If you look close at the 17:34 mark, under the microscope you can read the RCA logo from the beginning of the movie. Its a mirror image but it clearly shows up!
The dark and light pattern you see around 20:00 is what an incrementing binary sequence (00000000, 00000001, 00000010, 00000011 ... 11111100 11111101 11111110 11111111) looks like as pixels. Digital encoding of the frame number in one line of the vertical blanking interval. Didn't some players read that code for random seek?
@@coyote_den There is nothing binary about this format. Pure analog. Those are test signals recorded in the first 21 lines, including closed captions and the analog macrovision signals ect. There will also be a multi burst and color bars, as well as aVIR reference and anything else in the VITS (Vertical Interval Test Signals) area of the NTSC frame.
Technology Connections did a great video on the history on this format and has done lots of videos about the history and development of lots of different types of media. Definitely a channel worth looking at if you are into old stuff like this.
I just picked up a 1982 RCA Selectavision CED player yesterday, and it works! I also got a 1981 Selectavision RCA VCR with optional remote control system too. So much woodgrain :D
I would like to add: our CED player came with a free disc. On Golden Pond. We never seen that movie before, I was skeptical it would be any good, because it was free. We actually loved it. Our local tv and appliance store sold us a new CED player, but it didn't work out of the box. So they exchanged it for the store Demo player. July 31, 1982. What memories! Yes, I remember dates . Not of everything, just important things.
There are actually some NOS stylus cartridges available on eBay. Though of course they are absurdly priced. Those microscope shots of the disc were really cool to see. Thanks for that!
Who do I see about getting that hour back? LOL...I wish the video was longer...listening to you drone on about dead video technology pushes all of my buttons. If you had a matched set of screwdrivers or a clean workbench you'd lose some of your charm. Thanks for bringing some much needed meaning to my life...really.
I was actually hoping that this was going to be repairable and that it would have been just lubricating and so forth or that it was a disc that was causing the problem and I actually thought that that's what the issue was right to the end. I'd actually finished the video and left it on a note that I thought it was the disc and just before going to put the thing together I just happened to by accident push down on that spindle while it was running and the picture cleared and it was like holy crap it's the platter it's the bearing! I had suspected that the bearing might have been causing the problem just from the way that it seemed to resonate but I wasn't sure because the disc looking like it had a warp to it certainly could cause the same issue but it actually wasn't the desk it was the platter itself. Now I'm sure some of the old texts that worked on these things briefly in the early 1980s were probably laughing now knowing exactly what it was but myself not have had the privilege of ever working on any because I think the shop that I worked at sold a total of 2, and I never got to work on either of them. We sold one replacement stylus to one fellow that was gung-ho about the technology. Here's a kicker for you the shop had a break in we caught it all on video in 1984. The crooks grabbed about 50 VCRs they did not take one CED disk player. I'm kicking myself now because when RCA took all the units back they offered us a player at $25 and movies at $2 each when they were recalling them that was for the current movies that were already out that we had in the store and none of us took them up on that offer so they took them all away. I should have had the foresight that 40 years down the road this would be a highly collectible item and having one that was brand new in the box might be worth something.
Hello Dave , i was born in 73 portugal . I use to watch the muppets show wen i was a kid , the best memories of my childwood ! I Just want too adress something , i love the content of your channel your knowledge in old tech its amazing , big fan , lots of respect . ( To anyone woo read this comment please share the work of this gentlement ) I really believe you deserve mutch more views . Greetings from françe
My uncle had one of these and it has so many memories attached to it i would watch movies on it when i stayed over with them idk maybe thats some of the early beginnings with my fascination with electronics.
I found the same unit years ago and it had the same issue. The stylus would not advance in playback. I took the cover off and cleaned the gears where the wires were cut and that fixed it. Just grime from sitting all those years. I have about 2 stacks of movies about 3 ft tall collecting dust.
Wow, what an awesome piece of technology that I've never even heard of. I really appreciate the in-depth look and explanation, the close-up shots of the disk were so cool. Such a strange chain of events that delayed the release of this for so long, and the fact it even released at all is definitely strange to think about, since it was so outdated by that point
A friend of mine back in the day bought one of these. He actually joined a mail out club to gets his discs. When the tech went belly up the club sent him a list of their inventory. He was asked to tick 50 titles and they would send them for free. Indeed, a few weeks later he received a big box of 50 discs. I can definitely remember An American Werewolf In London and maybe even Debbie Does Dallas? Such fun!
Don't think there was ever any porn released. Laserdisk yes, because 3rd party manufactures released them but rca controlled 100% disk manufacturing and i doubt they would get involved with that. Too high risk of backlash.
I was maybe 10 years old. My dad lived with a friend of his. This friend was way up into the players and picture quality. He had the VHS, beta, AND the video disk player. I remember going to the Curtis Mathis store to rent movies. You would flip through those things like you were shopping for an audio record. I remember being all up into a movie and all a sudden 'Please Flip the Disk'. They had full sized satellite dish. One weekend he would go outside and crank a handle to change satellites, the next week he had a rotor. What the hell is a line doubler? LOL Good video. PS So uses constant velocity and not linear velocity like digital, got it.
My dad bought a CED player for my Grandma when they came out, I inherited it when Grandma died in the late '80's. It was a mono player, but we had one stereo disc: A live stage performance from the cast of the Fame! TV series. Some of the movies we had were The Wizard of Oz, Trading Places, Oklahoma, On Golden Pond and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It had a mechanical loading problem when I got it, and I fixed that. I enjoyed it well into to the early 2000's, but got rid of it when the stylus got too worn to play properly. I wish I still I had it for the "Museum Factor". I forgot the model number, but it was most likely a RCA SJT-090.
WOW! I even remember those units{ maybe not that unit but } when laser disc came out we actually rented one in 82 for my birthday to make it a special occasion but this format we never seen ... What a neat unit - Amazing it still works today well sort of...
I remember these. When I was a kid in a small town we used to rent the machines and the movies before we got a top loading Panasonic VHS machine on NYE 1983. My aunt and uncle actually owned one of these machines (a Toshiba), probably the worst investment they ever made lol.
As far as I remember reading, the stylus on a CED player was indeed diamond but had a trailing titanium electrode that was somehow bonded to the back of the diamond to provide the electrical and capacitive coupling which fed the signal to the rest of the player.
Yes you can see the tiny tip. I couldn't see that in prevue resolution that shows on the screen during editing, but it was certainly visible when rendered at full resolution.
