CED Digest Vol. 6 No. 34

CED Digest Vol. 6 No. 34 • 8/25/2001
20 Years Ago In CED History:

August 26, 1981:
* Egypt's President Anwar Sadat and Israel's Prime Minister Menahem
Begin conclude their 12th meeting in four years after agreeing to resume
the Palestinian autonomy talks.
* The U.S. claims that North Korea fired an antiaircraft missile at a
U.S. surveillance plane while it was over South Korea or in
international airspace.

August 27, 1981:
* Records show that in the Alaskan wilderness the number of snowshoe
hares increases dramatically every 10 years resulting in intense
browsing that severely damages the hare's preferred food supply of twigs
and small branches of birch, poplar, aspen, and alder.

August 28, 1981:
* In a joint declaration presented to the UN Security Council, France
and Mexico state that El Salvador's guerrillas should be a recognized
political force and accorded a role in negotiating a cessation of
hostilities within the ruling junta.
* Future CED title in widespread theatrical release: Body Heat.

August 29, 1981:
* Lowell Thomas, the American author and news commentator, dies at age
89. He wrote more than 50 books, the best known of which is Lawrence of
Arabia (CED).

August 30, 1981:
* Actress and former RCA Rockette dancer Vera-Ellen dies at age 60. She
appears in the CED titles On the Town and White Christmas.
* Iranian President Mohammad Ali Raja'i, Prime Minister Mohammad Javad
Bahonar, and three members of the Supreme Defense Council are killed
when a bomb explodes in Bahonar's office.
* Alain Post wins the Dutch Grand Prix (CED).

August 31, 1981:
* Brigadier General Joseph D. Moore and 19 others are injured when a
terrorist bomb explodes at U.S. Air Force European headquarters in
Ramstein, West Germany.

September 1, 1981:
* Canada's federal government and the oil-rich province of Alberta reach
agreement on the pricing of petroleum products.
* Albert Speer, the German architect who was Hitler's Minister of
Armaments and War Production during World War II, dies at the age of 76.

* ARTICLE FROM THE SEPTEMBER 1981 ISSUE OF VIDEO MAGAZINE:
MGM/CBS'S First CED Offerings:

True to its promise when it adopted the RCA SelectaVision CED videodisc
format last year, CBS has now released its first group of videodisc
programs under the MGM/CBS Video label. All have already been made
available on Beta and VHS videocassette and rank among the most popular
titles in circulation today. You'll find a wide variety here from items
recently released to theaters to established classics.

2001: A Space Odyssey (2) [monophonic]
American in Paris, An
Benji
Cabaret
Champ, The
Cruising
Doctor Zhivago (2)
Electric Light Orchestra Live at Wembley
Fame (2)
Formula, The
Jailhouse Rock
My Fair Lady (2)
Nutcracker, The [1978]
Oklahoma! (2)
That's Entertainment
Wizard of Oz, The [1939]

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From: "Clarence Donath" <donath>
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 12:41:11 -0400
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: Skipping at the end of a disc

Hello.  I am new to the list.

I am experiencing skips towards the end of each disc.  Having done some
research, thanks to cedmagic, it appears that there is no hope of
finding a
replacement stylus, so I'm wondering if there's any way to repair or
clean it
myself, and if anyone has any suggestions on how to do so.

I have the RCA SelectaVision player stereo model.  Not sure of the exact
model
number as the label on the back was dirty, and as I attempted to clean
it, it
crumbled!

I assume the stylus is encased in the module labeled the 'resonator'?  I
haven't been so daring as to remove the module yet to see what it looks
like or
to see if it's possible to clean the thing.  I don't know if removing it
will
cause it to become unaligned or something.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Best Regards,
Clarence Donath
http://mrdo.com
mrdo@mrdo.com

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From: "Allen wolf" <wolfallen>
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: I Sold my 3 CED Players!!!
Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 16:17:52 -0500

Hi Tom,
  Just sold those Extra players!!!!! Thank you For posting it for me.
    I'm Sorry if any one els was Interested...But they Did sell!!
     Thanks,Allen Wolf

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From: "Roger The Shrubber" <rshrubber>
To: <digest@cedmagic.com>
Subject: The Dirty Dozen Reviewed Plus Technical Stuff
Date: Wed, 22 Aug 2001 04:16:16 -0700

Hello CED Aficionados,

    I am endlessly fascinated by CED technology. They are essentially
video records. DVD and laserdisc make sense to me. But a vinyl disc with
a groove played with a needle that makes a quality video? That is pretty
special.

