WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.120 --> 00:00:02.980 These two machines both have the same primary mission. 00:00:02.980 --> 00:00:04.880 Their mission, should they choose to accept it, 00:00:04.880 --> 00:00:09.120 is to play five compact discs in a row uninterrupted. On the left, we have 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:16.360 a Sony CDP-C235, which accomplishes its mission in a completely ordinary and mundane fashion. 00:00:16.360 --> 00:00:19.300 On the right is a Pioneer CLD-M301. 00:00:19.300 --> 00:00:22.170 And it has a little robot inside to help it along. 00:00:22.170 --> 00:00:26.480 The Sony machine uses a boring ol’ carousel to do its work. When you press eject, after 00:00:26.480 --> 00:00:31.680 making a startling amount of creaking noises, the drawer opens with a single CD front and center. 00:00:31.680 --> 00:00:36.469 Pressing Disc Skip spins the circular inner portion 72 degrees to present you with 00:00:36.469 --> 00:00:41.420 the next disc. Each depression for a disc is handily marked in stylish print. 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:47.520 (Just in case the vacuum fluorescent display wasn’t enough.) 00:00:47.530 --> 00:00:52.149 Pressing eject on the Pioneer machine presents you with this monstrous and confusing tray, 00:00:52.149 --> 00:00:56.559 littered with tiny little markings, details, and indentations. At least you can see all 00:00:56.559 --> 00:01:01.640 the discs at once, I guess. But wait. There’s a 6th spot in the middle. And what’s with 00:01:01.640 --> 00:01:06.900 all the little felt pads everywhere? Also, this is just one solid piece of plastic. How’s 00:01:06.900 --> 00:01:12.180 the machine supposed to select a disc if it can’t move? Ah, well that explains the robot. 00:01:12.180 --> 00:01:16.741 The machine from Pioneer isn’t just a CD player. It’s also a Laserdisc player. Now 00:01:16.741 --> 00:01:20.610 if you don’t know what Laserdiscs are, you must be pretty new here, as I’ve made an 00:01:20.610 --> 00:01:25.180 entire exhaustive series on the format which should be appearing in the corner pretty soon. 00:01:25.180 --> 00:01:28.060 I’ll warn you, it’s a long series. 00:01:28.060 --> 00:01:30.350 In two sentences Laserdiscs were the first 00:01:30.350 --> 00:01:35.420 consumer optical disc, released in test markets at the tail of 1978 and therefore beating 00:01:35.420 --> 00:01:38.980 the CD by nearly 4 years. These 12 inch-- 00:01:38.980 --> 00:01:40.140 a little late there, are we?-- 00:01:40.140 --> 00:01:46.200 These 12 inch discs contain up to an hour of near-DVD quality analog video per side, and although they stuck 00:01:46.200 --> 00:01:49.940 around until the first year of the new millenium, their market penetration in North America 00:01:49.940 --> 00:01:54.590 was an abysmal 2% at its peak which probably explains why you haven’t heard of them before, 00:01:54.590 --> 00:01:55.640 if you haven’t. 00:01:55.640 --> 00:01:57.680 OK that last sentence was a bit of a runon. 00:01:57.680 --> 00:02:03.220 The Compact Disc, released in 1982, was a near-immediate success (unlike Laserdisc). 00:02:03.220 --> 00:02:08.709 By 1984, Pioneer was making Laserdisc players that could also play CDs. They wanted in on 00:02:08.709 --> 00:02:13.590 that action, and some executive (probably) wisely thought, why not make a twofer, and 00:02:13.590 --> 00:02:18.069 maybe spur along the sales of Laserdisc. Sadly it didn’t really help the sales of Laserdisc, 00:02:18.069 --> 00:02:22.969 but by the early nineties, the Compact Disc was all the rage. How lame you were if you 00:02:22.969 --> 00:02:26.290 didn’t have a CD player by the time Home Improvement hit the airwaves. 00:02:26.290 --> 00:02:29.910 Not long into the first years of being on the market, the CD changer was developed to 00:02:29.910 --> 00:02:34.519 allow for playing multiple discs at once. I couldn’t find any info on exactly when 00:02:34.519 --> 00:02:38.420 the first CD changers were released, but I can tell you that 1991 seems to have been 00:02:38.420 --> 00:02:43.051 a pretty important year as this was the first year Pioneer made a machine like this. Not 00:02:43.051 --> 00:02:47.349 wanting to miss out on the new wave of CD changers, Pioneer decided, by golly, we can 00:02:47.349 --> 00:02:49.430 squeeze that into a Laserdisc player! 