CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 18

CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 18 • 5/4/2002
20 Years Ago In CED History:

May 5, 1982:
* The Canadian Wheat Board announces that it has signed a contract to sell
China between 3.5 and 4.2 million metric tons of wheat each year for the next
three years. It is the largest long-term grain deal between the countries since
they initiated such trade in 1961.

May 6, 1982:
* President Reagan formally endorses a constitutional amendment authorizing
organized prayer in public schools.

May 7, 1982:
* The United States and Canada announce April unemployment rates of 9.4 and 9.6
percent, respectively. The rates were the highest since monthly reports were
begun in each country after World War II.
* Evangelist Billy Graham arrives in Moscow to attend a religious leaders
conference on nuclear disarmament. He later states he saw no evidence of
religious repression in the country.
* Future CED title in widespread theatrical release: Paradise.

* RCA PRESS RELEASE:
RCA Breaks Ground For $19 Million Manufacturing Facility To Supply Key 'CED'
Video Disc Material

INDIANAPOLIS, May 7 -- RCA formally broke ground today for a new $19 million
facility capable of supplying an essential material used in the manufacture of
"CED" video discs to other manufacturers on a worldwide basis.

The establishment of a separate facility to produce compounding material will
also enable RCA to support expanded disc manufacturing at the company's
Rockville Road plant which produces all RCA-branded "CED" video discs, as well
as other brands of discs.

"In the space of some 11 months, RCA has nearly tripled the video disc pressing
capacity in support of strong consumer demand for discs, " said Dr. Jay J.
Brandinger, Division Vice President and General Manager, RCA "SelectaVision"
VideoDisc Operations.

In addition to the new 55,000 square foot compounding facility, RCA has
completed a new power plant here with a planned capability of handling energy
requirements for 60 disc presses.

The compounding facility will consist in part of special mixing equipment which
blends the plastic, carbon and other additives that are used in pressing the
conductive RCA discs. The blended material takes the form of pellets, which are
formed into a mass and then placed between the two stampers of an automatic
compression molding press to make the final disc.

In the RCA "CED" system, the disc provides up to 60 minutes per side of sound
and pictures for display on a television receiver using the VideoDisc player.
RCA plans to introduce stereo discs and players in June, thus significantly
broadening its VideoDisc line to provide wider appeal to more segments of the
consumer market.

Dr. Brandinger said the new compounding facility, which will replace a smaller
in-plant operation, will be "a totally closed system that is
computer-controlled and environmentally clean. " Stainless steel equipment will
be used extensively in the compounding system that will be able to process some
50,000 pounds of raw material on a daily basis.

The facility will be the most modern system in the world for supplying the
essential compound material for the disc manufacturers worldwide, Dr.
Brandinger said. Completion date will be in the early part of 1983.

Pictures of the compounding facility can be seen on these pages:



http://www.cedmagic.com/mem/rockville-road/mem021.html



http://www.cedmagic.com/mem/rca-laboratories/mem485.html

A picture of the power plant can be seen on this page:



http://www.cedmagic.com/mem/way-we-were/mem162.html

May 8, 1982:
* Canadian formula one racer Gilles Villeneuve is killed in an accident during
qualifying at Zolder in Belgium. He was the winner of the 1981 Monaco Grand
Prix and the 1981 Spanish Grand Prix featured on the CED Title "Start to
Finish."
* "Chariots of Fire" by Vangelis (CED) becomes the No. 1 U.S. single.

May 9, 1982:
* In a commencement address at Eureka College, his alma mater, President Reagan
proposes that the United States and Russia reduce the number of their nuclear
warheads by one-third.
* U.S. Vice President George Bush completes a two-week tour of Japan, South
Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, and China.

May 10, 1982:
* Federal epidemiologists report at least 335 cases, including 136 fatal cases,
of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

May 11, 1982:
* South Korea announces the arrests of Lee Chul Hi and his wife, Chang Yong Ja,
for alleged fraudulent transactions on Seoul's unregulated curb market. Chang
is related by marriage to the wife of President Chun Doo Hwan. The fraud
creates panic on the stock market and severely damages the financial structures
of several corporations.

* RCA PRESS RELEASE:
Retailers Report Strong Demand For RCA Video Discs

Retail outlets across the United States report strong consumer demand for RCA
video discs. Many have sold more video discs in the first quarter of 1982 than
in all of 1981.

"All types of retailers, from mom-and-pop TV stores to giant national chains,
are reporting an accelerating demand for RCA video discs," according to Thomas
G. Kuhn, Division Vice President, RCA "SelectaVision" VideoDiscs.

