CED Digest Vol. 8 No. 27

CED Digest Vol. 8 No. 27 • 7/5/2003
20 Years Ago In CED History:

July 6, 1983:
* Ending an 11-year losing streak, the American League defeats the 
National League, 13-3, in baseball's All-Star Game.

July 7, 1983:
* Samantha Smith and her parents leave the U.S. to be guests of 
Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. In 1982, the 11-year-old had written 
Andropov asking him why he wanted to "conquer the whole world."
* West German Chancellor Helmut Kohl concludes a four-day visit to 
the Soviet Union; talks focused on arms control.
* U.S. Vice President George Bush winds up an eight nation tour of 
Europe, while Secretary of State George Shultz concludes a trip to 
four Asian capitals, with stopovers in the Middle East.

July 8, 1983:
* Turkish terrorist Mehmet Ali Agca, convicted of shooting Pope John 
Paul II in May 1981, tells reporters that he was aided by the Soviet 
secret police (KGB) and "Bulgarian services."
* According to the U.S. Commerce Department, the nation's Gross 
National Product grew at a seasonally adjusted rate of 8.7 percent in 
the second quarter, far outstripping government forecasts.
* The June unemployment figure announced by the U.S. Department of 
Labor stands at 10 percent, continuing a downward trend. In Canada, 
the unemployment rate also declines, to 12.2 percent in June.
* Future CED title in widespread theatrical release: Class.

July 9, 1983:
* The National Women's Political Caucus opens in San Antonio, TX, 
with strong criticism of the Reagan administration.
* "Every Breath You Take" by The Police (CED) becomes the No. 1 U.S.
single.

July 10, 1983:
* The Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers play the longest 
nine-inning game in major league baseball history. The Brewers win 
the four-hour and 11-minute marathon, 12-9, on Ted Simmons' bases 
loaded single.

July 11, 1983:
* The Reagan administration files its first school desegregation 
suit, asking a federal judge in Birmingham to end Alabama's "dual 
system" of public colleges.
* A Boeing 737 slams into a mountain while trying to land in Cuenca, 
Ecuador. All 119 aboard lose their lives.

July 12, 1983:
* Chad government troops recapture the city of Abeche, which had 
fallen during the night of July 8-9 to rebels led by former President 
Goukouni Weddeye.
* Representatives of China and the U.K. meet in Beijing to continue 
discussions on Hong Kong's future after Britain's lease expires in 
1997. China is reportedly considering a proposal to designate the 
territory a special administrative zone, so that it could continue to 
operate for a considerable period of time under its present economic, 
legal, and social systems.
* Lokendra Bahadur Chand becomes prime minister of Nepal.

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From: SonyFan13
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2003 23:47:46 EDT
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 8 No. 26
To: digest@cedmagic.com

In a message dated 6/30/03 6:36:12 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
tom@cedmagic.com writes:

>A while back, I picked up a still shrink-wrapped demo disc for the
>VH-8000 LaserDisc player titled "Leonard Nimoy Demonstrates the
>Magnavision VideoDisc Player." Side 1 of this disc has Mr. Nimoy
>translating for a beeping and blinking alien rock as he goes over the
>player features, and was intended for customer viewing. The program
>repeats twice, which is good, as the disc would often suffer carrier
>distress on my early 1990's Pioneer CLD-A100 LD player, and it took
>both viewings to hear everything.

I used to own such a disc, as a matter of fact!  And, skipping in 
LaserDiscs is not called carrier distress.  It's called mistracking, 
and it's not a surprise as all copies will have been pressed by 
DiscoVision in Carson, California, which is well known for making 
discs that rarely work right.  Almost all discs from DiscoVision will 
have inclusion problems, or actual foreign matter, from dust to 
insect parts, sandwiched between the two disc halves which would 
create all sorts of problems in terms of picture quality and 
tracking.  My copy had a problem with randomized speckling, multiple 
dropouts, and laserlock at the conclusion of the second showing of 
the first side program on both my Sony MDP-1000 and Pioneer DVL-700.

I had sold my copy of this disc for $50. 

But I have another demo LaserDisc, which was for the Pioneer VIP-1000 
and contained two programs, one of which starred Mr. Wizard 
demonstrating LaserVision and the explanation of the concept and 
theories of the laser optical disc which still applies to today's 
formats!  This disc has some problems, being a vintage LaserDisc, but 
nowhere near the kind of trouble I had witnessed with "Leonard Nimoy 
Demonstrates MagnaVision."  My copy of "LaserDisc: What it is.  How 
it Works" has some minor snow and occasional dropouts and was 
manufactured by Pioneer Video in Kofu, Japan.

>A presentation on Side 2 is for sales personnel and goes over selling
>points on the player including strategy for promoting it over CED,
>most noteworthy, the point that CED's wear out with repeated
>viewings. But Magnavox countered their own sales pitch by including a
>letter with the disc on company letterhead that states the following:

>"When using part two of side two of this Magnavision Demonstration
>Disc for sales training, please note that there is an error on the
>first point made on the comparison chart between Magnavision and RCA
>SelectaVision. Additional testing since the demo disc was produced
>has shown that the RCA discs do not suffer any wear from continual
>playing. We would appreciate your advising your retail sales
>personnel of this correction."

>Does anyone know why Magnavox took the unusual step of including this
>letter with the disc? It sounds like they were trying to cover
>themselves legally. What makes no sense is the fact that their
>selling point is true. We all know that CED's do eventually wear out
>if the discs are repeat played enough times.

Who knows.  It's probably correct that disc wearout doesn't really 
occur with normal playback.  However, that doesn't take into 
consideration the kind of wear the disc could suffer from being 
extracted from and replaced into the disc caddy.

Also, take into consideration that some of the sales advice from 
Willie Allemang and Diane Fischer did sound kind of moronic so the 
people responsible for the memo probably didn't know what they were 
talking about.  - Reinhart

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From: "Melissa Nelson" <melissanelson558>
To: digest@cedmagic.com
Subject: It's Working, It's Working!
Date: Tue, 01 Jul 2003 18:50:08 -0700

Thank you, thank you, thank you sooooooo much for my new function 
belt!!! I'm watching Charlie Brown for the first time in fifteen 
years! I can't believe I missed all those years for a part that so 
closely resembles a rubber band.

And I just love the CED Magic Diffractor! Could they have made clear 
Videodiscs out of that stuff?

Missy
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