We bought a CED player in 1982.Looks just like that one. Have a few dozen discs. The player stopped working a couple years ago. I was trying to copy to DVD. (They were specially edited for CED Gimme Shelter and Queen Greatest Flix). CED was what my father chose over Laserdisc. I noticed that some of the discs would skip a lot. I guess over the years dust got in or something. (60 minutes max per side) Believe it or not, we never replaced the Stylus. But we only used it for a couple years constantly until we got a VCR.
It's a common issue with the format and can occur for a multitude of reasons, including if the disc hadn't been played in a while. One of the things that can happen is that the silicone lubricant that was applied to the disc can form a smooth and glassy surface that the stylus must cut through to the groove, and sometimes it can't do that on the first run. Therefore, a conditioning play must be run before actually playing the disc for viewing ... and sometimes you may have to run it through more than once before you can bring down the frequency of skipping to a minimum. It's kind of amazing that the format even worked at all.
I actually replaced the cartridge on one of those machines , pretty nice picture! That was one of the problems with it, the cartridge didn't last long , disc would wear pretty fast!
If I remember right, the stylus was diamond made in a special lapping machine then had a metal contact plated/deposited on the back of it. That formed one plate of the capacitor, then the disc was a multilayer deal where the core was conductive (the second plate) and then the shell (thus the dielectric) was molded atop with the information. I lived in a town (Lancaster PA) with a pretty big RCA plant and R&D effort. That company tossed out great ideas left and right. Heatpipes were an invention of that plant - get rid of it, they said, no money in it. So the managers bought the patent and got rich. CED was something they kept. If it had come out ten years earlier when they were futzing with it, it would've been great, or if they went with their prototype tape system instead, they'd have been sitting pretty. But no. Bad management.
I think the diamond stylus was supposed to have been profiled into something resembling a keel shape profile. The metal contact on the diamond was probably formed using chemical vapour deposition and was connected to the rest of the stylus assembly and on to the rest of the player using a trailing titanium electrode as far as I have been able to glean through research.
The CED format was released in 1981. Player production terminated in 1984, owing to sales of players being well below projections; no point in making more players when you have a surplus. Disc production continued until 1986, followed by the acquisition and breakup of the RCA Corporation by General Electric. CED wasn't the only factor to cause RCA's downfall, but it was a major contributor to its failure as a company, considering how much money was lost because of the venture. That said, a big issue with RCA was that it basically had no leadership for almost two decades up to the point where it went under, so the company was all over the place with its diversification outside of its core business as well as mismanagement. It basically all started when David Sarnoff retired from the company, leaving the reins to his son, Robert Sarnoff ... and things went downhill from there.
That happens more often than you can imagine. Electronic parts shop. Original founder passed to his son when he retired and he ran the business for 40 years passing it to his son who promptly closed the business.
Its actually not that bad. I have seen far worse, namely any TV shop from the 1960s through the 2000s. There is a reason shops had a sign that said employees only. LOL. They all looked like this. Even the benches at Sony were cluttered.
I actually use mine. Not a lot, every few weeks I watch a disc. Pain in the backside to money wise to find one and get it to Australia, and then find somebody to service it. Have about 30 movies I think. Model I think is SGT-250. I’m on the lookout for a VHD player now….
There is a video on youtube titled "How to Service a F/G Model CED Videodisc Player" (Credit recognition: Josh Gibson ) with examples on how to remove the platter and some of the deeper consepts of its operation . the platter does set down on a braking surface in its lowered position.. dont know if examples like that will be any help but you can look at it if you wish. .
Yes I know. The lever below it raises and lowers it. The problem with this one is the bearing shown at the 49:37 point when I oiled it is worn. That plastic base is the bearing that the platter fits into. It's just worn out. When I pressed down on the disk centering hub i could feel it wandering around. This is what happens in belt drive equipment. There is the constant pull in the direction of the drive motor by the belt that wears the bearing more on one side then the other.
@@12voltvids You also have two sleeve bearings that interact with the turntable shaft that need to be lubricated. You can't get to those without removing the platter. And if those sleeve bearings are dry, they will induce drag.
My neighbor's dad bought a player and a few disks. One night we watched a movie over there. It was fine as long as you didn't touch the player or stomp much. It would start skipping and go insane.
The music background from RCA Selectavision VideoDiscs logo is from Isao Tomita- Pictures at an Exhibition, and I didn't know that. It's ironic that it was produced by RCA Victor Records.
Thanks for the video I remember those I'm old wow they must have spent Millions to develop that that's crazy the Edse of players that's cool thanks again have a great day I'm restoring a Kenwood KR 9600 it needs the world but the power packs are good
The track is called "Loose Connection" the artist is Dale Jacobs, from the vinyl "cobra". He was a Vancouver bc based composer and electronics engineer. Found out about him when i worked at the tv station. Was a friend of one of the engineers. He brought in the cream of studio musicians to cut that record. Yes he played synthesizers but had some big name musicians working with him at total sounds west. Features Jim valliance in drums. Joel wade bass, Bret Wade guitar Doug Louie on keys alone with Dale, also Tom lavin on guitar It's a great album. I met him once as he has been friends with the engineer at the tv station i worked at in early 80s and he gave me a copy as we had a copy we used as intro music. Sadly he passed away about 24 years ago. King cancer. Yes he was a smoker like many were back then.
With the sled motor disconnected, it could still play the first few seconds before skipping back because there is an "arm stretcher" transducer that does the fine positioning of the stylus. If you were digging deeper into it I'd check that next.
i remember growing up with these, my dad had a huge collection of the CED discs, they where cheap at the time and VHS and BETA was super expensive, he ended up selling it because VHS got cheaper later on, then years later he found a machine in goodwill (different than the one your showing) and gave it to me to fix all it needed was a drive belt, and i fixed it, i still have 1 disc the original 1953 the war of the worlds, but my stupid dad sold the machine among many other of my collectible stuff when moving, i was young at the time. and i got so pissed at him. no, actually a slight warp disc will play just fine the needle is not supposed to move like that. the needle is the problem it appears to be missing the back support wire (similar to the electrode wire) or rubber which holds it steady. and no, holding the center isnt the problem, not a bearing issue, your body is grounded which is how the disc operates low voltage electricity flows through the disc to the needle. there is a grounding brush on the platter shaft similar to the grounding brush on a vcr head drum. it could be clogged or missing.
