Word: styluses
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...first talking machine. This month two major manufacturers, Sony and Magnavox, are introducing a limited number of digital record players in audio and department stores across the U.S. The machines, which retail for $800 to $1,000, use a laser beam instead of a conventional tone arm and stylus to play compact discs, or CDs, that are only 4.7 in. in diameter and will sell for about $17. Says Dan Davis, vice president of the National Association of Recording Merchandisers: "There is a consensus that this is perhaps the most exciting of the breakthroughs in the field, including...
...think it a single-purpose instrument, a movie machine. The misconception was fostered by the much ballyhooed introduction in 1981 of RCA's Selecta Vision, 15 years and $200 million in the making. Not a truly innovative technology, Selecta Vision is essentially a phonograph that uses a mechanical stylus to play prerecorded movies. Its costly debut obscured the second type of videodisc: the infinitely more versatile laser-vision disc, designed for the videodisc player introduced by Magnavox in 1978. Manufactured by Pioneer, Sony and the 3M Co., the laser-vision disc makes flexible interaction possible...
More sophisticated and more expensive than the stylus disc, the laser-vision disc not only offers enormous storage capacity but provides random access and perpetual durability. A low-powered laser beam "reads" billions of microscopic pits of information imprinted on the smooth, shimmering disc. On each side are stored 54,000 images, any one of which can be called up instantly on command. The stylus and laser systems are incompatible, which leads to a great deal of consumer confusion. Moreover, unlike the video cassette recorder, the systems cannot record from television. Currently there are three videodisc machines on the market...
...SelectaVision is a simpler system that works more like a conventional record player. The viewer slips the disc, including the dust cover, into the front of the machine and then pulls the cover back out before the feature starts. A cartridge with a diamond stylus tracks 27,000 incredibly tiny grooves on the record to reproduce the picture. Unlike the laser system, the RCA device cannot find scenes at random or freeze a frame...
Next fall a third videodisc system, VHD, will be introduced by Japan Victor Co., a subsidiary of the giant Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., and other firms. Although it uses a diamond stylus, like the RCA system, it will have the random access features and stereo sound capability similar to the laser systems. These machines will be priced somewhere between SelectaVision and the laser systems and sold in the U.S. under the Panasonic, JVC, Quasar and General Electric brand names...