00:02:49.430 --> 00:02:53.659 And they did! And this is the result. Now, Pioneer faced a bit of an odd problem when 00:02:53.659 --> 00:02:56.900 designing a combo CD changer and Laserdisc player. 00:02:56.900 --> 00:02:59.329 See in CD changers like this Sony, 00:02:59.329 --> 00:03:04.139 the actual CD reader is shoved in a corner inside the machine. The CDs themselves are 00:03:04.139 --> 00:03:08.849 brought to it when the carousel turns. But that can’t be done in this machine because 00:03:08.849 --> 00:03:13.359 it also needs to be able to play a Laserdisc. For this machine, the actual disc transport 00:03:13.359 --> 00:03:15.120 has to be in the center. 00:03:15.120 --> 00:03:19.040 So Pioneer, the manufacturer brave enough to design a little ferris wheel to lift the 00:03:19.040 --> 00:03:23.840 laser to the top side of a Laserdisc to allow for laying both sides of a single disc, decided 00:03:23.840 --> 00:03:28.300 to just use a robotic arm to pick up the disc and bring it to the center. Why not? 00:03:28.300 --> 00:03:32.320 Take a look at this in action. This spot here is disc 1. Watch what it does. 00:03:32.320 --> 00:03:39.120 (various mechanical sounds) 00:03:39.120 --> 00:03:42.840 OK, that’s pretty impressive. Now let’s select disc 5 over here. 00:03:42.840 --> 00:03:54.100 (more various mechanical sounds) 00:03:54.100 --> 00:03:56.860 I love how this machine works, but it’s hard to get a good view 00:03:56.870 --> 00:04:00.889 of what exactly it’s doing. Nothing a screwdriver can’t fix! 00:04:00.889 --> 00:04:02.400 At first glance, this may not look like much. 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:05.180 This black plastic circle functions as the upper clamp. 00:04:05.180 --> 00:04:08.840 In many optical disc drives, the spindle motor works with a piece like this 00:04:08.840 --> 00:04:14.379 to actually clamp the disc down as it spins. Together, they essentially form an optical 00:04:14.379 --> 00:04:18.970 disc sandwich. Usually these clamps are pretty loose and spin freely, and sure enough… 00:04:18.970 --> 00:04:22.590 so does this one. But you’d be wrong to think this is any ordinary optical drive disc 00:04:22.590 --> 00:04:26.570 clamp. This is in fact how the player picks up the CDs. 00:04:26.570 --> 00:04:30.430 If I start turning this drive belt by hand, you’ll see that the clamp moves towards 00:04:30.430 --> 00:04:35.379 the end of the arm where it would be positioned above a CD. But once it stops, if I keep turning 00:04:35.380 --> 00:04:41.460 eventually these three little fingers will pop out here. These hold on to a CD through the center hole. 00:04:41.460 --> 00:04:46.510 Holding a CD from the center meant that even the 80mm mini cd was compatible. 00:04:46.510 --> 00:04:50.920 Rather ingeniously, the fingers lock in place once the motor reaches its end stop. 00:04:50.920 --> 00:04:55.740 When the motor is reversed, the disc clamp returns to the center, bringing the disc along with it. 00:04:55.740 --> 00:04:59.520 Only when it’s back to the center and the motor keeps spinning further do the fingers 00:04:59.520 --> 00:05:04.410 retract into the clamp and let the disc go. At this point it can play the disc. 00:05:04.410 --> 00:05:08.759 When it’s time to put the disc back, the player will first reverse the motor even farther, 00:05:08.759 --> 00:05:13.620 which re-engages and locks the fingers. Then it spins forward and travels to the end, with 00:05:13.620 --> 00:05:17.639 the fingers locked in place the whole time. This time, running the motor beyond its end 00:05:17.639 --> 00:05:22.229 stop disengages the fingers, which lets go of the disc, and then reversing the motor 00:05:22.229 --> 00:05:23.360 brings it back to the center. 