No you can feel the platter shaking. There is not a viktage flowing through the disk. The dept of the Grove changes which changes the capacitence of the stylus. It rides in a totally smooth groove with noblateral or vertical movement. The signal is pressed in below the actual groove the stylus rides in. It reads the information below the groove. When i presses down on the spindle it actually removed contact from the disc. It was stopping the wobble that allowed the disc to play. Soon as I released the wobble returned.
@@12voltvids CED discs are made of conductive pvc with use of carbon a small voltage goes through the disc, to ground, its a grounding issue, this is causing the color issue, trust me, also i forgot to mention watching your video made me break out my RCA CED player SJT 300 which i bought years ago and replaced the stylus, found on ebay, my player has stereo and rca component outputs. along with the typical coax. i still have the remote. brings back soo much memories. someday id like to get more CEDs to collect.
@@jr-pl9kj Yes i kbow. I remember seeing a documentary on it. Forms a capacitor the disc being a grounded plate and tip of the stylus the other plate. Capatence changes. I never serviced this was the first one i have looked at. Have no idea what goes wrong. The disk did have tons of wobble. It wasnt just pushing down on the spindle but pull it slightly to atop the wobble.
@@12voltvids the wobbling thing, sounds like the platter needs oiling usually done under a bolt accessible under the machine in the center, i hope my comments can help you out. let me (or us viewers) know how it goes. there are service manuals for these CED machines available online for free in pdf format. heres a link manuals.lddb.com/CED_Players/RCA-SFT-100_EN__Service_Manual_Scan.pdf
I bought this unit at the thrift store a in November of last year. it was a player cost $9 it was a great deal not a steal. the stylus is intact when I try look for a outlet to see the player function works. but sure enough the power switch mode the light flashes see L. it stand for load disc on there. I bought the thing. took it home had some couple video discs from the previous thrift store to try it out test it see it's works. it works perfect. I just bought some couple of CED titles online they were National Geographic and Gloria both sealed copies. I was planning to get a few more RCA video disk movies they have. I used to have this I was so young I remember it was a Sears brand a clone version of the player like this. my parents bought it the first disc we watched was Star Trek the motion picture. the last disc my parents bought Popeye in stereo a blue caddy sleeve. those are my childhood memories I remember. now it's in my bookshelf cabinet for the rest of my vintage video disc player collections. it's so rare too own.
@@12voltvids wow that's cool. I have a laser disc player and another DVD and laser disc player and the Blu-ray player. also I have DVD recorder player and VCR combo player as well. they're all both from pioneer. 👍
There is a bunch of these on Ebay USA and there is one that comes with 16 movies but it sounds like it has the same issue as yours. The description reads- “This player works, takes the movie and plays. The color does fade and move, so repair may be necessary (possible new belt needed). Comes with all the movies shown and in original box with original styrofoam. Machine looks to be in almost unused condition. Please ask all questions before buying.”
It's junk just like this one. Worth 0 dollars. Just like the guy on Facebook now that was asking 75 for a broken DAT. Has had no bites so he has reduced to 50. Last broken DAT I bought was 10.00
Iv worked on a couple of these things Usually that model is actually very reliable. Most of the time they just need a new belt but they are very RPM picky and what you see there is typical of a dry or bad bearing, I have seen some guys bring them back to life
i had a chance to buy one of these players with a stack of movies a couple of years ago and i never seen or heard of the format. I kind of wish i had picked it up but then why bother if i had a good laser disc and vhs player. still pretty neat look into how this format operates.
I worked for an RCA dealer and there were continuous complaints of skipping. They had model numbers SFT-xxx, SGT-xxx and jumped to SJT-xxx. They probably skipped a model number starting with SHT because it was a piece of you know what!!! The shop display demo disc skipped like crazy. What a way to sell a product!!! 149000 was what RCA called a QT (Quick Turnover ) part. Stylus assembly. Actually the motor in this unit is only a 2 pole motor (not a 4 pole). Again. Cost cutting.
There use to be a place that rented these when I was kid (yes I'm old) this was my first experience watching the star wars trilogy. A side story about that place that rented only CEDs it burnt down and after reading about the format flopping years later I'm wondering if that fire was no accident.
There's another channel that did a deep dive on the CED format and development (not posting the exact name out of respect for your channel). Quick summary is that it was an ambitious product that took way too long to develop and your comments about Videotape killing it was very true. (Edit - obviously I wrote this before getting to the end as you mention this)
I remember seeing one of these things in Radio Shack. The video was stunning; it was broadcast quality - like 320 lines of resolution - over the air analog quality. The discs were constant angular velocity and would do a clear still frame. The discs and technology were flimsy and precarious., but when new was as good as laserdisc through analog RF connection.
No you didn't. You saw a laserdisk. In cav mode laser ebdided 1 frame let revolution. This does 4 per revolution. Laser disk had 340 lines resolution, broadcast quality. This piece of junk had 240, same as VHS.
@@12voltvids No it was CED Selectavision. I went back and checked; I am wrong about still frame. But checking specs online they claim it was superior to VHS and SVHS. I remember it looking vastly superior to VHS or Beta. Laserdisk has about 5 Mhz bandwidth or 400 lines. Of course with RF connection best you can get is 320.
@@12voltvidsRadio Shack did sell a CED player model, the Realistic CED-1, made by Hitachi. Of course, Radio Shack also did sell a LaserDisc player much later on, the Realistic MD-1000, made by Funai Electric. But, yes, CED could not do still frame video because one single disc rotation is four frames of video. To have a still frame with CED, you'd have to have four frames of the same image. The only thing that came close to that were still frame images made specifically for Interactive CED titles, and the only machines that could play those as intended were the RCA SJT-400 and SKT-400 random access players.
movies on a vinyl, that's new. or should i say old? Thinking about the "invalid traffic" on channel, i hope youtube doesn't see it as such when i start a video on thursday evening, pause it and resume on friday. when i do that, youtube reloads the video
The yield rates for early laserdisc pressing at the DiscoVision plant near LA were awful, apparently in the single digits at the beginning. So if you bought a disc you were also paying for all the ones they threw out. I think it took Pioneer buying the plant and retooling it to get them up to acceptable levels. The stylii for these machines are also quite sophisticated and complex to make; apparently when they killed the format RCA made enough spares to satisfy their projected demand for replacements from existing machines and then decommissioned the tooling (I wonder how long you could get them from RCA). And I've actually seen used CED movies for sale at BMV Books in Toronto multiple times (somebody bought them, and they didn't sit in the store for months either).
That your colour varies on playback is due to the variations in speed. Might be the drive belt or the platter's magnetism is lacking. And don't try to adjust those front switches. Thanks for the video.
