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 Post subject: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 03 Jan 2025, 19:12 
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I worked at DADC from 1994 to 1999 in the LD department. I started my LD collection at that time. I sold it off in the early 2000's and now have gotten back into it. It was a great time in life!
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 03 Jan 2025, 19:51 
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Home video was very exciting at that time. There were still loads of back catalog titles coming out that had at that point never been released before. Pre-code movies were having their scenes cut back in. Criterion was on a roll. LD players were advancing all the time, as were the discs. Home theater had yet to be reduced to streaming and soundbars. There was an amazing $500 LD box from Japan every month.

It was a slow fall from that to 2025, where “home theater section” now means “Netflix gift cards”. DVD was the start of it but there was no one single factor.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 03 Jan 2025, 19:59 
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I am enjoying the new (ish) Blu-Ray 4k UHD discs at home. I like to watch the LD, then the 4k. I have most of the movies on multiple formats, like Dune 1984 I have on LD, DVD and 4k UHD. And naturally I have all the Star Trek movies on every available format except VHS. I was never a VHS fan, idk why. I just watched Space Balls on DVD last night. Then I went and ordered the 4k... hahaha.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 03 Jan 2025, 22:52 
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Very cool, welcome to the forum, Jeff (if that is your name)!

I remember buying my first CDs made at DADC (marked "Digital Audio Disc Corp.") in early 1985, after others that were likely from Japan (marked "CSR Compact Disc") (CBS-Sony Records). Yay, a plant right here in the USA.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 26 Jan 2025, 17:04 
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Welcome to the forum, Jeff.


do you remember the injection molding machine brand that was used to
mold the discs? or the mold ,manufacturer?

My last job was Application/Service engineer for CD/CDR,DVD/DVD-+R,-R/W
and BluRay , almost 20 years ago


would be great if you can share some of your experience working at DADC Terre Haute
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 27 Jan 2025, 17:22 
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nidi wrote:
Welcome to the forum, Jeff.


do you remember the injection molding machine brand that was used to
mold the discs? or the mold ,manufacturer?

My last job was Application/Service engineer for CD/CDR,DVD/DVD-+R,-R/W
and BluRay , almost 20 years ago


would be great if you can share some of your experience working at DADC Terre Haute



I'm not sure what the molding machine manufacturer was or who made the mold. We made our own stampers, but the mold was made elsewhere. They were huge. There was a Sony robot that reached in to grab the disc and stack it on spindles. Well they branded it Sony away.

This is not it, but they looked similar to this: https://pl.mitsubishielectric.com/fa/pl_en/products/rbt/robot/vertical/rvfr-series/rv-4fr-d.html

This is an article with a photo of the CD/DVD molding machines we had: http://www.hughsnews.ca/sony-dadc-shifts-disc-production-overseas-sheds-80-workers-in-terre-haute-0062530

Here is a video that was not our plant, but they used the same reflective tech, the molding machine looks a bit different. But I used run the reflective machine some times:
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 27 Jan 2025, 19:39 
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Jeff, thanks for the info.

the video looks really old, judging from the player shown in the video, it must be from the late 80's. hope you had more modern equipment than shown in the video.
by mentioning the 'reflective' machine, you mean the vacuum deposition process
where the transparent discs are coated in?
or do you mean the mastering?


Thanks again for the info

Michael
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 27 Jan 2025, 20:20 
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nidi wrote:
Jeff, thanks for the info.

the video looks really old, judging from the player shown in the video, it must be from the late 80's. hope you had more modern equipment than shown in the video.
by mentioning the 'reflective' machine, you mean the vacuum deposition process
where the transparent discs are coated in?
or do you mean the mastering?


Thanks again for the info

Michael


The vacuum chamber and even the masks that had 3 discs per side were the exact same. The arm that pulled the discs out of the molding machine was very up to date at the time (1994 to 1999 when I was there. And we had way better players and drop out checkers. I was not in the mastering department. Only replication.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 27 Jan 2025, 20:29 
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yeah, is hard to imagine nowadays that Laserdiscs were hand loaded into the
vacuum chamber and the reflective layer deposited.

in the DVD era, I remember the cycle time for a DVD droped below 1.5s when I was
on a service call in China. unimaginable back in the days of LaserDisc manufacturing

You nay be aware, that discs coming from Sony DADC Terre Haute had a very high
LaserRot percentage compared to other plants.
do you know what the reason was for it?

heard the glue used didn't fully seal the reflective layer.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 27 Jan 2025, 21:21 
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I remember watching an episode of How its made with CDs and these types of machines, LD was just too old and larger this is why
it had more of a failure, but then again how much of a failure did it actually have when I watch an LD that is 40+ years old and its the same as when it was
bought 40 years ago.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 27 Jan 2025, 23:28 
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Yeah. I watch LDs all the time. Almost never encounter rot. To me LD is a very reliable format and has been so for me for three decades.
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All about LD care, inner sleeves, shrink wrap, etc.

https://youtu.be/b3O-vHpHRpM
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 28 Jan 2025, 07:21 
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Would you have any funny stories from the DADC era to tell?

