the Laseractive to the 32X?
For your LaserActive video, keep in mind there was a very rare clone from NEC, model PCE-LD1. I have one of these in working condition, so let me know if you’d like to talk a bit more about it.
Also, which output is used when playing a Mega-LD or NEC LaserActive game with this specific mod, since Laserdiscs output S-Video and the PAC outputs RGB? S-Video?
Wow that’s awesome! That’s right, I totally forgot about the NEC version of the LaserActive. Those are super rare! Definitely reach out to me on discord! Would love to include that that (or at least photos) if that in the video 👍
The LD based games would be output through composite. I don’t think they’ll work through a video because the game pac overlays graphics which wouldn’t display unfortunately.
Would you feel comfortable opening to see if there is any difference in the actual internal boards used? I would think it was just a rebadged CLD-A100, but nobody has provided any information on it.
S-Video output on LD players was touch and go. Sometimes the TV had a better comb filter than the LD player so composite out was better than S-Video. YMMV.
This is a cool tasteful mod. Maybe have a follow up that tries to integrate everything so unless you're book worm these outputs look factory?
You should always use composite for Laserdisc films because 99% of the players that also have S-Video have a rather poor lowpass filter between them, which makes the picture darker and even more blurred.
This may have brought something to an old CRT TV, but if you want to operate it on a more modern TV, it makes the picture worse.
Especially since the signal on laserdiscs is only available in composite anyway.
So you can't get anything better out of it if the signal isn't better than a composite
Spot on.
Nice megaman in the background! I have the same!
Great video!
I know this has probably been answered but Laserdisc videos were all stamped with Composite anyway. So, there's no upgrade when using S-Video compared to composite video for Laserdiscs.
when you compare the S-Video to Composite by playing The Fifth Element movie, aside form the flicker from your capture I think the composite is CLEARLY BETTER... you don't see any of those color changes that appear once in a while (very prevalent when showing Mila's face and Bruce's face a bit too) - IDK if this is ALSO from your capture card though.... if it isn't then they seem to be identical and idk why you would care lol
BUT during the game caparison it CLEARLY IS MUCH BETTER than composite.... BRAVO!
I would still prefer to find a way to do a FULL UPGRADE to HDMI but I know that would be SO MUCH MORE COMPLEX... and I'm only thinking about as it only being one wire for everything... I know you aren't gonna see much quality difference between HDMI and RGB until you are able to apply some processing with the chip(s) it require... but I really know nothing about it :)
I need to dig mine out. It was a Laser disc player first and a Genesis second. Haven't had it hooked up for at least 15 years. Sad I never got the TG16 module.
Hey! This is nice. I'm jealous!
Thank you! One of my prizes retro items in my collection
12:11 ...what the hell is that thing? A freaking Discworld disc? IT'S HUGE!!! O_O
Thats a laserdisc
@@Somefool669 I'm just happy Pratchett lived long enough to see his creations come to life.
didn't know this existed. super cool.
This is coming from someone who used to collect Laserdisc and had nine players and a fairly large library of films at one point. I got out of it because honestly, during multiple moves, it was a pain in the ass to transport all the stuff. But anyway... S-video quality on players that featured it largely depended on the model and what comb filter the player had for its s-video output. Laserdisc was designed with analog composite signal in mind, and all the composite only players varied in quality as far as noise levels in the picture went. So if you combined a lower end player with a lower end crt TV that did not have a solid comb filter, you got really subpar results. If you combine one with a LCD and don't use a line-doubler/upscaler, you should expect even worse results.
S-video later being added as a feature to LD was nice, as long as you got one of the more solid players that featured it. But it was always possible to have a crt display that had a better 3-line comb filter in place that, combined with a solid composite LD player, could outdo a lower end s-video capable player, like one of the RCA re-badge players, combined with a so-so Tv that was s-video capable but in general was a lower end CRT. Its one of those things where, if you are serious about getting into collecting LD, you have to do your research. Its not cut and dry and to get the most out of Laserdisc picture quality, or anything analog composite video based like VHS, CED, VHD, and Beta, you need the right combination of equipment.
In the case of you modding the Laseractive for s-video, the Laseractive featured no internal comb filter. It was designed for composite only, intended to rely on whatever comb filter the tv or monitor itself was using. Since you are feeding s-video out with no comb filter in place, you risk producing a worse quality image because nothing is in place to clean up the video signal. You also have to factor this in with the fact that the CLD-A100 itself quality wise, was actually a budget/entry level player with one of the worst video signal-to-noise ratios present during its time, being on par with players released in the 80s. Embarrassingly bad enough that Pioneer made little effort to list its signal-to-noise ratio in marketing, which is something they were usually proud to do with their medium and high end players.
If you want to get the most out of your CLD-A100 for Laserdisc playback, you either need to be using it via composite out with a higher end CRT like a Trinitron, or if you are stuck with a LCD display, use it via composite out with a older line doubler/upscaler that was designed with Laserdisc and VHS in mind, like a older DVDO or Extron unit, that will have a decent comb filter in place. If you have a higher end player combined with a decent CRT display and have everything calibrated fairly well, you can get close to DVD quality depending on the disc you are playing. Some LD releases exceeded early DVD releases picture quality because early DVD tended to be slip shod minimal efforts. Laserdisc had the benefit of not having to suffer compression artifacts too. Also worth noting, LD was designed to be displayed on a crt, which means scanlines, so when using on a plasma or LCD display, having a line doubler/upscaler on hand is basically essential if you don't want your LD's video quality to look like blurred out mud.
nice video, great work, but next time i would love to see a more in-depth comparison, not just a close up of sonic looking to the camera. A real gameplay comparison would be nice. Cheers!
Wow you finally did it. I still had no time to do it. I wanted to use a PC Engine RGB booster board. It seems you still didn't got a PC Engine Pak? If you still searching one, don't buy the US Turbografx16 variant as i already mentioned before.
Laser disc and CED are among my favorite outdated video media
I would have liked to see how you actually connect the RGB out to your TV. What cable are you using? Are you going through a Tink or OSSC?
SCART RGB or HDRV for a genesis 2. I designed it to be compatible with both.
Yes, hdrv cables (courtesy of Zaxour) to my retro tink 2x pro to my capture card (elgato cam link pro)
Great video btw
You know todays gaming trends have become stranger and stranger when you see this video title and immediately think: "No, don´t do that!" Only to realize he´s just going to mod the video output.