A Pioneer DVL-909 Japanese model. All the models in the US were black while the Japanese/Asia ones were in Gold, and the Europeans ones were in Silver. A duel LD/DVD player that came out back in 1998 when laserdiscs technology was mature and the DVD technology was still young. Plays LDs perfectly and shines over many LD players that were made before the DVL-909 came out. The DVDs, well it was an early first gen DVD player so it reads discs very slowly (but works) and it does have component output, but no 480p (480i only).
So how did I purchase this wonder: Craigslist. These units used goes for $150-$200 without the box, yet I paid $150 for it complete with the box, remote, and manual. Once again this is a Japanese model (actually a Japanese export model, more on that later). The first owner of this was stationed in Japan when he was in the Navy. Lets just say that he wanted the best of both worlds at the time so he purchase this player in Japan. If you look at the box it's in English (even the manual). It's a Japanese export model that was sold only to tourist (or US soldiers) staying in Japan. It wasn't meant to be sold to Japanese people believe it or not (according to the box). So the guy had this player with him on his Navy ship back to the US. The player according to him haven't gotten use that much (and thus the players looks mostly mint and works perfectly). So I wonder how many of these Japanese Export units are in the US with its original box???......
Also important with this model is that it has AC-3 output. If you have LDs that has Dolby Digital/AC-3 soundtracks you can make them run them in 5.1, but it requires a player that outputs AC-3 RF output and a RF demodulator to split the single to 5.1 (all modern DVD/Blu-Ray players have built-in demodulators). With Strider77's help I was able to get the RF demodulator and thus I can run my AC-3 LDs in 5.1 (they were a lot of them, I should pop in True Lies tomorrow since I didn't see that movie forever!!).
So pretty much I have the dream set up that many LD owners want in the end.
More pictures for the hell of it:
The current set up, you'll see a lot of cool stuff.
With over 100 LDs you got to love them, the top row are the live-action movies while the bottom row is all the Anime LDs (and of course Last Action Hero and the Blade Runner briefcase).
More cool stuff.
Honestly I don't want to know how much I spent on all this stuff, but damn it's pretty cool never the less.