This industrial was the highlight of the players of the day. Controllable only from a Service REM or direct
computer interface, this CAV only player has very little problems playing the bulk of DiscoVision's catalog. Due to
its inability to play CLV, it would not be a viable player for everyone. It cannot play the MCA coded General
Motors discs and some of the soft signal also present problems. Both of these types of discs spin up, attempt
to locate the synchronization signal and after a minute, reject the disc. Available from a wide variety of sources,
including government contractors, several working players have been found in 
arcade games.
On the plus side, the gas tube laser produces such a finely focused red-laser, the player is able to track nearly
everything it can sync to. Some highly questionable discs can cause the player to skip tracks, in effect throwing
the player into high-speed playback until the defective area is past. The player also ignores all the normal trappings
such as end of side and picture stop codes, enabling it to play Frenzy
Side 5 without any problems. The laser slider is an industrial version of the same system employed in the
LD-660 and LD-1100 players. This pickup system is faster to focus,
track, scan and correct for errors. When attached to a computer, a search requests to any point on the disc takes
under 3 seconds.
On startup, the disc will search for Frame 0, but will play muted and with black screen until the frame counter hits 1. This effectively removes any presence of the opening DiscoVision bumpers from all sides, providing nearly uninterrupted playback of a feature film. It will allow scanning beyond the beginning to the inside limit setting of the player. This will allow for viewing of the full opening bumper. However, since the actual beginning of a disc can vary from disc to disc, and the inside limit is fixed on the player, successful bumper viewing is hit and miss at best.
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Updated: November 17, 1998
Copyright ©1998 Blam Entertainment Group
