Word: phonographs
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When RCA brought out its SelectaVision VideoDisc Player in 1981, it had visions of a huge new market. Dubbed the Manhattan Project during 15 years of development, SelectaVision works much like a phonograph. A diamond needle picks up video and audio signals from the tiny grooves of a silvery plastic disc whirling at 450 r.p.m. To operate the machine, which is connected to a TV set, the user simply inserts a disc and flips a lever...
Thomas Alva Edison, possessor of 1,093 patents, advertised with as much genius as he invented. The flyer for the early phonograph had a likeness of Uncle Sam, and the copy said, "Uncle Sam takes off his hat." Edison called the phonograph the Triumph. He made a million. -By Gregory Jaynes
...performances, shot and edited with perfunctory flash; others were like surrealistic visual riffs on the song, head comics for beginners, production numbers soaked in blotter acid. A technological catchall, video quickly became a generic name for these detonations of sight and sound, as those little items played on a phonograph were named for the way they were transcribed or recorded...
...Germans about to slaughter her, and her vision is a dream flash the moment before she dies. Early in the film, the villagers hear a faint but rousing rendition of The Battle Hymn of the Republic and imagine it is the American Army; in fact it is only a phonograph record, but the villagers believe, and one young man, scanning the hills, wipes tears from his eyes as he exclaims, "I see them...
...misunderstood, so maligned. Most people 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...