CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 24

CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 24 • 6/15/2002
20 Years Ago In CED History:

June 16, 1982:
* Cuban Vice President Carlos Rafael Rodriguez tells the U.N. General Assembly,
gathered in special session to discuss disarmament, that his country has nearly
doubled its military might during the preceding year by acquiring "huge
quantities of modern and sophisticated weapons." He states Cuba has also
increased its military manpower by 500,000 men. Rodriguez states that the
buildup was necessary because the US had adopted a "philosophy of plunder."
* A panel of the National Academy of Sciences issues a list of dietary
recommendations to reduce the risk of cancer. They include eating less fat and
very little salt-cured, pickled or smoked food, and more vegetables, fruit and
whole grains, in particular those rich in vitamin C and beta-carotene, a
chemical precursor of vitamin A.

June 17, 1982:
* Following public protests by Argentines over their nation's defeat in the war
with Great Britain over the Falkland Islands, Leopoldo Fortunato Galtieri
resigns as president, commander in chief of the army, and member of the ruling
junta. Ten weeks of fighting had come to an end with a June 15 surrender by
Argentina and a cease-fire.
* Federal epidemiologists investigating the immune system disorder AIDS report
evidence linking the illness to an unknown infectious agent.

June 18, 1982:
* The U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approves renewal of the 1965 Voting Rights Act
for an additional 25 years. Five days later the House of Representatives
unanimously accepts the Senate version of the bill.
* President Reagan widens a ban on sales of US oil and gas equipment to Russia,
which is building a gas pipeline from Siberia to Central Europe.
Pultizer Prize winning author John Cheever dies at age 70.He is best known for
"The Swimmer," made into a movie starring Burt Lancaster.
* Future CED title in widespread theatrical release: Firefox.

June 19, 1982:
* Two white men beat to death Chinese-American Vincent Chin outside a club in
Highland Park, Michigan. The men attacked Mr. Chin because they thought he was
Japanese and blamed Japanese competition for the plight of the U.S. auto
industry.

June 20, 1982:
* Iraq's president Saddam Hussein announces that Iraqi troops have begun
withdrawing from Iran.

June 21, 1982:
* A federal jury finds John W. Hinckley, Jr. not guilty by reason of insanity
of shooting President Reagan and three others on March 30, 1981. Hinckley is
committed to a Washington, D.C. hospital for an indefinite period.
* President Reagan and Israel's Prime Minister Menahem Begin meet at the White
House to discuss the Lebanon crisis.
* Buckingham Palace announces that a son has been born to Prince Charles and
Lady Diana, the prince and princess of Wales. The child, named William Arthur
Phillip Louis, is second in line to the British throne.

June 22, 1982:
* The U.S. Department of Justice charges 18 Japanese with conspiring to steal
industrial secrets from IBM. Most of those charged are employees of Hitachi
Ltd., which allegedly paid $622 million for classified information about IBM
technology. The defendants are accused of paying the money to an undercover FBI
agent who posed as a "Silicon Valley" businessman.
* New Zealand announces a 12-month freeze on prices and wages.
* Maj. General Reynaldo Antonio Bignone is named president of Argentina.

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From: "Glenn Bennett" <Katglen1>
To: <digest@cedmagic.com>
Subject: Mark Cohen's remarks 6/9
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 14:46:12 -0700

I agree with some of Mark's remarks but not that CED was superior to VHS.  I
was an "early adapter" to CED and purchased several players and many discs.  I
was also an
early adapter to Beta (very early) and LaserDisc.  I pretty
much wasted a lot of money on all of these formats.  The only format that was
around long enough to see the price of the machines and movies drop to
amazingly low prices was
VHS due to the huge sales volume.  CED movies at $25
and $30 each back in the 80's seems outrageous (in 1982 dollars).  The first
time I noticed a big improvement with CED playback was with the SJT series
machines.  Until then there was lots of skipping and disc quality was often not
very good.  These problems didn't exist with VHS.  But giving credit where do
it amazes me that I can still play a CED disc all the way through and enjoy it
but so many of my "high tech" laserdiscs have "rotted" and are unplayable.
(Laser rot was caused by the two "sides" glued together with a glue that
eventually ate it's way into the readable portion of the laserdisc.)  As much
as I wanted to be an early adapter to DVD I waited until the players were down
to well under $200  (instead of $500).  The days of VHS are coming to an end. 
Sales people just tell us to replace our favorite tapes with DVD.  As if we
have unlimited funds to just do that having accumulated dozens of pre-recorded
VHS tapes.
 