00:05:23.360 --> 00:05:28.300 I’m glad I took this apart because it revealed a very elegant simplicity to this mechanism. 00:05:28.300 --> 00:05:33.729 Notice how the drive gear engages with this track. At each end, the track is fragmented. 00:05:33.729 --> 00:05:38.180 These sections here can actually move when this pin is released, and are pulled by the 00:05:38.180 --> 00:05:42.849 same motor which moves the grabby clamper. These plastic hook things are what actually 00:05:42.849 --> 00:05:46.900 engage and disengage the fingers that hold the disc, and they’re attached to these 00:05:46.900 --> 00:05:51.879 small moveable sections of track. When the clamp reaches the end of its travel, it hits 00:05:51.879 --> 00:05:57.070 the lock pin which frees the small track section and allows it to move. But ingeniously, by 00:05:57.070 --> 00:06:01.699 this point the drive gear is already off the stationary track segment, meaning the gear 00:06:01.699 --> 00:06:06.889 is only engaged with the moveable piece. With the small section of track now free to move, 00:06:06.889 --> 00:06:11.610 the motor works to pull it towards the clamp, which pulls the hook thing along with it. 00:06:11.610 --> 00:06:16.860 This pushes or pulls on small tabs above the clamp, and these extend or retract the disc 00:06:16.860 --> 00:06:21.319 grabbing fingers. When the motor reverses direction, it first pushes the track back 00:06:21.319 --> 00:06:25.289 to it’s normal position where it locks in place, and after the track has stopped moving 00:06:25.289 --> 00:06:29.620 and locked in, the gear can now move the disc clamp along the track. 00:06:29.620 --> 00:06:33.290 Arranging the track like this allowed for a single motor to move the clamp and engage 00:06:33.290 --> 00:06:37.890 the fingers. This is really genius engineering in my humble opinion. It echoes the both side 00:06:37.890 --> 00:06:43.490 play mechanism from the CLD-D502--the same motor which moves the laser along the rails 00:06:43.490 --> 00:06:47.700 sends it to the top, too. You can see the tracking gear spinning as it reaches the top. 00:06:47.700 --> 00:06:51.919 At the end of its travel, it engages with the linear teeth here to move the laser towards 00:06:51.919 --> 00:06:55.560 the center of the disc. By the way, I’m pretty sure these could be considered rack 00:06:55.560 --> 00:06:58.860 and pinion systems, with this the rack and that the pinion. 00:06:58.860 --> 00:07:03.600 As cool as this machine is, it suffers from being both a sub-par Laserdisc player as well 00:07:03.600 --> 00:07:05.880 as a sub-par CD changer. 00:07:05.880 --> 00:07:09.130 Let’s put the Disc Grabber 9000™ back in place and compare 00:07:09.130 --> 00:07:11.069 operation of these two machines. 00:07:11.069 --> 00:07:15.750 When compared to a carousel CD changer, the Pioneer machine is significantly slower to 00:07:15.750 --> 00:07:21.220 change discs. Let’s do a race. We’ll switch from disc one to disc 2 on both machines. 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:28.460 (even more various mechanical noises) 00:07:29.720 --> 00:07:31.920 Yeah that wasn’t even close. Also, the Sony machine 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:36.300 has the advantage of being able to spin the carousel backwards. If you want to go from 00:07:36.300 --> 00:07:41.030 disc 1 to disc 5, the Sony machine will simply rotate counterclockwise and get straight to 00:07:41.030 --> 00:07:46.349 disc 5. The Pioneer has to travel all the way around to do the same thing. The farthest 00:07:46.349 --> 00:07:51.159 the Sony machine ever has to travel is 2 spaces away, whereas the Pioneer will always have 00:07:51.159 --> 00:07:56.069 to travel the relative distance between discs. However you could argue that the Pioneer machine 00:07:56.069 --> 00:08:00.330 is more convenient to load up, so long as the convoluted tray isn’t a bother, as you 00:08:00.330 --> 00:08:02.509 have access to all 5 discs at once. 00:08:02.509 --> 00:08:06.539 Oh, but the Sony does have a neat party trick courtesy of its disc tray. You might have 00:08:06.539 --> 00:08:11.180 noticed that the access cutouts for the laser transport are slanted. This is to allow for 00:08:11.180 --> 00:08:18.020 the disc ex-change system. The Sony will allow you to swap out the other 4 discs while it’s playing the fifth. 