This episode reminded me of the odd equipment Matt from Techmoan does on His channel.. The shop I worked for, Starting in 84 was a full fledged High end Audio / Video store. I worked in the Telephone / Sound dept till 2021. We sold the GOOD Stuff HAHAHAHAHA... I never saw a Video Disk in the Store, But there was a new in the box laserdisc Player sitting there till the Day the Shop closed up 6 Months After I retired. The Store front actually closed about 1990 and we were just Phone & Sound from then on. Randy may have it the Storage locker yet ?? Thanks Dave...
Laserdisk players are different and also highly collectable due to the volume of music and concert footage that was only released on laserdisk and no other format.
Too bad that there is not a way to fix the bearings for as how rare that machine is would be great to have it in a fully working order even tho it is just a shelf piece to look at or for in a museum .... I know time wise it is not feasable to try to fix the bearings as you wont make any money off it but sure would be great to see it really resotored some how in a fully working unit... Good video Dave
I wonder if you can drill it out and insert a nylon drill bushing in there. I did that with a dishwasher pump and it lasted 2 years of daily use, which was the same as the factory pump motor regardless.
In the early eighties I wanted one of these discs players. I voraciously read consumer hi-fi and video magazines opting to go with LaserDisc for the more superior sound and picture.. Not that I was smart. Far from it. LaserDisc too was a plagued format. My Magnavox player did not handle warped discs well...and most rented LaserDiscs would become warped likely from users hot cars and other poor handling. To buy discs was still expensive enough that it didn't make sense for me to buy a movie I'd only want to watch once or twice. Matsushita and Pioneer lost a lot of jack pushing the LD format which ultimately failed too.. At the time most folks chose VHS over these discs. That was actually being smart. Outside of the novelty of owning new tech (which wore off fast) the benefits of early optical discs were few if at all. Good nostalgia here of a time when the race for the future of home video was a hot sector of the consumer electronics market. I enjoyed your video and could clearly see the built-in reasons these players were what Steve Jobs later referred to Blu-Ray as "a bag of hurt", LOL.. Blu-Ray was (and actually still is w/ 4K) like a Porsche 911 opposed to these early optical video formats which were more like the East German Trabant comparatively speaking.
I found one of these for $15 at a local thrift store with five discs. Mine's the Zenith clone. Said to myself, "I'm the only one in this store right now who knows what that is, and it's coming home with me." Somebody thought it was an audio record player and had some religious record stuck in it. Removed the audio record and it then worked perfectly.
Had one of these in college, they were in several video rental places, when VHS took over all the stores sold the rental players for $75 I picked up one and bought a bunch of discs for $5 each till nobody wanted them then they were $2 still have them all Player still works. I thought it was fine at the time as VHS players were way more money. But i hated flipping disc in the middle of the movie. And some of the long movies had 2 discs and you have to flip it twice. I am not so sure it was the same quality as VHS i think it was better, but no way to record. I won't say it was leaps and bounds better, in fact i doubt there was much difference. I got all mine at a RCA store.. The funny thing is that the store is still open 40 years later but it's not RCA anymore.
I have a selectavision in the garage. I don’t have any disks though😞. Had these not been delayed so long from release they would have been ahead of their time. They were developed in the early 1960s but by the time they got released there was already the other technologies you mentioned and they were much better quality and no contact with the disc.
My brother bought one of those back around 1980 or so at Bond Furniture in Loveland, Ohio. Those things would skip like a record too, even playing a brand new disc. They would skip just like a record in the same spot every time. We thought it was a cool machine at the time, we didn't get a VCR until around 1984. Movies we had....Star Trek: The Motion Picture....Paul McCartney in Wings, Rockshow....On Golden Pond....Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...The Shootist...etc. I can't remember how much my brother paid for the machine but I believe I paid about $14 for Butch Cassidy at the time. Don't remember what ever became of that machine or the disc...my brother probably had taken it with him when he got back from basic training. I still remember that cheesy wooden case that machine had. I had seen one of these units and about 100 disc for sale on Craig's List a couple of years ago for about $50. The ad said the machine still worked, if I remember right.
The movies were 15 to 20. By comparison a pre recorded VHS or beta tape was about 100 at the time. The players hit the market in 1981 after 17 years development and they were dropped in 1984. I remember well the demise because i worked for a large independent Sony/RCA dealer at the time. Had only been there a few months when rca announced the end of their video disk right after the Christmas selling season. The players went on sale for 99.00 on boxing day to blow out inventory and what didn't sell rca bought back. New movies were promised and delivered for 2 more years for existing owners to stock up. Replacement cartridges were also available for a few years after production ended. The shop I worked at put all the movies on sale for 4.99 for the few people that had bought players. Nobody bought them. The rental disks and the display player were all taken home by the shop owner as well, he owned them LOL. Unsold movies and unopened players were returned to RCA for credit. They were a tough sell with a laserdisk sitting next to it.
@@12voltvidsI guess the RCA machine was kind of obsolete by the time it was released. The "Edsel" of video players is an accurate name for it. About the time the RCA machine was killed off, Zenith killed off it's line of Transoceanic shortwave radio's. Sony had taken over shortwave radio sales with a more advanced and better product with it's ICF line. Yes, I remember the high price of VCR pre-recorded tapes back in the 80's. $80 to $100 for new releases. We rented movies and rarely bought them. A blank VHS tape, made by Fuji, was around $14 or so. We would tape movies and shows off of TV. Usually in long play 6 hour speed and always have tracking problems on that speed. You got me thinking about these RCA machines again and it made me remember the DVIX debacle from Circuit City in the 90's. That rental disc format came out at the same time DVD's we released and they flopped. I believe that was the beginning of the end for Circuit City.
