Release 2.3

This is a stable release. No update to the duplicator firmware is needed.

Changes in this release:

• The applications can be built with either Qt 5 or Qt 6 (#111).
• The applications can be built using CMake (#121). The existing QMake build system is still supported in this release, but we recommend using CMake now as it will deal with a wider range of platforms automatically.
• DomesdayDuplicator's Advanced Naming dialog has several new options: audio formats, more side numbers (#112), mint marks, and including the capture duration in the filename (#113).
• When serial control is enabled in DomesdayDuplicator, players will be told to ignore picture stop codes for CAV discs (#103).
• DomesdayDuplicator uses memory locking and real-time scheduling for its capture thread when available (#116).
• Minor bugfixes and robustness improvements.

Please report any issues you find with this release on GitHub - and, if you find the Domesday Duplicator project useful, don't forget to hit the donate button on our website and assist us with the continuing development effort.

We expect that the next release will be 3.0, including new duplicator firmware to enable end-to-end integrity checking (#117) and real-time amplitude measurement (#130). If you would like to test these features prior to the release, see the master branch on GitHub.

Production release

The release includes all the GUI updates since the original production release as well as bug-fixes and enhancements to both the FPGA and USB3 board firmwares.

Included in this release are many capture GUI enhancements as well as a new dddconv application to support command line compression of capture files (using 3rd party tools such as FLAC that require the 10-bit packed format to be converted to 16-bits and vice-versa on decompression).

Thanks to contributions the GUI now has automatic capture support for a wide range of Pioneer LaserDisc players and automatic detection of players connected via serial cables.

The GUI has a new option to decimate the captured sample by 4:1 (reducing the sample rate from 40MSPS to 10MSPS) which is useful when capturing raw EFM from CD sources.

LaserDiscAnalyser has now been renamed to dddutil to prevent confusion with applications provided by the ld-decode project.

Please report any issues you find with this release on github - and, if you find the Domesday Duplicator project useful, don't forget to hit the donate button on our website and assist us with the continuing development effort.

Production release

The release signifies the first 'Production Release' of the Domesday Duplicator hardware and software. The LaserDisc RF duplication system has now been tested successfully on a number of different capture set-ups and high-quality NTSC decodes have been produced by the ld-decode sister-project (proving the end-to-end viability of the LaserDisc preservation capabilities).

Included in this release is a completely rewritten capture application which is more efficient and has many new features to assist with the preservation of LaserDiscs. Also included is the LaserDiscAnalyser application which replaces the command line dddanalyse utility with a GUI tool for testing and file conversion. The new '10-bit packed' file-format offers far more compact capture files and can be readily converted to 16-bit for analysis.

As users have reported issues with the Cypress ezUSB IDE environment for the FX3 (which has awful installation support and documentation for Linux) a pre-compiled programming image file is included as a .zip with this release (this can be simply programmed onto the FX3 without the need for the broken Cypress Eclipse environment).

Please report any issues you find with this release on github - and, if you find the Domesday Duplicator project useful, don't forget to hit the donate button on our website and assist us with the continuing development effort.

Seventh release

This major release introduces newly reworked FPGA code with more efficient ping-pong buffering of data. The GUI is now capable of producing both 16-bit signed (scaled) integer output as well as a new bit-packed 10-bit format which provides a considerable saving in disc space for large captures.

A new command line utility dddanalyse is now also included. This utility can verify 10-bit test-data (to assist with testing a duplicator set-up) and can also convert a 10-bit packed sample into a 16-bit sample.

Many other minor updates are included (primarily for code clean-up).

Sixth release

This release includes some updates to the Player Integrated Capture functionality to improve communication reliability with players as well as other minor enhancements to the GUI layout. The file extension of the LaserDisc samples has been changed to .lds to avoid confusion with camera .raw files.

The FPGA and Ubuntu GUI have also been cleaned-up to remove compiler warnings. The FPGA project has been upgrade to Quartus 18.0.0 build 614.

Fifth release

This new release contains a redesigned 3_0 PCB design containing three major new features:

1. Elliptic 2nd order filter - greatly reduced aliasing and better overall gain performance across the entire sampling bandwidth

2. Configurable gain - Design now includes a user-configurable gain setting allowing the board to work with the majority of LaserDisc player models (once adapted for direct RF output)

3. 50 Ohm impedance - the Duplicator board is now impedance matched for use with 50 Ohm RF output providing better, predictable performance

In addition the board layout has been improved so component identifiers now include the schematic sheet number, so it's much clearer what components are performing the various board functions.

It should be noted that the samples generated by the new 3_0 board are not 'compatible' with the 2_x versions of the PCB (due to the new filter configuration). 2_x boards are now considered obsolete and should be upgraded to 3_0 (the majority of the components are reusable on the new board).

Fourth release

This release enhances both the FPGA and Linux GUI application to support a fixed sampling rate of 40 MSPS (the maximum supported by the current ADC chip).

In addition there are fixes to the stability of the PIC functionality and the ability to use 4800bps serial.

Clock stability in the FPGA code has been greatly improved and all Domesday Duplicators should be upgraded to this release.

For details of the Domesday Duplicator please see: https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=978

Note: Board version 2_2 is recommended for this release. Board 2_0 may show DC offset stability issues with the greatly increased sample rate.

Third release

The third release of the Domesday Duplicator contains many improvements to both the hardware and software.

The Domesday Duplicator hardware has been redesigned with a new PCB that is smaller and far more clearly laid out to speed up and simplify construction. All components are now on the top-side of the board and the BoM has been simplified. There are major improvements to the silkscreen also to both aid construction and make the board look nicer.

On the software side the Linux GUI has been improved to be more functional and user-friendly. The solution now supports NTSC sampling at 28.6 MSPS and PAL sampling at 35.5 MSPS giving 8*FSC for both formats (to simplify the decoding process). Communication between the GUI and the FX3/FPGA has also been improved. The GUI contains a DC offset fix option to keep compatibility with existing 2_0 PCBs.

All documentation has also been updated to reflect the new release.

For more information please see the project page at: https://www.domesday86.com/?page_id=978

Pre-release for hardware testing

This pre-release includes many fixes and enhancements to all elements of the Domesday Duplicator including the schematic, PCB design, Ubuntu GUI, FX3 firmware and FPGA code. This pre-release is a freeze of the project code ready for detailed hardware testing once the new PCB boards are available. A full release will be performed once ready.

Use this version with caution as full hardware testing has not yet been performed.

Second release

This release contains mainly changes to the Ubuntu GUI capture software which is now complete and provides fully integrated (and automatic) capture when using the LD-V4300D reference laserdisc player. In addition the LVDP can now be remote controlled from the GUI.

In addition this release contains a number of improvements and bug-fixes.