H.3 Recording a New Movie to Laser Disk

1. Turn on power to Panasonic recorder and Sony monitor labeled `Laser Disk Recorder'.
2. Find the disk you want to record on (it may be in the recorder). Note that each disk has two sides. The `up' side is the active side. Note also that there is blue `write protect' sliding switch on the right side of each side of the disk. Move this switch to its right hand position (`read/write') using a Bic pen or equivalent tool. Now insert the laser disk you want to record on into the recorder after first ejecting the disk already in there if there is one.
3. Log onto sxt0 on an X terminal
4. Enter IDL
5. At the prompt do this: IDL> ptestLook at the monitor. If after a few seconds a test pattern appears the equipment is properly set up and you may proceed. If no test pattern appears or if it looks unusual then something is wrong. Refer to section IV on problems below.
6. Images may be recorded either from an SDA file or from a data cube resident in memory. The images will be re-sized to fit within the 630 x 486 size of the Peritek video image. The re-sizing will use linear interpolation unless the /NOINTERP option is used, By default they will be centered. The images may be of any size. If they are in a data cube then the entire cube will be normalized to its maximum value and byte scaled, unless the /NOSCALE keyword is used in the procedure call. If the images are in an SDA file the images must be pre-scaled by the user. Decide on a color table. A gray scale (IDL standard color table 1) will be used by default. If the color table desired is not one of the first 15 IDL standard color tables then you must supply r, g, and b color vectors.
7. Decide what frame on the laser disk you wish to start recording at. The IDL recording program will automatically find the first sufficiently large unrecorded area if you skip this step. To do this manually, type: IDL> command_pana,'OF'  Type the `display' button on the remote controller to display the current frame number on the monitor. Then use the remote controller to play or scan through the disk until you find the frame number at which you want to start recording. Key the number of frames you wish to record using the keypad. Then hit the red `rec mode' key. This will verify that there are enough contiguous blank frames available following the selected frame.
8. Suppose you have the cube in a 3-D IDL array called DATA and the color vectors in the variables R,G, and B. Here's how to record it: IDL> pana_record,data,r=r,g=g,b=b,/record
9. For recording images from an SDA file the call would be IDL> pana_record,file_name,r=r,g=g,b=b,/recordwhere file_name is a string naming the SDA file, including path. More information on this routine can be obtained like this: IDL> doc_library,'pana_record'

• H.3.1 Panasonic Problems