@@StevefromOhio1972One of the factors that led to CED's failure was its timing; it simply came out way too late. Of course, a big reason why CED came out late was because it wasn't ready at the time it was supposed to have come out in the late 1970s. At that time, RCA hadn't figured out how to manufacture a disc that wouldn't deteriorate not long after being made and they also were grappling with disc handling issues that necessitated the design of the caddy-based auto loading mechanism; no matter how well RCA designed the disc to be handled by people, the disc would inevitably have its signal surface be touched by human skin, and the oils and soils from such contact would degrade the signal surface. By the time CED came out, VHS was already dominant and LaserDisc, more or less, secured a niche as a higher end format. Also, RCA's strategy for making money on the format depended on software sales, with the pitch being that buying a videodisc was cheaper than buying a prerecorded video cassette ... and that collecting videodiscs could be fun. This was because videodiscs, both CED and LaserVision, were direct sale whereas video cassette sales followed a tier (rental market first, then collector market, and finally mass market). However, while it was cheaper to buy videodiscs, it was cheaper still to rent a movie. RCA's sales and marketing strategy did not take into account the effect that video rental would have had against their business. And most people preferred to rent rather than buy, especially if buying meant taking a chance with a lot of money on owning a movie they may wind up not liking. Another problem was that RCA ... and those who pushed LaserDisc, for that matter ... were intending for the videodisc formats to be supplemental to video cassette formats in a video system, much like how the audio cassette supplemented the turntable in a stereo system. The problem, however, was that video equipment was VERY expensive compared to audio equipment. Unless you were really well off, you couldn't afford to have both a VCR and a videodisc player, especially buying them all at once. Most people bought a VCR as it made the most sense, value-wise, at the time; the video quality was good enough and you can record, so why spend extra on a videodisc player for a basic capability that you already have with a VCR? And with regard to LaserDisc, at least it did offer higher quality video and sound, so it had a selling point for those willing to pay the premium for it. CED had no real advantages to make it preferable over a VCR. As an aside, JVC had been planning on releasing its VHD videodisc format in North America, which operated on the same basic principles as CED but was a far superior execution. However, JVC wisely reconsidered and canceled VHD for North America; observing how CED and LaserVision were faring, JVC probably concluded that VHD would likely not succeed in an already crowded videodisc market ... and would also likely be in competition against their own VHS format. VHD wound up being a Japanese-exclusive format, though VHD also saw some business in the UK, but only for commercial applications and even then without much success. VHD was relatively short-lived in Japan, however, as LaserDisc was the preferred videodisc format in that country up until the advent of DVD-Video.
I still Have One just Like this Player and A pioneer that Takes that Big CD looking type disc, My RCA is This type Of caddy Disc, Both players Been in the Family since new and Still work All that was needed is A bit of Cleaning ETC from time to time, yet i'm looking for more Movies for the Pioneer Lazer disc player, i have 10 of The Movies for my CED player, Just seems here both are rare or hard to find now.
@@12voltvids I only Got one for mine , its A cartoon one, The other RCA i have about 12 Disc for that one .I like to keep anything thats an odd format myself too, but here Can't find Any at all no place, I live in NY state, but seems noe many Disc or even players here either. The 2 Players i had been in the Family for Qiute a number of years, since no one else wanted them i took the Players home here with me.
A neighbor bought one of these players back in '81 or '82; yeah, the picture quality wasn't much better than VHS as I recall. From what I've read, this was basically RCA's attempt at another big breakthrough on the level of NTSC color TV.
240 lines resolution same as VHS and mono sound. They did bring out a stereo version and one with digital memory so it could play slo-mo and still picture mode.
@@12voltvidsPlus, CED used chroma-under-luma for color, which VHS and Beta also used. LaserDisc, at least, was true composite video. As for CED stereo with CX, it wasn't bad ... and it was far better than linear stereo on VHS, even with Dolby System ... and then Beta hi-fi came out followed by VHS Hi-Fi, and they both blew CED sound completely out of the water. Of course, you also had LaserVision stereo sound with CX, and that was better ... and then came LaserDisc Digital Sound. 'nuff said. And one of the biggest competitors to CED ... was VHS ... and RCA kind of shot themselves in the foot with that, since they were some of the biggest pushers of VHS having introduced it for North America. And it was kind of a signal of RCA's decline. RCA had been developing their own video cassette format, but then canceled it and eventually obtained licensing for VHS from JVC, though RCA would have their VHS VCRs and cassettes made by Panasonic.
It's too bad RCA didn't discount the players, discs, and stylus long enough to get them off the showroom floor to people who didn't care if they just had a unit that only played discs.
They did. The players dropped to 99.00 to clear them out. A couple of them sold, but most went back. Boxing day they dropped to 49.00 and any that didn't sell were shipped back.
$77. The first thing out of my mouth was totally inappropriate for this channel, but it started with an "F" and ended with the word for eternal fire and brimstone. Also, I agree, the shipping totally outweighs the repair cost. You might want to consider only doing stuff locally in Canada, unless your USA counterparts want to actually pay the postage, of course.
As the old proverb goes, the invention of the light bulb was not a result of infinite refinement of the candle. Well, what RCA did with CED proved the dangers of failing to learn from the history. RCA engineers simply took the LP record format and iterated it to barely idiot-proof fragile product, while at the same time making every effort (and a lot of compromises along the way) to slash the player's price tag to the bottom. This is the reason for the bare-bone analogue approach for the CED recording, where the entire TV signal was directly etched to the surface of the disk, negating the need for any extra circuit logic, even for a simple aspect as the vertical blanking signal. This race to the bottom in the end is took the whole company with down, given the fact that RCA had to even subcontract the manufacturing of their first VCR machines -- to expensive and complicated to do it themselves apparently.
So I acquired one of these a while back. I did not realize this was a completely different format. I tried shoving a laser disc in the thing. I took it apart and was like WTH! I thought laser disk was optical what’s this stylus for? Then I found out RCA was trying to break in to the market with this crap. I did find a video disk and it did play okay but with horrible picture and sound. Sold it at yard sale and never want another one.
A magnetic video disk format also existed, that one was like a floppy disk. 50:39 - 2-pole; probably not even a sync motor, just an induction type shaded pole motor.
Definitely not a synchronous motor. The power line (and the drive belt) don't provide enough stability for color video. I'm sure it's an induction motor running on varying voltage, that allows the circuitry to trim the platter speed to exactly the required 60/n/1.001.
Funny bit of info … I got one of these … fixed it (belts were gummed up and gears were cracked) Going through it …I thought I had a speed problem… audio was a tad fast… Got frustrated because I could not find any speed adjustments. Well, I was using The Empire Strikes Back as my test disk. Turns out Lucasfilm prohibited the release on 2 disks.. they got around it by speeding it up 😆😆😆😆 So don’t use Empire Strikes Back as a test disk !!!! 😂
"A New Hope" was also time-compressed to make it fit on one disc, so that's another "Star Wars" movie where the sound pitch is higher than normal because the film-to-video transfer was faster than normal. "Return of the Jedi" is a two disc release, so no time-compression was used. But it came out relatively late in the CED format's life, so that's a relatively rare pressing whereas the first two movies are common. The SFT/SGT belt drive models used magnetic sync plates for speed adjustments while all other CED player models were quartz-locked and no adjustments are possible. But if you are getting steady color video, your turntable speed is right on. Variations in turntable speed will directly affect video stability, and one of the first things you'll lose pretty much immediately if the speed is off even by the slightest is the color.
