I've just gone CED! :)

[jgantert]

Just picked up a former RCA employee's CED collection. It consisted of 7 CED players (5 working), 975 or so titles, 43 styluses, and various other CED items. Quite the collection. It filled a Grand Caravan and an Isuzu Axiom!

Just a little background for those who don't know anything about CED. It was a RCA product of the early 80's (from about 1981 till around 1984). Basically a 12" video record that was housed in a 1/4" plastic caddy. Each weighted about 1lb, stored about 60 minutes per side. So longer movies were on multiple discs, and like laserdiscs, you have to flip the disc after 60 minutes.

The early models were manual loading, and mono. Later models were stereo with remote. And the final models were random-access (ie: chapter and time search, just like a modern DVD player).

Strange technology, for sure. Now that HD DVD is dead, I thought I'd search out some other dead technologies, and this is what I found. Basically its about the PQ of a new VCR tape. Attached are two pictures of the pile of players, and the stack of discs on the floor (the long row of movies are about 10 feet long!).

More info on CED (aka RCA Selectavision Videodiscs) can be found at RCA VideoDisc Web Site - CED Magic .

-John

 

[charper1]

Sweet collector's find.

I rotated and reposted photo #2.

 

[jgantert]

Well, if there is any interest, I can post more pictures of the players. Specifically, the differences between the early and late models. Strange how they totally changed the designs.

In the early models, the discs stayed stationary, and the turntable moved up to the disc and started playing. In the late models, the turntable was stationary, and the disc was poped out of the insert and dropped onto the turntable.

Somehow, I seem to find there is little to no interest in CED at all. Even on eBay. The owner said I was the only one interested. I picked up the collection for free, with the stipulation that I take everything. I promised I would not sell it on eBay, although the owner didn't require that. I just hate it when people flip good collections like this on eBay.

One really cool thing in there is the Memories of Videodisc CED that was given to the employee's when RCA stopped CED production. I haven't watched it yet, tho.

-John

 

[mikew]

I had a Doobie Bros. concert on one of those disks and it was the best live performance I've ever seen of the group. It was in stunning stereo! The needle on it went south and the player was never fixed. The discs were tossed some time after I left my parents' home. IIRC, the discs in white sleeves were mono and blue were stereo...

 

[jgantert]

Mike, I looked last night. That disc is in there still sealed. I'll have to try it out some day.

Watched XTRO last night. Great movie, btw. Lots of strange movies made back in the day that never made it onto DVD. XTRO did, but lots of them weren't as lucky.

 

[ussexplroer]

oh yea, I was into that for a while

I was into those for a while. But my dad chucked the player out of his garage. Not that it was to bad. All of the discs skipped towards the end in the player. Found it was a player problem. So I donated my collection of about 30 movies to the thrift store. From my understanding a person who collected them picked them up. So good for me. I would rather see them collected than chucked. If you search around. THere use to be a site for a guy who had like all the titles but like 10 or some crazy thing like that.

As for now I collect Laser Discs. Up to three and going on 4 milk crates. LOL

Later,

Josh

 

[jayn_j]

As for now I collect Laser Discs. Up to three and going on 4 milk crates. LOL

Later,

Josh

I am stillplaying and enjoying laserdiscs. I bought one of the first players sold in the Denver test market back in 1978, and have collected about 800 titles, including some strange stuff like the 1978 Sears summer catalog, various demo discs, a couple of laserdisc based mystery games, etc. There is also a lot that never has been released on DVD.

 

[PopcornNMore]

I loved the CED videodisc players and movies. I have a good sized collection myself, but nothing near what you found. I still check EBay from time to time.

 

[jgantert]

Cool! Glad to find someone else still enjoying it! Just watched the 2nd side of the Memories of Videodisc CED. Prety cool, they have a tour of how the movies and players are made. I actually have the "puck" that the discs are pressed from, as well as the enlarged mock-up of the grooves and stylus that was in that film. Pretty amazing stuff. I'm suprised they could keep everything so dust free during that process.

