Pioneer LC-V300 LaserKaraoke Autochanger

[Dave A]

Could it be a playback unit for some low-power, unmanned station of the day showing all the out-of-copyright LD's they could find?

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by Dave A

Could it be a playback unit for some low-power, unmanned station of the day showing all the out-of-copyright LD's they could find?

From the video in the OP Pioneer sold a variant of this model that was marketed for CATV broadcasters. I can totally see in the 90's one of the many Japanese media outlets distributing episodes of programming on laserdiscs and the autochangers would hold several days of programming and movies but it must of been WAY more expensive to setup than a conventional cassette autochanger.

Anyways I'll have to wait until next weekend to buy the service manual, then I can start really poking at it.

[MIPS]

Well that was a waste of $6. Paid for the service manual, got redirected to the download link and...

Can't connect to mysql server: remote_down@127.0.0.1

$*&@ing useless websites.

[centralradio]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Well that was a waste of $6. Paid for the service manual, got redirected to the download link and...



$*&@ing useless websites.

That really sucks . Sorry to hear that.I would report that to the credit card company.It sounds like fraud to me.

Thats why I dont bother with corrupt pay sites .I dont support their bad corrupt habits,I dont support their retirement .I wait and hopefully a manual will show up on a free site somewhere.Most of the time they download it for free from a free site and put the same manual on their pay site.Some stuff I end up waiting up to a couple of years and it finally shows up on a free site.One thing does drive me nuts on this forum and other forums is somebody says they have a service manual and dont want to share it publicly with the rest of members on this forum or other forums.They say quote" I'll sent it to you PM or Please PM your email and I send it to you".

[MIPS]

It took about 24 hours but I got an email back from their technical support.
Apparently their datacenter is in Florida, so I'll have to forgive them for the initial unavailability, because it isn't like there's a giant storm rolling through the state or something....
I managed to get the PDF directly emailed to me in the end. It's a 30mb pdf but it is indeed the entire service manual.
Unfortunately the CO-V300 and the communications protocol is not discussed.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by MIPS

Unfortunately the CO-V300 and the communications protocol is not discussed.

I wonder is there is a way reverse engineer it. Like reading the program off a MCU in the system or something?

[MIPS]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

I wonder is there is a way reverse engineer it. Like reading the program off a MCU in the system or something?

I really need to see how the CO-V300 works. There are clearly four data lines going to and from the unit and I know 4-bit data buses exist for other embedded interfaces. It just makes things a little bit more complex.
If I had access to a working system I could attach a Logic Analyzer and just log the transmitted data as I entered regular commands form the controller. From there it is separating each portion of the command and repacking it for an Arduino to emulate.

Or of course, find a CO-V300.

As for reading commands directly from the onboard CPU that might be a challenge as the CPU and ROM appear to be integrated into the same chip. There might be data lines leaving the chip for whatever reason but the chip seems custom fabricated, else I would of expected something like an Intel MCS-48.

[centralradio]

Originally Posted by MIPS

It took about 24 hours but I got an email back form their technical support.
Apparently their datacenter is in Florida, so I'll have to forgive them for the initial unavailability, because it isn't like there's a giant storm rolling through the state or something....
I managed to get the PDF directly emailed to me in the end. It's a 30mb pdf but it is indeed the entire service manual.
Unfortunately the CO-V300 and the communications protocol is not discussed.

Oh thats great news Mips.Too bad on no info on the communications protocol circuits . .Probably power outages from Irma was the problem with them..