Bought mine in the early eighties from Radio Shack under the Realistic brand. The discs were around 30 bucks with limited selection. This was a very finicky system as skipping would occur frequently. The first selection I purchased was a 2 disc set of the Godfather....
It was terrible. Should never have gone to market. I can think of a few other things that should never have gone to market too. VHS being one. Betamax was so much better and the recording time thing could have been extended like it ended up being. Had everyone got on board there would have been 1 format and that would have been better for everyone. Smaller tape better quality. Then there was HD DVD which also should never have happened. It basically took down Toshiba like the ced system did to RCA. Sony on the other hand did extremely well with beta. Notice I didn't say betamax, as it was their betacam format that ruled broadcast and professional production for the life cycle of video tape. It used the same parts as the betamax system used.. same pinch roller and tape threading system, same size drum. Just a different video head and different video processing and of course a much faster tape speeds. 2 sizes of cassette. A small cassette exactly the same as the betamax used and a larger cassette for longer record times.
@@12voltvids "I can think of a few other things that should never have gone to market too. VHS being one." Yeah, right. "Betamax was so much better" It wasn't better at all, let alone "so much better." "and the recording time thing could have been extended like it ended up being." It could never match VHS's recording time because its tape cartridge was smaller, so for a given thickness of tape, VHS cartridges could always fit a lot more of it, and no matter how slow they made their linear speed, VHS manufacturers could always make theirs just as slow. L-830 was the longest Betamax tape and it could record 5 hours at its slowest recording speed (βIII). That's not even as long as VHS's recording time of 6 hours on a _standard_ T-120 tape at its slowest recording speed (EP), and with a T-120 you're not stuck with the fragile, ultra-thin tape that an L-830 uses. And if you wanted to use fragile, ultra-thin tape with VHS you could go all the way up to a T-240 for 12 hours of recording time at EP speed. "Sony on the other hand did extremely well with beta." No, they didn't. Betamax was a failure and Betacam was only a success in the professional market, which is small potatoes compared to the consumer market. I have three VHS VCRs from the 1980s (1983, 1985, and 1988) that still work fine, so there's nothing inherently wrong with the fundamental design in terms of reliability. Also, I've made recordings on my highest-end VCR (JVC HR-D566U with new Maxell HGX-Gold T-120 tapes at SP speed) that look almost as good as the DVD or BD that I recorded from (when viewed at the same distance, on the same CRT TV, and over the same composite video connection), so there's nothing inherently wrong with the picture quality. Betamax _might_ be able to produce slightly better picture quality at βI speed, but then I couldn't even fit a whole movie onto a standard L-500 tape, nor even an L-750 tape for movies longer than 90 minutes, and most Betamax VCRs didn't even have the option to record at βI speed to begin with. Sony shot themselves in the foot with that tiny tape cartridge, and them being a far less open format than VHS didn't help matters either. Your idea that a wildly successful video format that dominated the consumer market for two full decades (1980s and 1990s) and parts of two other decades (1970s and 2000s), and for which most people had no complaints back then, never should have gone to market makes no sense whatsoever.
Sony could have dropped the speed so the l750 tape could record 6 hours. They chose not to have an even slower speed. Sony put their engineering efforts into betacam. Cost wise it wasn't that much more to make a betacam deck and with them selling for 12,000 to 80,000 that was a real moneymaker for Sony. They might not of sold millions like home video but there also wasn't 30 different companies making them. There was Sony and Ampex making betacam and all the other flavours of betacam. Digibeta, sx, HD beta. They sold 10s or thousands to tv stations and production companies world wide and with a high profit margin and high profit on maintenance and parts. Make no mistake Sony was laughing all the way to the bank and it started as betamax. Betacam uses the same parts. Betacam SP used a different drum due to metal tape but regular betacam they just added 2 more heads for the component chroma and they were golden.
@@12voltvids "Sony could have dropped the speed so the l750 tape could record 6 hours." Again, no matter what they did to increase recording time, they would always be behind VHS. Plus, with an L-750 you get thinner-than-standard tape. That same thinner-than-standard tape for VHS is in a T-160, which gives you up to 8 hours of recording time. "Cost wise it wasn't that much more to make a betacam deck and with them selling for 12,000 to 80,000 that was a real moneymaker for Sony." Sure it made them money, but like I said, small potatoes compared to the consumer market, even at the exorbitant prices for each unit. For example, there are about 1,750 TV stations in the US (most of their customers were TV stations), but there are about 131 million households. Thousands or tens of thousands vs. hundreds of millions is a drastic difference. "They might not of sold millions like home video but there also wasn't 30 different companies making them." JVC got a piece of the pie for every VHS VCR sold, not just on the basic VHS technology, but also on the use of its logo, and for licensing Hi-Fi stereo technology and its logo, and for licensing HQ technology and its logo. Also, there weren't 30 different companies making them. It was more like six Japanese companies three Korean companies (LG/Goldstar, Samsung, and Daewoo). Ones branded GE, RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, Sylvania, etc., weren't actually made by those companies. They were rebranded Panasonics, LG/Goldstars, Samsungs, etc. "Make no mistake Sony was laughing all the way to the bank" They would have traded it in an instant for the success that VHS had in the consumer market for decades.
@@12voltvids "Sony could have dropped the speed so the l750 tape could record 6 hours." Again, no matter what they did to increase recording time, they would always be behind VHS. Plus, with an L-750 you get thinner-than-standard tape. That same thinner-than-standard tape for VHS is in a T-160, which gives you up to 8 hours of recording time. "Cost wise it wasn't that much more to make a betacam deck and with them selling for 12,000 to 80,000 that was a real moneymaker for Sony." Sure it made them money, but like I said, small potatoes compared to the consumer market, even at the exorbitant prices for each unit. For example, there are about 1,750 TV stations in the US (most of their customers were TV stations), but there are about 131 million households. Thousands or tens of thousands vs. hundreds of millions is a drastic difference. "They might not of sold millions like home video but there also wasn't 30 different companies making them." JVC got a piece of the pie for every VHS VCR sold, not just on the basic VHS technology, but also on the use of its logo, and for licensing Hi-Fi stereo technology and its logo, and for licensing HQ technology and its logo. Also, there weren't 30 different companies making them. It was more like six Japanese companies three Korean companies (LG/Goldstar, Samsung, and Daewoo). Ones branded GE, RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, Sylvania, etc., weren't actually made by those companies. They were rebranded Panasonics, LG/Goldstars, Samsungs, etc. "Make no mistake Sony was laughing all the way to the bank" They would have traded it in an instant for the success that VHS had in the consumer market for decades.
