Date   : Wed, 09 Jan 2008 14:54:47 -0600
From   : julesrichardsonuk@... (Jules Richardson)
Subject: Domesday LV Player

Joel Rowbottom wrote:
> - If you connect the Master through the player, nothing appears on screen - 
> however, connecting the Master to a standard CUB monitor directly works 
> fine.

Hmm. I suspect the player knows there's a fault though and so might not be 
mixing video data until the fault's resolved.

Random thought, but pop the lid (kill the power with the tray ejected so it's 
not in the way) and check the tray position switch assembly - there are two 
lever-arm switches detecting tray position, and I've seen a player before 
where one of the switch arms had broken off (they're quite large, but not 
particularly robust).

I'm not sure what the behaviour would be in such a situation, but I suppose 
it's possible that the player's detecting you pushing the tray closed and then 
sucking it in - but it then gets upset because it never sees a "tray fully 
closed" signal, and bails after some timeout. The player wouldn't spin up a 
disc until it knows for sure that the tray's properly shut.

(check the associated wiring too, just in case the tray's managed to damage it)

> I'm guessing it's either the spin-up mechanism or the logic controlling it, 
> but is there anything else I can do to narrow this down please? Trying to 
> find a service manual is impossible

It's annoying; I don't even know which box I put mine in back in the UK, so 
it's not like I can even get someone to send it along to me ahead of my other 
stuff :( (and of all my Domesday printed stuff, it's the one thing I didn't 
scan yet)

 > and I can't find an equivalent model
> service manual out there (even without the SCSI bits and bobs).

I suspect a lot of the guts are electrically equivalent to a different Philips 
model, but I'm not sure which. I've not seen a case style the same before 
(with the SCSI/genlock 'slice' missing).

I've got a flyer for Acorn's Viewpoint AIV workstation flyer which shows a 
Cambridge Workstation (although Acorn call it an AVC900!) hooked up to a 
Philips VP831 laservision player, but there's no guarantee that the VP415 was 
the successor (or related) to that model...

> There is nothing coming out of the SCART socket to video.

See above - I suspect the player's upset because it knows there's a fault.

> I doubt this, but is it possible it's the DIP switch settings on the back 
> of the player? These are all in the 'off' position.

No, they're all off* on mine, too (I managed to find my photos!) - at least 
for the SCSI/genlock slice (the four for the RS232 rate selection are all on)

* the op. manual says that 5,6,7 are the SCSI address, and that all other 
switches should be off. I've got a feeling that one of the others disables the 
bus termination, but I don't recall what the other four do.

> It's a complete Domesday system I acquired last year, even down to the 
> trackball and the remote control for the LV player - seems a shame if I 
> can't get the bugger to work properly :P

Those VP415's are a nightmare. Wonderful design on paper, but the actual build 
quality isn't particularly good.

cheers

Jules