CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 25

CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 25 • 6/22/2002
20 Years Ago In CED History:

June 23, 1982:
* A compromise budget of $769.82 billion, with a deficit of $103.9 billion for
fiscal year 1983, is given final approval by Congress.

June 24, 1982:
* The U.S. Supreme Court rules 5-4 that no president can be sued for damages
connected with actions taken while serving as the nation's chief executive.
* Soyuz T-6 is launched from the Soviet Space Center. Jean-Loup Chretien, a
French Air Force colonel, joins Soviet cosmonauts Col. Vladimir A. Dzhanibekov
and Aleksandr S. Ivanchenkov aboard the spacecraft.

June 25, 1982:
* President Reagan announces the resignation of Alexander M. Haig, Jr., as U.S.
Secretary of State over a foreign policy dispute. George P. Shultz, who held a
cabinet post in the Nixon administration, is nominated as Haig's successor.
* Future CED titles in widespread theatrical release: The Thing, Blade Runner,
Megaforce.

June 26, 1982:
* The US vetoes a U.N. resolution for limited withdrawl from Beirut by the PLO
and Israel.

June 27, 1982:
* Space Shuttle Columbia mission STS-4 takes off for its fourth and final test
mission with a two-person crew. The spacecraft, carrying its first military and
commercial payloads is piloted by Capt. Thomas K. Mattingly of the Navy, while
the commander, Henry W. Hartsfield, Jr., is a civilian.

June 28, 1982:
* Special prosecutor Leon Silverman declares that "there was insufficient
credible evidence to warrant prosecution" of Raymond J. Donovan for alleged
crimes the Secretary of Labor may have committed while he was an executive of a
New Jersey construction company.
* Canadian Finance minister Allan MacEachen proposes a new federal budget
providing for higher taxes, investment incentives, and wage restraints, aimed
at pulling Canada out of a severe economic crisis.

* RCA PRESS RELEASE:
Columbia Pictures And RCA Form New Joint Venture to Market Home Video Programs
in U.S. and Canada

Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. and RCA Corporation today announced that
they have entered into a new joint venture in home video entertainment for the
marketing of programs in the United States and Canada.

Formation of the new joint venture follows the creation of RCA/Columbia
Pictures International Video in June 1981 for the purpose of distributing video
programs in other parts of the world.

The new venture was announced by Francis T. Vincent, Jr., President and Chief
Executive Officer of Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., a subsidiary of The
Coca-Cola Company; Frank Price, Chairman and President of Columbia Pictures,
the motion picture division; and Herbert S. Schlosser, Executive Vice President
of RCA.

In making the announcement, Mr. Vincent said, "We are delighted with this
agreement, which is in keeping with The Coca-Cola Company's stated strategy to
further strengthen its profits from U.S.-based businesses."

Under the agreement, the new joint venture will have access to Columbia
Pictures' extensive libraries of motion pictures and television programs, as
well as future theatrical and television productions from Columbia Pictures and
video music productions of RCA Records. The venture also will acquire new
programs for distribution on cassettes and discs.

The new venture will continue and expand the operations of Columbia Pictures'
Home Entertainment Division, which currently markets and distributes home video
products.

RCA "SelectaVision" VideoDiscs, the company's software division, will continue
to supply video discs to the RCA Consumer Electronics Division's distributor
network for sale through more than 5,000 dealers nationwide.

The three executives said in a joint statement that the two joint ventures will
give RCA and Columbia Pictures a worldwide operating base in the fast-growing
market for home video entertainment.

RCA/Columbia Pictures International Video currently distributes home video
material on all cassette formats in the United Kingdom and France and plans to
expand into West Germany later this year.

Commenting on the new U.S./Canada joint venture, Mr. Schlosser said, "It is
part of RCA's long-range program to make the company's entertainment businesses
a major contributor to growth and profits in the years ahead. We want to make
certain that we are in a favorable position to benefit from the new
developments in home video entertainment."

Victor A. Kaufman, Vice Chairman of Columbia Pictures, said, "Columbia is very
satisfied with the results achieved by the international joint venture, and we
look forward to furthering our relationship with RCA through this new
agreement. We are especially pleased that our participation in the new venture
will be through Jonathan L. Dolgen, President of Columbia Pictures Pay-Cable
and Home Entertainment Group."