00:08:18.020 --> 00:08:21.479 The recess for whichever disc is in the back left corner has its cutout 00:08:21.479 --> 00:08:25.780 go straight back and lines up with the reader mechanism, allowing room for the laser carriage 00:08:25.780 --> 00:08:30.169 to travel beneath it. This means that the disc tray can move outward while it holds 00:08:30.169 --> 00:08:34.010 on to the disc it’s playing. The machine is even smart enough to present the discs 00:08:34.010 --> 00:08:38.539 two at a time, so that you never even see the spot for the disc it’s currently playing. 00:08:38.539 --> 00:08:42.000 Though often times it has to do a bit of a shuffle to reassure itself what position its 00:08:42.000 --> 00:08:44.980 actually in before it closes the tray. 00:08:47.560 --> 00:08:52.540 Aside from this feature, the Sony is just overall better at being a CD changer. Its 00:08:52.540 --> 00:08:57.029 faster, the display is far more comprehensive and there are many more controls on the machine 00:08:57.029 --> 00:09:02.320 itself. Perhaps most importantly, it's a heck of a lot quieter. Pioneer again used clever 00:09:02.320 --> 00:09:06.820 cost saving and simple engineering, and the machine uses the same motor that drives the 00:09:06.820 --> 00:09:12.130 disc tray for lifting and lowering the disc grabber thing. Again I admire the simplicity, 00:09:12.130 --> 00:09:16.580 but that motor is loud! And because of the way it operates, it makes a plethora of distinct 00:09:16.580 --> 00:09:19.800 noises and in general is just bizarre sounding. 00:09:20.180 --> 00:09:28.500 (A plethora of distinct, bizarre sounding noises) 00:09:31.240 --> 00:09:35.000 By the way, the Sony machine isn’t a goodwill find, it was the CD player I grew 00:09:35.000 --> 00:09:37.680 up with. It’s always made that creaking sound. 00:09:37.680 --> 00:09:41.480 (pronounced creaking sound as the disc is lowered) 00:09:41.480 --> 00:09:44.649 But its still far less intrusive than all this nonsense. 00:09:44.649 --> 00:09:49.920 (yet still more various, bizarre, distinct mechanical noises) 00:09:49.920 --> 00:09:54.620 So then, how does it do as a Laserdisc player? Well, it’s not bad. There’s nothing inherently 00:09:54.630 --> 00:09:58.860 wrong with its performance, although there are plenty of players with better video performance. 00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:03.290 And they combined the CD changing aspect into it rather well. Pioneer actually marketed 00:10:03.290 --> 00:10:07.660 the fact that you can leave your favorite CDs in place when you want to play a Laserdisc. 00:10:07.660 --> 00:10:12.320 Also perhaps less known is that you can place a 6th CD in the center which it will play, 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:16.350 but it does prevent using the changer. But this means you can leave your 5 favorites 00:10:16.350 --> 00:10:21.130 in place, and play a 6th disc individually. I can actually see the appeal for that. 00:10:21.130 --> 00:10:25.780 But what the CD changer makes impossible is a both-side play mechanism. There simply is 00:10:25.780 --> 00:10:30.550 no way to fit the top rails for the laser and this robot thing in the same case without 00:10:30.550 --> 00:10:35.120 extensive modification of both systems. You can see that the construction of these machines 00:10:35.120 --> 00:10:38.710 is very similar, with the one on the right having a both side play mechanism rather than 00:10:38.710 --> 00:10:43.610 a disc changer. I think the only way to combine these two systems together would be to stack 00:10:43.610 --> 00:10:49.970 them and design a claw-machine like apparatus to grab a CD through this space. Even if they 00:10:49.970 --> 00:10:54.290 pulled it off, the machine would likely be hideously expensive and comically tall. 00:10:54.290 --> 00:11:00.000 