Did you keep any prototypes or promotional materials?

Julien
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 28 Jan 2025, 21:09 
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nidi wrote:
yeah, is hard to imagine nowadays that Laserdiscs were hand loaded into the
vacuum chamber and the reflective layer deposited.

in the DVD era, I remember the cycle time for a DVD droped below 1.5s when I was
on a service call in China. unimaginable back in the days of LaserDisc manufacturing

You nay be aware, that discs coming from Sony DADC Terre Haute had a very high
LaserRot percentage compared to other plants.
do you know what the reason was for it?

heard the glue used didn't fully seal the reflective layer.


I would suspect the glue also. Scientifically, I do not know. Just guesses. We did not hand load the discs on to the masks. We had a robot that did that for us. Our cycle times for reflective were between 15 and 25 minutes for a batch of 72 sides/ 36 full discs.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 28 Jan 2025, 21:11 
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signofzeta wrote:
Yeah. I watch LDs all the time. Almost never encounter rot. To me LD is a very reliable format and has been so for me for three decades.



True! I only have 1 disc with rot and it was not a DADC disc. Side 1 of Titanic. It is still watchable, the sound is cruddy.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 28 Jan 2025, 21:14 
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admin wrote:
Would you have any funny stories from the DADC era to tell?

Did you keep any prototypes or promotional materials?

Julien


It was not funny at the time, but it is now! We glued Terminator to Disney's Fantasia. I can imagine some rich well-to-do family flipping that disc and seeing T1 smashing things naked! LOL The only thing I kept was a few pay stubs and my ID badge.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 02 Feb 2025, 01:07 
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Hi jeffelledge91,

Sorry for the belated welcome to LDDb. It's so good to have you here with us! Thanks for sharing your memories of working in the Terre Haute DADC plant. I was wondering if you have any recollection of any drastic changes that may have occurred there around the middle of 1995? It seems that this was around the time when something went deeply, darkly, desperately wrong there. I don't know if you are aware of the so-called "magic number" on DADC pressed discs. This is the fact that the number of rotted discs from the plant seemed to increase dramatically when the "LDVS-" batch numbers etched on the discs surpassed 2700. This seems to have occurred sometime in mid-1995. Before that, the discs from this plant were quite reliable, and very few rotted ones appeared on the market. The discs with the low "LDVS-" numbers, i.e. the ones pressed there in the early 90's, are of very good quality, and rotted ones from that period are quite rare indeed, at least from my experience. This would suggest that something bad happened there around the middle of 1995. Something changed, and not for the better! The evil demon of laser rot :twisted: crept into the facility somehow, and gained a foothold there that it never relinquished up to the time of the plant's shutdown. DADC Terre Haute was getting worse when virtually all of the other plants were getting better! :thumbdown: What a shame indeed, because that facility should have been producing quality discs by that point in time. My theory is that something was changed in mid-1995, either in the raw materials being used there, or in the manufacturing process itself. The only other theory I have had is that perhaps, after the plant got the huge contract with Columbia Tristar to press virtually all their titles, they simply got in over their heads. They were unable to keep up with the gigantic increase in the workload, and may have allowed the quality control measures in place to slip very badly. Do you recall anything in the way of major changes in any of these areas around that time? You were there when the infamous "point of no return" happened. I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on this.

Also, I just acquired a copy of a disc released in Malaysia which was pressed at DADC Terre Haute! :o The title is "Improper Conduct", a nice little "erotic thriller" from 1994 with the reference number MR-804. The publisher is listed on the labels as Showcase Entertainment, but the back of the jacket also lists Marrex SDN. BHD., Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Thankfully, the LDVS- batch number on it is 2560, and it is completely rot-free! :thumbup: For all I know, you may have made this disc yourself! I was wondering if you have any recollection of working on any discs pressed there for release to markets in other countries such as Malaysia? There are only four such titles I can find in the database. I own only one other, "Motor Psycho" (SK-1001), released by a publisher called Solar Krystal. However, it has a much lower batch number, 1742, and has a 1992 release date, so I'm pretty certain you didn't make it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this!

