 PR-7820 |
 Model 1, 2 & 3 |
PR-7820 |
Model 1, 2 & 3 |
The first and only player to conform to the MCA DiscoVision specifications is also arguably one of the best players
to view DiscoVision discs on. The player is an industrial player, put to use in nearly every General Motors
dealership in 1979-80 to show off the 1980 line of autos as well as a source of training films on everything from
carburetor repair to customer service. This model (under the nameplate Pioneer Model 3) was tucked neatly
underneath thousands of 
arcade video
games. Those with a talent for digging could also find them in 
arcade conversions. Just goes to show you the player can really take the punishment of constant use.
Pressing Play spins the disc in the opposite direction from conventional LaserDisc players as the pickup is
mounted above the disc. The disc then slides underneath the pickup and begins playback. Genuinely suited to play
the General Motors discs, the player gets programmed by a data signal, encoded on Analog right during in the
first 100 frames. The onboard memory is loaded and the program executed for what ever the disc program contains.
The feature can be disabled by shutting off Audio Right/2 before disc sync is attained. A programming example was
the Buick's 1980 line of cars which was presented as a short little program, which then returned to the beginning
of the disc and and presented a menu of choices like standard features and all available options. It really was
very ingenious. Today, a very similar functionality is found with CD-Rom discs loaded into Windows95 workstations
with Auto Insert Notification which starts the program contained on the ROM automatically. An amazing
accomplishment for MCA considering it was all conceived and executed in 1978, a full 2 years before the IBM PC was
even introduced.
The player incorporates a fully solid-state tangential system to compensate for time based correction errors, rather
than utilizing a moving mirror. This practice was dropped from all LaserDisc players after the PR-7820 was
discontinued until being reintroduced 6 years later with the Pioneer LD-909 player. The system yields an excellent
picture, but because of the newness of the CLV Extended play format at the time of its introduction, suffers from
crosstalk problems on CLV discs. Regardless, when properly adjusted, the PR-7820 will play nearly any disc it is
offered.
On startup, the player will search to Frame 1. Since nearly all DiscoVision Side 1's begin with Frame 0 buried
within the opening bumper and hold on 0 until the film actually starts, standard playback will avoid the bumpers.
The exception is CLV discs, which, like the LD-660, simply begins playback at the inside
limit. Again, this can vary from player to player.
The player also ignores all normal Philips code based information, including chapter number, end of side and
AutoStop codes. This allows the disc to scan beyond the coded end of side and for the proper playback
of Frenzy Side 5. Since CLV was viewed as a Playback only format,
the player does not include Pause or Searching functions on these discs. However, the scan function is so quick,
you can scan from beginning to end of a CLV disc in just a few seconds.
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Last Updated: November 17, 1998
Copyright ©1998 Blam Entertainment Group