I remember that the discs were insanely expensive,any dust would make them skip. And seems like you were putting the disks in and taking them out and back in to get them work. But I still have the disks but not player.
I had laserdisk and had to drive a long way to rent movies. So i would go to a store that rented them once a week and get about 10 movies at a time. Store owners name was Jack Frost. He was a big jazz fan and had all the jazz laserdisk. I remember him telling me that the rippingtons were going to play in Vancouver so i got tickets. When he closed his store he sold me a bunch of his concert disks which i still have. Some 8" and the rest 12" laser.
hi picked 2 stereo decks up some time ago i was lucky the decks worked ok the thing is the discs had heavy wear because the one who had the deck used it as a music player it's the kind of deck you could show of on here i don't have alot of disc's what you said on here they are money pits
RCA actually had a working prototype by 1969 or '70, but the discs only held 10 minutes per side, LOL. Engineers then spent most of the rest of the '70s increasing the amount of time per disc
Also, the picture of the dog listening to a phonograph under the RCA logo, wasn't that originally "His Master's Voice"? Or, did RCA either own or bought it out?
My parents had one. Video quality was superior to VHS. The only problem was like a audio record at the time, if you got dust on the disc, the video would skip.
Considering the resolution was the same as VHS you can't say with a straight face it was superrior. Now laserdisk, now you are talking a superrior picture and sound.
I have two ced players and I swapped the needle out on one of them and I have one that wants to play but it makes a noise but it wants to work, it powers up but no picture, how can I swap parts on one player to another so I can have one working player…..
I have a suggestion: you may want to drop the audio level of your intros music by 12dB when talking over them. Makes it easier to hear what your saying, I'm straining some times. This isn't negative criticism, I enjoy watching all your videos. It's just some times your mic is either too quietly mixed or too hot.
I actually do balance my audio level while I'm doing the production and I'm going to stay with headphones and I hear my voice clear as a bell but the audio is typically 10 to 12 DB below the voice over.
I actually HAD disks and players in both formats. Being a CB radio junkie i met a lot of pickers that had everything you could think of electronic. I got players from them and at an antique store in area i found a both that had several disk in both formats. Im just extremely sad that GF at the time jacked me for them and lots of CB radio equipment i had collected. That horrid ho!!
I had the hitachi version I bought it at a local auction house . It worked out was schechy on some discs I sold it one I had gotten fed up with the films I got with it .
had one of these, ages ago, got it at a garage sale 1985 or so, with 20 movies, I don't remember paying much for all of it, it worked, then died, a miserable death a few months later, I do admit, the intro start up circle/logo music etc is cool , I also made for the time, wall art with the disc covers for some of the movies, definitely a financial blunder from RCA, Coleco would do the same in some ways with it's horrible, ill fated Coleco Adam Family Computer,
@@12voltvids I agree, way overpriced, for what they are, a electronic oddity,that would be neat to have today, but one would have to fall into my lap for nothing, for me to actually want it, I just don't see the value, typical of Ebay sellers though where everything is literally rare, and therefore valuable in their eyes
Good ol vinyl infused with carbon, varying capacitance across the disc picked up by the stylus… quite the marvel of engineering but it was too little too late
@@12voltvidsTrue that LMAO, I honestly will never understand why RCA continued to pour tons of R&D money into it after the release of Laserdisc in the 70s, and that went in development even longer than CED. Haphazard management and baffling decisions
That pot is just providing feedback to the sled servo and it's working. The failure on this one as shown at the end is the main bearing for the platter. Its plastic, go figure.
RCA bet the farm on this inexpensive, 70s tech and lost. What people really wanted was to record their favorite shows and watch them later. That's something that NTSC 3 will finally put an end to. For over 40 years, people have been legally pirating TV. That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one. I honestly don't even know why they're even bothering with keeping TV alive when video streaming gives IP owners full control over their content. I mean, you need Internet for all encrypted TV content, and it will likely pull the content off the Internet, anyway. I don't even watch TV except with severe weather rips up my home state of Oklahoma, and you'll likely need a subscription for that, too. Welcome to the dystopia of the future!
Next will be data usage fees by ISP. The more you watch the more you pay. Oh wait, thats already here. Pay an extra 20 for unlimited data. I read on C-Net last month that AT&T is going to shart charging 10.00 per month for the ability to skip commercials on recorded content. Netwitz and anazoon and disnay and already charging for commercial free viewing as is youboob.
Certainly another strike against this format was having to turn the disc over halfway through a movie, using the disc's caddy, ala side 1 and side 2 of a record.
My thoughts on the disk. Back in the day the original owner of this unit bought it to watch quality action movies. Well that was all good but the owner had a kid. They bought this movie for the kid. By knowing just the parental thing, and kids, this movie has been played over and over. And over and over and over. LOL.
I think these things are cool even though they are old, I just wanted mine to work and I have two ced discs to go with it, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated……I want to figure out how to fix mine…….I got an old tv that I can connect it to, so I would like to know why mine blinks L when in the off position, I haven’t put any discs in mine so even try it…..I want to replace that stylus, well the whole plastic thing but I want to fix the L problem…….
I have one of those and it blinks L when you plug it in and it’s in the off position, so idk what’s wrong with it, that’s what it does when it’s off, when you put it in the off position, it blinks the L(Loading)…..so any help would be nice
I bought one from eBay and in the ad the guy said it works good and it came with ced discs and I connected it to the old crt tv that I have and I put it into the load position and nothing, I put a disc in and nothing came on the screen and then after that I took out the disc and then there was no power, I plugged it into another outlet and got nothing, so idk what went wrong with it, so I got another one from Craigslist and that’s the one that will power up but it wants to work, I swapped out the needles but it makes a noise so idk if it’s a belt or what, I want to swap out the parts out of the one that didn’t power up, can anyone help me with this???
I have two working players, I got hold of the new belts, and changed them out. But It Is the Stylus that Is no longer available. So I have to keep swapping It between the two, till I can get two new ones. If Anyone has any idea where to get these from. They are both UK Pal Stereo machines. GEC McMICHAEL V5000H CED video disc player is the same model as the Hitachi VIP201P
@@12voltvidsThanks. I have looked on there, but none for my model. When You change out the other belts. Be very careful with the Plastic parts. as these are very brittle. I used a Hair dryer to sofen It first. When Is the second half of this one going up?.