So, to buy this machine means getting a less-than-ideal Laserdisc player and a less-than-ideal CD 00:11:00.000 --> 00:11:03.640 changer. Now, I understand that there were plenty of single side machines being sold 00:11:03.640 --> 00:11:08.649 that didn’t even have a CD changer inside. Both Side Play was really a high-end item. 00:11:08.649 --> 00:11:11.959 But then you have to ask, is its clunky CD changer worth it? 00:11:11.959 --> 00:11:14.100 To that, I’d say yeah... 00:11:14.100 --> 00:11:17.040 This was a pretty clever move by Pioneer. They seem to have 00:11:17.040 --> 00:11:21.240 priced this model just a hundred dollars higher than a basic Laserdisc player. 00:11:21.240 --> 00:11:27.220 Abe’s of Maine apparently wanted just seventy bucks more for it over a CLD-S201, a basic Laserdisc 00:11:27.220 --> 00:11:31.589 player. That made it significantly cheaper than buying two devices. But, and this is 00:11:31.589 --> 00:11:37.510 a BIG but, it was still more than double the price of a basic CD changer. In fact, it’s 00:11:37.510 --> 00:11:43.790 more expensive than ANY of these CD changers, including the Sony CDP-C910 which accommodates 00:11:43.790 --> 00:11:45.930 10 CDs in a cartridge magazine. 00:11:45.930 --> 00:11:50.491 I think Pioneer’s intent with these machines was to try and ride the wave of the CD changer 00:11:50.491 --> 00:11:55.139 and spur sales of Laserdiscs at the same time. Laserdisc did receive a bit of a boom in the 00:11:55.139 --> 00:11:59.240 late 80’s and early 90’s as the home theater scene came into light. If someone was looking 00:11:59.240 --> 00:12:03.290 for a CD changer, why not take a look at a machine that can play Laserdiscs, too? 00:12:03.290 --> 00:12:07.610 But I’m sure it was still a hard sell. And not just because of the price. Unless you 00:12:07.610 --> 00:12:12.160 had already integrated your TV into your home stereo, having a CD player hooked into your 00:12:12.160 --> 00:12:17.940 TV isn’t exactly ideal. I suppose it’s nice, but it won’t sound great. That said, 00:12:17.940 --> 00:12:22.350 this player does produce a neat graphic on screen when changing discs. Yipee. 00:12:22.350 --> 00:12:28.110 Oh, and one last unsettling thing. Laserdisc are heavy and spin at very high speeds--up 00:12:28.110 --> 00:12:33.910 to 30 revolutions per second, or 1,800 RPM. I am not a fan of how close the disc changing 00:12:33.910 --> 00:12:39.050 mechanism is to the disc’s surface. That sharp metal thing is awfully close to that 00:12:39.050 --> 00:12:44.040 scratchable disc. In fact, this machine has the tightest clearances I’ve ever seen in 00:12:44.040 --> 00:12:48.680 a Laserdisc player. With a Laserdisc playing above a tray full of CDs, it’s not even 00:12:48.680 --> 00:12:52.310 a centimeter above them. That’s a tad scary. 00:12:52.310 --> 00:12:55.320 Thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed this video. If this is your first time running 00:12:55.320 --> 00:12:59.949 across the channel and you like what you saw, please consider subscribing! And a big thank 00:12:59.949 --> 00:13:05.310 you to everyone who’s subscribed. This channel just passed 100,000 subscribers! I never really 00:13:05.310 --> 00:13:09.959 thought that would happen, and I’m truly blown away. The folks on Patreon deserve huge 00:13:09.959 --> 00:13:13.820 thanks for making that possible--it’s with your support that I’ve been able to go part 00:13:13.820 --> 00:13:18.210 time at work and make videos more regularly. Without that, I’m sure this wouldn’t have 00:13:18.210 --> 00:13:22.000 happened. If you’d like to become one of the awesome people who make this channel possible, 00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:25.300 please check out my Patreon page. There’s a link on your screen, or you can find it 00:13:25.300 --> 00:13:28.600 down below in the description. As always, thanks for your consideration, 00:13:28.600 --> 00:13:31.080 and I’ll see you next time. 00:13:31.080 --> 00:13:31.580 00:13:31.580 --> 00:13:43.080 (sound of the Disc Grabber 9000™ traveling back and forth)