CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 3

CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 3 • 1/16/1999
-------------------- CED DIGEST POSTING GUIDELINES ---------------------

A review of legal matters concerning mailing lists originating from private
email accounts has prompted me to institute the following limitation regarding
acceptable submissions to CED Digest:

Submissions that allege swindle, defame the character of individuals, or
make other pejorative references will not be posted to the digest.

To understand the reason for this, consider the dictionary definition of LIBEL:

1. A written, printed, or pictorial statement that unjustly damages a person's reputation.

2. The action or crime of presenting such a statement to the public.

There have been a small number of submissions to CED Digest stating that
particular individuals received payment for CED's, but never shipped the
discs. While these claims may be true, CED Digest is not an investigative entity
and has no means of verifying the validity of such claims. If a person is accused
of swindle and subsequently ships the discs, then swindle in fact did not occur
and the original claim of such constitutes libel. I regularly purchase items
through the mail myself and have sometimes believed that I have been swindled
because of the incredible length of time and incessant reminders required to get
the items shipped, but I've never taken the step of publicly accusing the parties
involved of swindle. Making a public pronouncement of swindle may be an effective
means to cajole a procrastinator, but it also entails legal risks.

Internet service providers were exonerated from libel charges according to
definition (2) above in the landmark Cubby vs. Compuserve case. The court's
conclusions in this case were that issues of expediency and privacy took precedence,
as Compuserve personnel would otherwise have to read and evaluate every message sent
through their system. The legal issues associated with mailing lists distributed
from private email accounts like CED Digest are still evaluated on a case-by-case
basis, hence the institution of this posting policy.

For more information on legal matters concerning the internet, visit the Electronic
Frontier Foundation at this URL:

http://eff.org/

--Tom Howe

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Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 2
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 99 18:29:38 -0800
From: macrat
To: "Tom Howe" <ceds@teleport.com>, <tom@cedmagic.com>

Anyone of you out there see the prank on the CED version of the Rescuers?

And who bought up the copies of the Rescuers before it was recalled?

I missed my chance to buy it.

I work at a store that had carried it, and I want to ask the manager to 
sell me a copy for 40 bucks.

It is bound to become a rarity.

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Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 01:52:20 -0800 (PST)
From: Jesse Skeen
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 4 No. 2

Being one who knows all about CED skipping, I apologize for not answering 
the person asking why their player skipped, but the answer to me was 
simple: skipping is, has been, and always will be CED's trademark, and 
the main reason for its quick demise. The SJT-series players skipped a 
lot less than the older ones, but the problem was still there. I got a 
letter from someone claiming to have worked on CED the whole time, and 
that they had gotten the skipping problem pretty much solved but by that 
time RCA pulled the plug and they were not able to make any new players 
that did not skip. Discs that skip REALLY badly, so much that they just 
keep skipping and don't stop, can usually be reversed to the point where 
the skipping started and it will play normally. Most of my discs don't 
always skip in the same place every time, but they DO skip! An old "Video 
Review" magazine I dug up had a few disgruntled letters from people about 
this problem, which I have no idea why RCA allowed to get onto the market 
in the first place, one person even referred to a certain classic movie 
on the format as "Skipping in the Rain"!
I just found out about a "mistake" disc that I didn't know about- the 
20th Century Fox Video version of "West Side Story" (there was also a 
version with the RCA Videodiscs label) had side 3 in mono by mistake- the 
stereo signal is on it but the sound is clearly mono. The discs are not 
labeled stereo but are in blue covers. I just found this out and 
corrected discs were sent to some people. Does anyone else know about 
this, and how to go about telling the corrected discs from the first 
ones? I see both versions of West Side Story around often and may have to 
just buy every copy I find from now on to get the corrected version. 
CBS/Fox Video's "Scrooge" has a similar problem with side 1; the signal 
is stereo but the sound is mono, side 2 is in good stereo however. I 
don't know if that movie was ever corrected. The only mistake I know of 
that was out and then fixed was MGM's "The Secret of Nimh" which had 
several minutes accidentally cut between side 1 and 2, I was lucky enough 
to have gotten both versions before I even heard about this problem!
I just checked the CED Magic web site for the first time in a while and 
noticed mention of a disc called "Memories of CED", apparently a disc 
made for RCA employees after the format had finally been officially put 
out of its misery. Has anyone actually seen this disc and know what's on it?
Now that HDTV's are starting to appear in stores, and all naturally have 
backward-compatibility with regular NTSC material (saw a regular DVD 
played on one and looked really good) I dare anyone to bring in a CED 
player and ask to have it hooked up to a HDTV! I am still looking for 
CEDs that will take full advantage of my DTS decoder; those bilingual 
discs do sound great in Pro-logic though, the seperation is so much 
better than regular Dolby Surround that the Spanish soundtrack is sent 
almost entirely to the back. Try watching the part near the beginning of 
side 2 of CBS/Fox's "Robin Hood" with the trumpets blowing, soundtracks 
just slightly out of sync with each other.

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Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1999 09:33:01 -0600
From: "David Potochick"
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: 2 CED Movies for trade...

I would like to trade these two movies for other movies.... If anyone is
interested please let me know..... 

Ordinary People 
RKO Pictures - The Hunchback Of Notre Dame. 

Thanks,

Dave.

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Date: Thu, 14 Jan 1999 02:42:14 -0800
From: "Tom howe"
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: RE: CED Remotes

Peter:

Fox International is the only place I've checked on the availability of
SGT250 remotes. Fox is the most comprehensive RCA parts source, and they
also have stylus cartridges available. You may also be able to find the
remote at one of the other RCA OEM dealers listed at the bottom of the
Stylus Cartridge Replacement Guide:



http://www.cedmagic.com/tech-info/stylus-cart-guide/stylus-cart-guide.html

I also intend to have up on the web site in a couple months instructions
for adding an infrared remote control to any F/G player for a total cost
less than $20. This will interface to the Mostek microprocessor inside
these players (requiring some soldering) and will provide the four basic
search functions as well as pause and the undocumented page feature. This
may also work on the Fujitsu microprocessor used in the J/K players
(except for page mode), but I haven't yet done any testing on those players.

--Tom

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From: "Daniel Cayea"
To: "Tom Howe" <ceds@cedmagic.com>
Subject: CED Preservation Project Criticism
Date: Fri, 15 Jan 1999 17:37:17 -0500

    So far there has been little criticism about the  CED Preservation Project
    here in New York. Yet that little critiscism is  somewhat disturbing.
    Certain parties state that I am always 'looking for  something for nothing'.
    Well I would like to rebut this right now by  saying that this is untrue.
    The project does pay for discs when  necessary.  Some of you may get the
    misconception that this a  personal project for personal gain. While the
    part of 'personal project'  is true the 'personal gain' is not. While the
    project holds over 200  discs, some rare titles. I have only viewed 15 to
    20 of them for a quality  check.  My two cents... Daniel P. Cayea
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