IMPROVING SOUND AND PICTURE

Ive been collecting laserdiscs for many years now and there are still many aspects about laserdiscs & players that i have very little knowledge of, I tend to just watch the films on my old cld2950 player without knowing very much about the technical side such as ways of improving sound and picture quality etc.
What are the best ways of improving your sound and picture quality ? Is it really worth doing?
I did have a video essentials laserdisc but sold it thinking that I would probably never use it but I recently heard that it is quite a useful disc to use , Ive looked at replacing it but it seems to be pretty rare.
Any help would be appreciated.

I read an old article from the 90s somewhere which said the best picture results were achieved using a line doubler and a CRT screen.

I assume a line doubler would be the "retro" equivalent of upscalers you now get in new DVD players to make them look better on 1080p screens.

Anyone had any experience with using line doublers/upscalers with their laserdisc players?

As for improving audio it seems 9 times out of 10 laserdisc audio is considered superior so I'm not really sure if it can be improved other than adding AC3 to get surround sound.

However these opinions are mainly based on what I've read as I'm still fairly new to laserdiscs, have a fairly run of the mill player and no AC3 so I'm probably wrong.

I am borrowing an oscilloscope at some point soon to see if i can fix my 919 + my line doubler and ill see if i can give a bit of info about it if i get it working......

Well technically it is not a line doubler it is broadcast equipment for real time frame rate conversion with external sync matching ready for HiDef video mixing.
It also has a full time base correction (Ask if you do not understand this) with lip sync adjust and separate Horiz / Vert variable aspect ratio.
Somewhere in the middle of this it will do image up-scaling, de-interlacing, Y/C crosstalk error correction.... etc

Cant remember the spec but I know it was made by DVDO and will do 720p and 1080i but im unsure about 1080p,
Its only a few years old so if memory serves it also has HDMI in / out and is software upgradable.

It was originally used for tidying up VHS / BetaCAM for broadcast but now its a bit dead....
The description I got when receiving this item was it smelt like the magic smoke had escaped the power supply. :-p

Its going to be difficult to show the difference but i was wondering are there any discs that people would suggest for testing the image quality!

Ideally i could do with a proper test disc but i don't think i will be able to source one easily without going to the US.

How did you get on with the line doubler ,Im not sure about the technical side of it all but Im interested to know if it made any noticeable improvement to the picture.

I have fixed the line doubler (PSU was dead but the doubler was fine)

I havnt had much chance to test it yet as I have a few exams at Uni so im a tad busy, also 5 kids to deal with!

I have run a few small tests and it looks very impressive. I need to test it on a few players as it is supposedly better on a player without a TBC (Time Base Corrector) and the 909 has one.

I should get it to work properly in the next week but only if i get chance to play for an hour or two!

I also recommend getting a player with digital optical outputs and using them. regular a/v cables are fine but once you plug in the optical the digital dolby sounds and any thx will blast thesurround.