"There are several factors involved in the growing demand for discs," Mr. Kuhn
said. "Consumer awareness of RCA's program offerings is getting stronger every
day; retailers have found that stocking and displaying greater numbers of video
disc titles increases this awareness and leads to strong disc sales; and we are
continuously expanding the RCA video disc catalog with new and exciting
programs."

A spokesman for Sears, the leading retailer of RCA video discs, through its
stores and catalog, said, "Sears is committed to the CED system. We attribute
our successful sales of discs to our large assortment and the appeal of these
programs to our family-oriented customer base."

Curtis Woodard, Vice President and General Manager of Erol's Color TV, a
six-store chain operating in the Washington, D. C. metropolitan area,
attributed his sales success to video disc availability in Erol's stores. "We
have every title stocked in our stores. If anybody in town has it, we do; and
after a while customers know they can get the discs they want at our stores,"
he said.

Ken Crane, Jr., Manager, Ken Crane's Entertainment City, Westminister,
California, said, "We're pleasantly surprised at the amount of software we're
currently selling. It's a great addition to our business and a tremendous
traffic builder, too. We expect to be in the video disc business for a long
time."

Jeff Biederman, a buyer from Lechmere, a six-outlet discount department store
in the Boston area, said his company has sold more discs in the first quarter
of 1982 than in all of 1981. "We have had a strong commitment to video disc
since the beginning," he said, "and we have always displayed a full assortment
of titles."

Russ Anzalone from Video Dynamics in Mt. Prospect, Illinois, noted, "Since the
first of the year, we've seen many VCR owners buy disc players because they
want to own rather than rent their favorite movies. Discs are much cheaper than
prerecorded cassettes. We find that the whole catalog is moving, both the
contemporary and classic programs. We're selling about 100 albums a week."

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Ken King" <kkingcqe>
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: Ramblings about CueCat Scanning
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 15:23:46 +0000

I tried using the CueCat scanner to catalog my CED collection.  I wanted to
share my experience in case you wanted to try it too.

1)	From the CED Magic home page, "CED Title Excel Macro" page does not have a
link to the information that you will need to run the CueCat.  Instead, click
on the CueCat link near the bottom of the CED Magic home page in this line:
Digital Convergence- Supplier of the Free CueCat Scanner. That will give you
the information you will need to set the scanner up.  Use the CatNip program
link available to download the *free* software you need to make the CueCat talk
to Excel spreadsheet.  Free is good.

2)	Use the 11-digit Excel UPC Macro.  It seems to work using the CueCat for
most disks.  The CED Magic Web site was a little unclear which to use and why
unless you understand barcode-ese better than I do.

3)	The Excel macro only works on a batch basis.  It does not, unfortunately,
translate the numbers into titles as you scan them in.  For this reason, we
kept our lots to about 65 disks, ran the macro, and edited the resulting page. 
I saved each set as a new file name.  When I had a few sets done I cut and
pasted all onto a single spreadsheet and sorted so that my entire collection
was listed alphabetically.

4)	Be prepared for many of the scans to come back and tell you that they
cannot match up a title with the scan when you run the macro.  This seems to be
especially true of double disks.

5)	Sometimes your scan will produce a number that the macro just does not
understand, so line the disks up in order after you scan so that when you
complete a page you can find the unidentified title.

6)	The CatNip program has a control window where you need to set the "return"
after each scan so it will go to the next line.  In that same window you can
set a "beep" or other sound after the scan.  I recommend this highly even
though the software kept screwing up my Windows sound system causing me to
reboot several times.  Even clean undamaged disks sometimes take several swipes
to register and the beep helps indicate success.

7)	Altogether this was not a bad experience.  I'm not done yet but I cataloged
264 disks in a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon.  Don't try this without a
scanner.  It helps to have someone moving disks around and I'll bet a laptop
would be even better than carrying disks like we did.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 3 May 2002 00:37:48 -0500
From: niNjaTaz <mrmagnet>
Reply-To: niNjaTaz <mrmagnaet>
To: digest@cedmagic.com

  The instructions on the CED Magic page for adding composite A/V
  outputs to the SJT100 refer to TP3504 and TP3410, and that they are
  labeled TP04 and TP10, respectively. First off, they are labeled
  TP3504 and TP3410. Also, to get a good image, I had to run the video
  signal through an attenuator. The audio has ALOT of hiss, like it is
  taken off a really low quality cassette tape.

  Are these points correct, and if so, why is the quality so poor?

---
Derek Tombrello
Shelby TV Service

mrmagnet@bellsouth.net
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