-John

 

[phonegunner]

I have 5 players (in various stages of working to non-working) with a couple remotes (the square ones) and about 170 discs if anyone is desiring to start off with a bang...

contact me via email twconrad@gmail.com if any interest...

 

[MW390]

Now all you need to complete your collection is the 1 videodisc player that never got to market in the US. Hitachi's "stylus like" player

Video disc player skip/arm servo system - Patent 4550348

 

[jayn_j]

Now all you need to complete your collection is the 1 videodisc player that never got to market in the US. Hitachi's "stylus like" player

Video disc player skip/arm servo system - Patent 4550348

That was the VHD capacitence disc. I actually saw a demo of that unit. It was a big improvement over CED, but too late for the market. Besides I was very committed to LD by then.

BTW, laserdisc did not kill CED. It took LD 5 years to recover from that war. CED died from 3 things. First was that its own reliability issues started surfacing. Second, the VHS rental market emerged. Third, video salesman were very effective with the "can't record" as a selling point for VHS, even though 80% of all VHS recorders flashed "12:00" their entire life.

 

[jgantert]

Well, according to the Memories of Videodisc, they said it was a huge hurdle trying to sell $500 players, and RCA was bleeding badly trying to market the players. Sounds like the disc sales were ok (the claim was 20-30 discs per player, and somewhere around 15M discs actually sold). The narrator actually used the word sold, not shipped or manufactured (like the marketing folks would have done today).

No mention of VHS or laserdisc in why CED was cancelled by RCA.

No doubt the size of CED media vs VHS media has something to do with why VHS would be more popular. Do you know how big my cabinet is that has to store the 900+ CED's that weigh 900+ lbs? That thing is HUGE! I honestly never even heard of CED up until recently.

 

[jayn_j]

Well, according to the Memories of Videodisc, they said it was a huge hurdle trying to sell $500 players, and RCA was bleeding badly trying to market the players. Sounds like the disc sales were ok (the claim was 20-30 discs per player, and somewhere around 15M discs actually sold). The narrator actually used the word sold, not shipped or manufactured (like the marketing folks would have done today).

No mention of VHS or laserdisc in why CED was cancelled by RCA.

No doubt the size of CED media vs VHS media has something to do with why VHS would be more popular. Do you know how big my cabinet is that has to store the 900+ CED's that weigh 900+ lbs? That thing is HUGE! I honestly never even heard of CED up until recently.

Well, that was probably a candid account, and what they producer probably believed, but at the time all video equipment was selling for that much. If I remember correctly, RCA was taking the Toshiba approach and undercutting prices on both Laserdisc and Videocassette. I recall that the latter two were hovering around $600 at the time.

I can believe that RCA was bleeding from the software side as they also underpriced the discs. I remember CED disks from $10-20 while Laser was $25-35 during this period. Never a good thing to sell the razor and give away the blades.

 

[styxfix]

I actually have have a couple CED from Japan. Just got them for the novelty factor. They were always much bigger in Japan then the US.

 

[MW390]

That was the VHD capacitence disc. I actually saw a demo of that unit. It was a big improvement over CED, but too late for the market. Besides I was very committed to LD by then.

BTW, laserdisc did not kill CED. It took LD 5 years to recover from that war. CED died from 3 things. First was that its own reliability issues started surfacing. Second, the VHS rental market emerged. Third, video salesman were very effective with the "can't record" as a selling point for VHS, even though 80% of all VHS recorders flashed "12:00" their entire life.

Thanx....I couldnt remember the acronym for that system. And CED was killed because at the time RCA got a new CEO and he looked at it and decided to get rid of it. Dont remember his name either. That was around the time GE decided that unless a product line made a certain amount of $ they got rid of it appropo of recent events where GE has decided to NOT bring good things to life by selling its appliance division. More money in TV and bombs I guess