CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 50

CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 50 • 12/19/1998
Date: Sun, 13 Dec 1998 19:59:22 -0500 (EST)
From: return 
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 49

  I was wondering? and have an idea.  I noticed the new movie clips that
have recently been added to the site.  The ones loading and unloading with
the 100 player and the sjt-300 player.  It occured to me that this
technique could also be used to show and edify everyone how to repair a
machine. Why not use this as a means to show all how to make certain
repairs on their machines??
For ex: showing locations where to attach a test probe with a
multi-meter, or
pointing out where someone could look for a specific problem area on their
machines?  Or still, showing areas on a circuit board where a certain
problem would lie? (ex: chip, transistor, mechanical gears, or any problem
componet?)
     Why not edify all on where to look for a machine problem??
Would this not be helpful to all who need machine help???
Why not use this as a solution to the problem of machine help in all the
commentary that transpired back a few months ago??......

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Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 07:33:02 -0600
From: "David Potochick"
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 49 -Reply

I'll gladly trade the CED "Ordinary People" for something I don't have.  I do have
"Radiers Of The Lost Ark" on CED but I'm not trading that....

 I'm looking for the "Aerobicize" CED that I didn't buy recently...  It disappeared
 from the thrift store that I saw it at.... It's probably in a landfill about right
 now.... Ugh... That one ius just a plain 70's sexist classic if you know which
 Aerobicize collection I'm talking about. 

Later,

Dave.

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Date: Mon, 14 Dec 1998 08:08:24 -0600
From: "David Potochick"
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 49 -Reply

Okay, I haven't been putting in my $0.10 worth around here so I decided that I would... 

-DUST & CED's- 

Dust On CED's can cause the needle to skip tremendously... It is highly reccomended
not to leave discs in turned off players like I have. A skipping disc may just need
to be cleaned with soap and water... Now this is what I do and my discs play fine
afterwards. Just use dish detergent and warm water in a kitchen sink and wash the
dust off of them... elt them dry and then insert them back into the sleeves. Some
people have told me that this takes the silicone protectant off of the discs But
this has not caused a problem as yet for me... My Benji disc is still playing fine... 

To truly preserve your CED's, copy them to another video format and watch them that way...
This may not be legal but it is one way of preserving them. I record my CED's to Beta
tapes for BACKUP purposes and watch the Beta tapes instead o the discs.  (Why Beta???
Beta is still far better than VHS in picture quality.) 

Later,

Dave.

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Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1998 16:35:28 -0800
From: Donald Borowski
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Quality of CED Video Transfers

I was watching my CED of "Funny Girl" last week.  A bit into the movie,
is struck me that the image looked a lot like what I would call "old
video" rather than film.  I then started viewing the image very
critically.

I saw any number of things which I associate with the old image tubes
(vidicons?).  There was a "pastey" look which comes from too little
contrast or more likely nonlinearities.  Colors tended not to be very
saturated.  In dark backgrounds, there was some video noise of course,
but worse was a stationary pattern which looked something like video
noise.

There has been much improvement in video transfers since the hayday of
the CED, and I think this is where most of the improvement in the look
of video has come.  I need to look through my collection of CEDs and see
if there are any well done transfers.  This would give me an idea of how
well CED could have done.

Being a laserdisc owner, another thought struck me.  If CED were made in
Constant Linear Velocity mode like many laserdiscs, the playing time for
CED would be up to two hours per side!  That would have been a real
advantage!

Donald Borowski
Spokane, WA

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Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1998 03:25:36 -0800 (PST)
From: Jesse Skeen 
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 49