Mr. Dolgen said, "We are delighted with the transaction, our new partner and
our prospects for the future. We believe this agreement will strengthen our
position in the rapidly-expanding home entertainment market."

Robert D. Summer, President of RCA Records, said, "The new venture will enhance
the opportunities for our recording artists to share in the expected boom in
home video entertainment through the 1980's and beyond."

Details of the new venture's organizational structure will be announced at a
later date.

June 29, 1982:
* A federal judge in Miami, Florida rules that "it would not be just or
equitable" to continue holding Haitian refugees in detention camps even though
they entered the US illegally. In ordering the parole of most of the 1,900
refugees, the judge stipulates that each Haitian have a written agreement from
both a voluntary resettlement agency and an individual sponsor stating that
they will abide by the terms of the release.
* Strategic arms reduction talks (START) between the United States and Russia
begin in Geneva, Switzerland.

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From: "Guy Krause" <krauseg>
To: tom@cedmagic.com
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 7 No. 24
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 08:34:11 -0700

My biggest complaint about DVDs is that all of the newer movies seem to come in
the widescreen format. It's tolerable up to about 1.65:1 aspect ratio, but
2.35:1 is like the vertical height died on your TV. The double-sided discs,
with "formatted to fit your screen" pan & scan don't seem to be available
anymore. Good thing they're not trying to convert (yet) the older movies to
widescreen; Hollywood tried that with Gone with the Wind a long time ago, and
that was awful. CEDs were definitely better in video and sound quality than VHS
before HQ, but are inferior in resolution to a modern VHS, even without
S-video.

Guy Krause

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To: digest@cedmagic.com
Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 01:23:42 -8600
From: "Tom Howe" <tom@cedmagic.com>
Subject: RE: Deleted scenes from "Private Resort"

>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 checked my copy of "Private Resort" and it is likewise missing the scene
between Side 1 and Side 2. I suppose somebody could have intentionally edited
this out because the guy failed to score in the missing scene, but more likely
it was a mastering error similar to that on "The Secret of NIMH.":



http://www.cedmagic.com/home/ced-variations.html

With this movie coming out so late in the CED market phase, the error was
probably never noticed and corrected as it was on NIMH.

"Private Resort" is listed as being 82 minutes long, but with the missing scene
the entire CED is only 73:27 in length, making it one of the shortest
theatrical movies on CED. That got me thinking what the shortest CED movie
might be, and I came up with "Reefer Madness" at a total length of 66:40. Side
2 of that disc is only 9:14 in duration.  Can anyone think of a CED movie title
shorter in either total length or the length of Side 2 ?

--Tom

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Date: Mon, 17 Jun 2002 10:02:13 -0600
From: Jimi jones <jijones>
To: CED digest <digest@cedmagic.com>
Subject: Star Wars CED puzzle

Greetings all. First off, I want to say how great this resource is. I
enjoy it very much.
With regard to the Star Wars (A New Hope) CED: I swear my old copy of
that CED has the fabled "extra scene of Luke initially missing with his
grappling hook in the Death Star." I had a CED player and this disk when
I was a kid and had forgotten all about that little scene until I
noticed a mention of it on the cedmagic site. Unfortunately, I don't
live near my hometown anymore and my mom can't find the old disk player,
so I can't test my memory. Has anyone else come across this scene in
their copies of Star Wars? I really don't think I'm crazy here, but
everything I've heard about this tells me my memory is incorrect.

HELP!

Jimi Jones

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To: digest@cedmagic.com
From: "Tom Howe" <tom@cedmagic.com>
Date: Sat, 22 Jun 2002 23:50:15 -70800
Subject: Herbert Kroemer Receives 2002 IEEE Medal of Honor

In the IEEE Honors Ceremony today, former RCA Laboratories scientist Herbert
Kroemer was presented the IEEE Medal of Honor, the highest award of the IEEE.
He also received the 2000 Nobel Prize in Physics. While at RCA, Dr. Kroemer
originated the concept of the heterostructure transistor, although the material
technology to build the device did not yet exist. Later he applied the
heterostructure technique, which involves the use of different semiconductors
at varying band gaps, to semiconductor lasers, which allowed the devices to
operate at room temperature. This paved the way for the compact semiconductor
lasers in widespread use today in laser pointers and CD and DVD players. An
article on Herbert Kroemer's 50-year career can be read on this page:

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/jun02/med.html

--Tom
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