Glenn Bennett

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From: "JAMES ELKINS" <gcd101ds>
To: "Tom Howe" <tom@cedmagic.com>
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 23
Date: Sun, 9 Jun 2002 21:43:33 -0700

I remember driving in my car and listening to a lady on the radio who had
something to do with CED discs.  She was saying very sternly and with a
touch of disgust in her voice that "there will never be porno on CED discs".
Having seen how the porno industry boosted the sale of VHS, I remember
muttering to myself  "lady you've just killed the CED".  Less than three
months later RCA pulled the plug on CED.  JIM in California

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From: Peter.Foret
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: RE: CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 23
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 09:36:57 -0500

Hi Tom,

I just wanted to throw in my two cents about the demise of CED and the
changes in technology. I find it interesting to finally be of the age where
I have seen technology created and become obsolete. I remember as a child,
playing with reel to reel tape decks and 8-tracks. I remember when records
were how music was sold and I was an early adopter of CD.

1984 was the year for me that my family decided to purchase a video machine
and, because of my interest and knowledge in the area, it was left to me to
pick one. I remember many that had CED complaining of the "skipping"
problem, plus the disc formats did not record; which was the other "half" of
the equation. RCA stopped production of the players before we made our
purchase. I decided upon a high end NEC Beta HiFi deck based on the quality
of the format. I too had to watch Beta die a slow death. I have never liked
VHS and only purchased one to keep up with technology. I was a relatively
late adopter of the high end, niche market LD format and have had to watch
it become quietly obsolete at the hands of DVD. While I believe DVD is
"capable" of having a better image than LD, especially thru S-Video, the
quality of most discs just doesn't justify the switch in technology. I again
find myself abandoning a perfectly good technology to keep up with
technology.

It will be interesting to watch the switch in the very devices we use to
watch these formats as TV makes the switch from analog to digital. While I
would agree that it is time to upgrade from the 50+ year old TV technology
for better image quality, the fact that most broadcasts will only be 480i
with the same digital artifacts and drop outs that annoy me with DVD will
once again leave me wondering if it is worth the switch.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Allen wolf" <wolfallen>
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: CED Collection For Sale!
Date: Mon, 10 Jun 2002 12:33:32 -0500

Hi All,
I'm selling some of my CED collection. the car died!!! so i'm selling two
players that work great & 33 CED Discs with them!!! All for $170.00.
if anyone is Interested in this collection,e-mail me here at
wolfallen@hotmail.com and I'll send you the list of movie's i have and the type
of players. i will only take "MONEY ORDERS" no checks!!! this is a great deal.
don't pass it buy!!!   Allen Wolf.

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Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 05:42:09 -0700 (PDT)
From: Terry Helopoulos <medmatch2>
Subject: CED collection for sale
To: <digest@cedmagic.com>

FOR SALE:
CED Collection - $200 plus shipping
Includes 330 CED's and one machine
Write Chris at medmatch2@yahoo.com for list.

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From: "Allen wolf" <wolfallen>
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: CED Collection for sale Pt II:Getting out of CED Forever!!!
Date: Tue, 11 Jun 2002 15:50:17 -0500

Hi All,
I Hope this letter get's into the diegest. i have another one here too about
selling my CED Collection!after years of trying to keep my CED collection going
i'm packing it in. I'v bin out of work for some time do to health reasons and
it takes cash to keep any hobby going. so i'm selling off the hole
shabang!!!!I'm including my collection here so you can all see what i'm asking
$170.00 for. it's well worth it. with this list i would like to say goodbuy to
Mr.Howe for giving my childhood a second chance at CED. if anyone is interested
contact me at my e-mail.....(wolfallen@hotmail.com) here's the list:
1-RCA SJT-100 Player. (One of two) other is going to CED Central next week.
2-Realistic 16-301,CED-1 Player. & 33 Discs.
some of the titles are
1-The Dirty Dozen.
2-Jaws.
3-The Maltese Falcon.
4-The Amityville Horror.
5-The Four Seasons.
6-Metalstorm.
7-Zombie.
and lots more too! e-mail me for a list.
Farewell all. God Bless!!!

