A strobe is timed to the revolution speed of a CD to make the label appear to freeze motion so that it can be read as the CD plays. This would be installed in a top-mount CD player with a clear top.
It would be necessary only to light up the label at a fraction of the actual CD's rotation speed (50-125 Hz for a rotational speed of 200-500 RPM).
The control would be a push button, momentary affair, to prevent causing medical issues with epileptics. The push button control would also include a rotation control (push and turn) to adjust the orientation of the label's apparent position to assist in reading.-- Cedar Park, Feb 04 2003 Why would you need to do this? Why didn't you read it before you put it in the player?-- waugsqueke, Feb 04 2003 To make sure it's in the machine right side up, of course.-- snarfyguy, Feb 04 2003 Sorry, I didn't. Lost the liner notes as well. This idea could be used for CD carousels, where sometimes you have no idea what CD is in which position.-- Cedar Park, Feb 04 2003 //different designs on the disc // ... Doable, however, since the angular velocity is constantly changing, it would only be clearly visable in the middle of the song. One image would appear to fade into the next during the playing of the CD.-- Cedar Park, Feb 04 2003 What if it's a disc you're not familiar with, or 'dang, I forget, what's after this one?' What if it's someone else's CD that's playing?
In short, there are enough uses for it all right. Croissant.-- galukalock, Feb 04 2003 Some car stereos I've seen display the album/artist/track name , so it must be possible for home units to do this as well instead of having all those stupid level bars that appear to run at you from a long way off...mumble...VU meters, knew where you were in those days...mumble...where's my blanket?-- egbert, Feb 04 2003 It's over here, covering up your reel-to-reel player. *hands egbert his blanket*-- Cedar Park, Feb 04 2003 //Some car stereos I've seen display the album/artist/track name...// That's called "CD Text" (or "DVD Text") when done on playable disks, my player will display that info. I've found a disappointingly tiny percentage of commercial disks actually bother to support it, unfortunately. Good CD burning software supports it, so you can include it on mix disks you burn for yourself if you want.-- krelnik, Feb 04 2003 I like this concept. Actually, it relates to another idea I had back around 1990: make disks with a laser-readable marker for which way should be considered "up" on the label; a suitably-advanced player could then automatically rotate the disk so as to be readable whenever the player stopped and it was ejected.-- supercat, Feb 04 2003 Does anyone else always replace CDs in the cases with the writing the right way up, or am I excessively picky?(Nice idea, btw.)-- angel, Feb 05 2003 ...and then put back in alphabetical order (by artist) on your CD shelf?-- hippo, Feb 05 2003 {Rods]: That's what I meant.[hippo]: Yes, 'fraid so. Alphabetically by artist (forename first, if a solo artist) then chronologically by release date. This applies to vinyl albums, CDs and (theoretically) cassettes; vinyl singles are just stuffed into a box.-- angel, Feb 05 2003 am I the only untidy person around here?-- po, Feb 05 2003 no.-- snarfyguy, Feb 05 2003 This could be used for the idea about the "Record-Player" cd player, so you could have the feel of old vinyls, with the capacity and convienence of modern (1980's) technology.-- DemolitionMan, Feb 05 2003 awesome idea. my croissant's off to you.
p.s. regarding cd text... i always put it on my burned cds cuz the kenwood in my car can read 'em, but as for commercial discs? well let's just say that i own about 275 cds and i'm pretty sure only ONE (john mayer) has cd text.-- SquidInk, Feb 05 2003 funny I *knew* you were going to say that. my mum had one too with a liquidiser. her coffee walnut cake mmm-- po, Feb 05 2003 Ok, I just have to add my two cents :)
I, almost exactly similar to Angel, arrange my CDs on my shelf by first latter in the artist name (except a and the, of course), with writing side up and oriented (mostly) so writing is the right way around... But, anyways...
I would like to add to this idea.. You could acctually do some very fun things:
1) Modify the strobe hz just a tiny bit so that it appears to rotate slowly (for vinyl buffs)
2) a toggle for an ultra-violet LED so that artist could watermark the disc with an image that would only come up in the player.
Nice idea :)-- JackandJohn, Feb 05 2003 No need for UV dies to have a special player-only image. Just have bright red and green LED's that are illuminated at different points in the rotation. The visual effect will be that the cyan and magenta printing on the disk will be rotated relative to each other,
Actually, even just having one light flash twice per revolution could allow for some interesting effects, though it would make disks that weren't specifically designed for such lighting look like gibberish. Of course, I guess the red/green thing would have that problem too.-- supercat, Feb 06 2003 you lost me [rods] and [po]... what are you talking about? must be a non-US thing.-- SquidInk, Feb 07 2003 [Cedar Park] wrote //angular velocity is constantly changing// a very long time ago. That wouldn't be a problem - just change the strobe to match.-- mgangemi, Feb 07 2003 [krelnik] What make is your CD player? Coz CD text tends to appear mostly on Sony CD players from what I've seen, and therefore the CD's that'll get read most often will be CD's from Sony or any of their smaller related recodring labels.-- kaz, Feb 07 2003 Perhaps with some mirrors and some lenses, you could even do a display on the front of a unit, or even a heads-up display. I think it would be pretty cool!-- trekbody, Feb 07 2003 I still have a Technics CD player, circa 1984, that has a glass prism on the top front edge of it. When you look straight at the front of unit, you can see a small section of the CD as if it were vertically oriented.-- Cedar Park, Feb 08 2003 Your intuition is correct [kaz], my player is a Sony.-- krelnik, Feb 08 2003 Steve; Or any number of fun effects... Howabout a manual dial to control the strobe?-- JackandJohn, Feb 11 2003 random, halfbakery