    When I was a lad I saw the video equipment at the department store.
Annoyed the heck out of sales clerks who were only interested in adults
with cash. Then I figured that laserdisc had technical advantages over
CED. I wanted a little of everything though. Still do I suppose. In the
mid eighties I got my first laserdisc player. It was only just recently
I was given an old RCA stereo CED player. I am having so much fun with
it. I currently have about fifty titles on CED, and it will not be too
much longer before I have more CED titles than I do laserdiscs. I have
about seventy five laser and about the same number of DVD.

    Today I will review the MGM/UA double disc of The Dirty Dozen. The
Dirty Dozen stars Lee Marvin as an Army major who is charged with
training and leading twelve hardened criminals for a top secret mission.
They are to infiltrate and destroy a posh resort run for top German
military brass. The location itself is not of high strategic value, but
the theory is it will hurt the Germans if many of their most important
men are killed. Robert Aldrich's direction obtains excellent
performances from the star studded cast including Ernest Borgnine,
Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassevettes, Richard Jaeckel, George
Kennedy, Trini Lopez, Ralph Meeker, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Clint
Walker, Robert Webber, and Donald Sutherland. The script is excellent
with well laid out plot, good dialog, and, surprising for a war movie,
nice character development. At two hours twenty nine minutes it never
seems over long. I do wonder about the premise. Death row inmates? Are
they expendable? Would not men trained in espionage be better suited to
this job? Oh well it is a darned fine movie.

    I have a lot to say about these discs technically. My first
impression was bad. In the opening scenes the color saturation is
inconsistent. Also there are a lot of little shots in each scene. This
kind of rapid camera movement is disorienting and can lead to bad
continuity. Fortunately these problems are only in evidence in about the
first ten minutes of the movie. Overall the color is good. Some of the
darkest scenes appear very grainy, though not all of them. Also the
darkest scenes are well lit, unlike some CED which have detail overcome
by darkness making it hard to see what is going on. The flat 1.85:1
picture is fairly well served by this pan and scan video. The scenes
with credits or subtitles are squeezed to fit the image into the
television screen. I do not recall ever seeing this done with a flat
movie before. It is common with scope, probably because that is the way
the image is on the thirty five millimeter prints. Too bad they could
not have found an element without subtitles and made new ones for this
video, but we can not have everything. The stereo soundtrack is very
good with sparse sound effects and a lot of music which spread out
nicely amongst the front speakers when played in surround sound. Overall
it is very spacious. Unfortunately my set has a few large flaws, but is
nearly mint. Oh well, sucks being me, does it not? I do highly recommend
that if you have the opportunity, you add these discs to your
collection.

    I had a couple of questions I will perhaps save for another time.
There is a pipe dream I have though. Would it be possible to add a Dolby
digital or DTS soundtrack to a CED video in the same way Dolby digital
was added to laserdiscs? Take an RF output from the machine, put it into
what I think is called a demodulator, (sounds like a modem... changes
the analog signal to digital) then put the digital signal into a six
track decoder. Seems like it would work. Though people with mono
equipment would be left in the cold. Also who knows what the skips would
do to the audio. Can anyone comment on these theories? If it was done
with a stereo discs one channel could be used for digital and one for
mono analog. If it was done with a mono soundtrack maybe more bandwidth
could be used for a good DTS soundtrack. Of course very few could
actually use that disc.

    Please write to me with any thoughts or send them to this CED
Digest. I would like to know of any discs for sale in Seattle,
Washington. My e mail is
<mailto:rshrubber@netzero.net>rshrubber@netzero.net

    One more quick thing. Can anyone tell me which cartridge is
appropriate for an RCA SJT200 player? Mine works good but I would like
to have one on hand for the day that it quits. The chart at CED Magic is
a little confusing to me.
Thanks for reading. Joseph Topolinski

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 23 Aug 2001 01:58:11 -0700 (PDT)
From: Joe Phillips <littlejoeflub>
Subject: childrens videos
To: digest@cedmagic.com

Hi,

I just recently picked up The Great Space Coaster on
ebay, for a bit of childhood nostalgia.  I was
surprised to discover that even though the program is
an hour in length instead of the entire program on one
side of the disc the manufacturers put 30 minutes on
one side and 30 minutes on the other.  What's even
more interesting is the break is right in the middle
of a musical sequence instead of at the end.  I wonder
if any other childrens videos were done like this.
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