Sincere Thanks,
David (laserking)
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 03 Feb 2025, 13:12 
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laserking wrote:
Hi jeffelledge91,

Sorry for the belated welcome to LDDb. It's so good to have you here with us! Thanks for sharing your memories of working in the Terre Haute DADC plant. I was wondering if you have any recollection of any drastic changes that may have occurred there around the middle of 1995? It seems that this was around the time when something went deeply, darkly, desperately wrong there. I don't know if you are aware of the so-called "magic number" on DADC pressed discs. This is the fact that the number of rotted discs from the plant seemed to increase dramatically when the "LDVS-" batch numbers etched on the discs surpassed 2700. This seems to have occurred sometime in mid-1995. Before that, the discs from this plant were quite reliable, and very few rotted ones appeared on the market. The discs with the low "LDVS-" numbers, i.e. the ones pressed there in the early 90's, are of very good quality, and rotted ones from that period are quite rare indeed, at least from my experience. This would suggest that something bad happened there around the middle of 1995. Something changed, and not for the better! The evil demon of laser rot :twisted: crept into the facility somehow, and gained a foothold there that it never relinquished up to the time of the plant's shutdown. DADC Terre Haute was getting worse when virtually all of the other plants were getting better! :thumbdown: What a shame indeed, because that facility should have been producing quality discs by that point in time. My theory is that something was changed in mid-1995, either in the raw materials being used there, or in the manufacturing process itself. The only other theory I have had is that perhaps, after the plant got the huge contract with Columbia Tristar to press virtually all their titles, they simply got in over their heads. They were unable to keep up with the gigantic increase in the workload, and may have allowed the quality control measures in place to slip very badly. Do you recall anything in the way of major changes in any of these areas around that time? You were there when the infamous "point of no return" happened. I'd love to hear any thoughts you might have on this.

Also, I just acquired a copy of a disc released in Malaysia which was pressed at DADC Terre Haute! :o The title is "Improper Conduct", a nice little "erotic thriller" from 1994 with the reference number MR-804. The publisher is listed on the labels as Showcase Entertainment, but the back of the jacket also lists Marrex SDN. BHD., Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Thankfully, the LDVS- batch number on it is 2560, and it is completely rot-free! :thumbup: For all I know, you may have made this disc yourself! I was wondering if you have any recollection of working on any discs pressed there for release to markets in other countries such as Malaysia? There are only four such titles I can find in the database. I own only one other, "Motor Psycho" (SK-1001), released by a publisher called Solar Krystal. However, it has a much lower batch number, 1742, and has a 1992 release date, so I'm pretty certain you didn't make it. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this!

Sincere Thanks,
David (laserking)


Well, I started in mid 1994 and stayed until late 1999. I was not working in the clean-room until 1996. As machine operators, we were never told of raw material changes, we just ran the machines. As for the QC, we only had 6 molding machines and 2 reflective machines, our capacity was 10,000 completed discs per day. They staffed to that number and I do not think anyone slacked on checks. We were ISO certified and audited on our numbers often. We had and AV department that watched every 72 discs that were molded. We had 2 different points in the process where the discs were 100% checked. I think the rot did not become evident until years later. We heard about it here and there, but it was never a major issue for us. I do not know what the target life of the discs were. I suspect 20 years. I know they had an environmental replication chamber to try to simulate life of the discs after periods of time. But I was not part of that. I often suspect they changed the adhesive glue and it caused issues. IDK.
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 Post subject: Re: Former DADC Terre Haute employee in the LD department
PostPosted: 03 Feb 2025, 16:42 
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In fact rot was a huge issue…they just didn’t seem to know about it at DADC USA…which is why it was a huge issue.

Rot was a thing that was pretty much solved in the 80s and then came back, in the US at least, at just this one plant which seemed to rediscover rot and make more of it than ever.

The most famous is the hilariously named hilariously bad: Eraser (1996) [14202]

LDs obviously do last 20 years, 40 years even…unless they came from PDO UK or DADC USA in in which case they may rotted on the store shelves before you could even watch it once! They didn’t last 20 *days* in many cases.

Certainly not all discs from this plant rotted, not even half. However when it comes to defective plants in the US this is the worst one with no real runner up.
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