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To: digest@cedmagic.com
Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 15:00:56 -0800
From: "Tom Howe" <tom@cedmagic.com>
Subject: RE: Nipper Pictures

Here's the picture of Nipper being unfriendly to a VideoDisc player. This is
actually a Xerox copy of a T-Shirt I saw at Sarnoff Corp. a year ago. It seems
that even after 20 years, nearly all the CED engineers who still work there
retain some memorabilia from the VideoDisc days in their offices. My
understanding is that this T-Shirt was sold by someone laid off from the
Bloomington plant, and was a popular item among those disenfranchised
employees.

WARNING: Do not view this image if you are easily offended.



http://www.cedmagic.com/home/out-the-door-in-eighty-four.jpg

It seems the use of T-Shirts to poke fun at the perceived wrong doings of
companies is as popular as ever. There are dozens of Enron designs available on
the internet. Here's a site named after Enron CEO Ken Lay that has a selection:

http://www.laydoff.com/

This site also has some good articles about the Enron debacle that have some
parallels to RCA discontinuing the CED system. Of course, Enron's problems were
caused by dishonesty at high levels in the company, while the situation with
CED appears to simply be a "We Took Action!" decision by the RCA Board of
Directors. But the rank-and-file employees of both companies appear to have
held the respective corporations in high regard, right up to the moment the ax
fell, and in retrospect still regard the work experience as valuable. Here's an
interesting article on that perspective at Enron:

http://www.laydoff.com/articles/atlanta_journal_1_19_02.html

--Tom

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Date: Wed, 12 Jun 2002 15:36:59 -0700
To: digest@cedmagic.com
From: Magnetic <magnetic>
Subject: Deleted scenes from "Private Resort"

I know people here have commented that some CEDs (Phantasm comes to mind)
actually have more scenes than the videotape versions. I recently acquired the
movie "Private Resort" on CED, and I noticed it is missing some scenes that are
in the full version, right near the end of side 1 & beginning of side 2.

I'll describe this part of the movie, and the scenes in [brackets] are what's
missing from the CED.

------------------------------------

Rob Morrow's character, Ben, is in Shirley's hotel room, who he has a blind
date with. He brings a bottle of aspirin that really has quaaludes inside, as
he plans to get her to take some and loosen her up. Shirley is too busy
worshipping a new-age spirit guide to be interested in love, and she tells him
that she doesn't need any aspirin. Ben endures Shirley's meditation and
chanting for a while until she tells him to take off his clothes and worship
with her. Thinking he's going to get lucky, Ben undresses. Shirley says "Do you
feel the spirit rising within you?" Ben says, "I feel it," smirking and
obviously referring to something else.

(Here the CED goes black -- end of side 1. The following scenes are in the
regular version of the movie:)

[Ben makes a move on Shirley, and she is offended. She only undressed to
worship and is truly not interested in sex with him. Ben dresses and leaves,
forgetting the bottle of aspirin on the coffee table. Shirley's grandma, Mrs.
Rawlings, comes in. She has a headache from dancing in the hotel bar. She says
something like "Oh! Aspirin! I'll take a few." She takes several of the
quaaludes.]

(CED resumes, side 2)

Mrs. Rawlings walks out into the parking lot. She's obviously high and in a
romantic mood. She sets her sights on the hotel barber, who is getting into his
car. She locks him into an embrace and tries to kiss him. As he resists, she
asks him to have a little fun with her and says "I have aspirin!"

------------------------------------

With the scene gone, there's really no explanation how Mrs. Rawlings came to be
so intoxicated and why she's feeling amorous -- and it's implied that Ben
scored with Shirley, when in reality she rebuffed him.  I was actually
disappointed that the CED is missing these scenes, because (sadly, yes, I know)
this is one of me and my sister's favorite B movies from the 80s. We have
watched and made fun of it numerous times together over the years, and I've
been looking for it on CED for quite some time. I wonder if the scenes were
deleted by mistake (because they happen exactly at the disc flip) or were cut
to save time.

Just found it interesting... anyone else know of any other similar deletions?

Jill

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: "Ken King" <kkingcqe>
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: Clean Caddy
Date: Thu, 13 Jun 2002 01:24:29 +0000

Has anyone come up with a way to remove some of the soil from the outside of a
caddy without ruining the label?  I'd like to spruce some of them up a bit and
keep them from transferring dirt to other disks while in storage.

Well, at least we know that soap and water is not a good idea...

-Ken King
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