Having broken down and gotten a DVD player (actually a Laserdisc/DVD 
player, so I don't feel like too much of a traitor!) I've been very 
pleased with it for the most part. The digital problems (picture becoming 
blocky and unnatural motion) do not happen on most discs- there are some 
exceptions, the only bad ones I have seen are from smaller companies 
which I have already written to letting them know I won't buy any more of 
their discs unless this stops. But for the most part this looks to be a 
good format, no more annoying side changes on laserdisc, and able to hold 
more different soundtracks. (I get a kick out of the foreign languages!)
I'd dreaded DVD because I thought for sure it would be terrible, and 
while I'm glad to be proven wrong I was a bit disappointed that I 
wouldn't be witnessing a second CED, as I had thought originally DVD 
would die a quick death. But a consolation prize has come- DIVX, the 
incredibly stupid in every sense of the word 'variation' on DVD which 
requires a modem-equipped player and basically makes you pay every time 
you want to watch a disc, and can take away your ability to play it if a 
movie gets "pulled" for legal or other reasons (I can imagine Disney 
doing this!) Thankfully, although people did buy DSS which was the last 
new electronics product I detested, they have been smart enough to stay 
clear away from this one and it doesn't look like we'll have it around 
too long. Ironically RCA sells Divx players- they're making the same 
mistake twice!
This is an amazingly ridiculous format and as such I am amused by it, 
I've been saving brocures for it and have the free VHS tape advertising 
it which you can get by calling 1-888-PAY-DIVX (it's supposed to be "Say 
Divx" but you can spell it both ways!) Get this- at least if you call 
outside of regular business hours, a computer will take the call and take 
your request for the tape by entering your phone number, and from that it 
will get your address from their "database". It reads off just the number 
of your address for verification; it got mine even though my address 
isn't listed in the phone book! This adds even more to the "Big Brother" 
fears people have about Divx, as many point out how they know what movies 
you watch and when. One person thought if a crime happens in your 
neighborhood and you happen to be watching a movie where something 
similar happens, you can expect to get a visit from the police!
WHEN Divx dies, I do want to get a nice collection of discs, provided 
they don't all suddenly vanish in someone's attempt to bury this mistake. 
I don't know how stores will handle this, ideally they would be sold off 
real cheap but- this is what will make this a lot different than CED 
collecting- you won't be able to actually WATCH any Divx discs in this 
situation because even if you have a Divx player, if they shut down the 
billing system the player calls it will not let you play the disc, 
meaning the movie on it is locked away forever! I did buy one Divx disc, 
which when played on my player gave me a nice message- yellow letters on 
a blue background, programmed as a 10-minute "title" with auto-repeat- 
reading "You have attempted to play a Divx disc in a DVD player without 
the Divx feature. The Divx feature is required to play this disc. For 
more information on Divx call 1-888-SAY-DIVX". So if I were to eventually 
get a collection of every Divx title ever made (I could see cases of 
these things being dropped off at Goodwill) I wouldn't be able to watch 
them, but I can at least still watch my CEDs! I still hope to get a 
decent number of them after it fails though, as things this stupid just need 
to be preserved! Hopefully nobody will ever try anything like this again, 
since if it did take off we would have similar systems like 
pay-per-listen CDs and pay-per-play video games.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Daniel P. Cayea" 
To: <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Project Donation: Thanks
Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 14:40:14 -0500

I would like to thank again Dr. John Trasco for his continued support and
donations to the preservation project.

I would also like to thank Matt Patoray for his contribution of West Side
Story.

They are both great people for supporting such a project and I hope that
others will too.

A copy of titles in the preservation projects holding are available in the
following formats: Microsoft Works 4.0, Microsoft Access 97, and HTML.  For
a copy of the database in each of these formats please send me an email at
cayead@westelcom.com with 'Holdings Database [File Format]' in the subject
line and I will email your copy within one business day pending on demand.

Most thanks,
Daniel P. Cayea
CED Preservation Project
2841 Standish Road
Postal Office Box 90
Lyon Mountain, New York 12952-0090

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Date: Sat, 19 Dec 1998 20:11:26 -0800
From: "Tom Howe
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: Three DVD's for One Dollar

Hello All:

A lot of people on CED Digest are also into DVD, so there will be interest in this
offer from 800.com. They have a list of about 100 DVD titles (not DIVX) from which
you can choose any three for $1 total cost, including shipping. I ordered three of
these, and it's a no-strings attached offer other than getting on their email list.
You can also choose VHS tapes in lieu of DVD on many of the titles.

http://www.800.com/

The site has had a lot of traffic, so it might be hard to get on during peak hours,
and the pages may take a while to load, but for a dollar, it's worth the wait.

--Tom

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