If you look close at the 17:34 mark, under the microscope you can read the RCA logo from the beginning of the movie. Its a mirror image but it clearly shows up!
The dark and light pattern you see around 20:00 is what an incrementing binary sequence (00000000, 00000001, 00000010, 00000011 ... 11111100 11111101 11111110 11111111) looks like as pixels. Digital encoding of the frame number in one line of the vertical blanking interval. Didn't some players read that code for random seek?
@@coyote_den There is nothing binary about this format. Pure analog. Those are test signals recorded in the first 21 lines, including closed captions and the analog macrovision signals ect. There will also be a multi burst and color bars, as well as aVIR reference and anything else in the VITS (Vertical Interval Test Signals) area of the NTSC frame.
@@12voltvidsThe only thing digital in CED would be the DAXI (Digital Auxiliary Information) data.
The post office shipping cost
Beta max had a better picture
Technology Connections did a great video on the history on this format and has done lots of videos about the history and development of lots of different types of media. Definitely a channel worth looking at if you are into old stuff like this.
Saw it
I saw it also, and if I remember correctly he asserted it was also a useless, failed format.
I just picked up a 1982 RCA Selectavision CED player yesterday, and it works! I also got a 1981 Selectavision RCA VCR with optional remote control system too. So much woodgrain :D
I would like to add: our CED player came with a free disc. On Golden Pond. We never seen that movie before, I was skeptical it would be any good, because it was free. We actually loved it.
Our local tv and appliance store sold us a new CED player, but it didn't work out of the box. So they exchanged it for the store Demo player. July 31, 1982.
What memories! Yes, I remember dates . Not of everything, just important things.
There are actually some NOS stylus cartridges available on eBay. Though of course they are absurdly priced.
Those microscope shots of the disc were really cool to see. Thanks for that!
Of course they are. If I had one for sale i would be asking the moon too. I have something you want how bad do you want it?
Who do I see about getting that hour back?
LOL...I wish the video was longer...listening to you drone on about dead video technology pushes all of my buttons.
If you had a matched set of screwdrivers or a clean workbench you'd lose some of your charm.
Thanks for bringing some much needed meaning to my life...really.
I was actually hoping that this was going to be repairable and that it would have been just lubricating and so forth or that it was a disc that was causing the problem and I actually thought that that's what the issue was right to the end. I'd actually finished the video and left it on a note that I thought it was the disc and just before going to put the thing together I just happened to by accident push down on that spindle while it was running and the picture cleared and it was like holy crap it's the platter it's the bearing! I had suspected that the bearing might have been causing the problem just from the way that it seemed to resonate but I wasn't sure because the disc looking like it had a warp to it certainly could cause the same issue but it actually wasn't the desk it was the platter itself. Now I'm sure some of the old texts that worked on these things briefly in the early 1980s were probably laughing now knowing exactly what it was but myself not have had the privilege of ever working on any because I think the shop that I worked at sold a total of 2, and I never got to work on either of them. We sold one replacement stylus to one fellow that was gung-ho about the technology. Here's a kicker for you the shop had a break in we caught it all on video in 1984. The crooks grabbed about 50 VCRs they did not take one CED disk player. I'm kicking myself now because when RCA took all the units back they offered us a player at $25 and movies at $2 each when they were recalling them that was for the current movies that were already out that we had in the store and none of us took them up on that offer so they took them all away. I should have had the foresight that 40 years down the road this would be a highly collectible item and having one that was brand new in the box might be worth something.
@@12voltvids Did you say that the platter has PLASTIC bearings?
You can fix that...
Hello Dave , i was born in 73 portugal . I use to watch the muppets show wen i was a kid , the best memories of my childwood ! I Just want too adress something , i love the content of your channel your knowledge in old tech its amazing , big fan , lots of respect . ( To anyone woo read this comment please share the work of this gentlement ) I really believe you deserve mutch more views . Greetings from françe
I have one of these. Thanks so much for showing this. You do not see these disc anymore.
Last disk was made in 86
My uncle had one of these and it has so many memories attached to it i would watch movies on it when i stayed over with them idk maybe thats some of the early beginnings with my fascination with electronics.
I found the same unit years ago and it had the same issue. The stylus would not advance in playback. I took the cover off and cleaned the gears where the wires were cut and that fixed it. Just grime from sitting all those years. I have about 2 stacks of movies about 3 ft tall collecting dust.
Great video! I have seven players and 150 videodiscs. The movies weigh a ton, and moving them over the years is a workout!
I have my share of laserdisk players and discs. The discs are even heavier then the ced discs.
Wow, what an awesome piece of technology that I've never even heard of. I really appreciate the in-depth look and explanation, the close-up shots of the disk were so cool. Such a strange chain of events that delayed the release of this for so long, and the fact it even released at all is definitely strange to think about, since it was so outdated by that point
A friend of mine back in the day bought one of these. He actually joined a mail out club to gets his discs. When the tech went belly up the club sent him a list of their inventory. He was asked to tick 50 titles and they would send them for free. Indeed, a few weeks later he received a big box of 50 discs. I can definitely remember An American Werewolf In London and maybe even Debbie Does Dallas? Such fun!
Don't think there was ever any porn released. Laserdisk yes, because 3rd party manufactures released them but rca controlled 100% disk manufacturing and i doubt they would get involved with that. Too high risk of backlash.
Yeah, come to think of it I think I'm getting confused with Confessions of a Window Cleaner, smutty comedy of the day.@@12voltvids
@@12voltvids lol, I was about to ask if they ever made adult movie discs.
@@12voltvids There was porn produced for CED, but it was stuff for Playboy released through CBS/Fox Video.
Fascinating. I had no idea these ever existed. Thanks for the demo.
I was maybe 10 years old. My dad lived with a friend of his. This friend was way up into the players and picture quality. He had the VHS, beta, AND the video disk player. I remember going to the Curtis Mathis store to rent movies. You would flip through those things like you were shopping for an audio record. I remember being all up into a movie and all a sudden 'Please Flip the Disk'. They had full sized satellite dish. One weekend he would go outside and crank a handle to change satellites, the next week he had a rotor. What the hell is a line doubler? LOL Good video. PS So uses constant velocity and not linear velocity like digital, got it.
My dad bought a CED player for my Grandma when they came out, I inherited it when Grandma died in the late '80's. It was a mono player, but we had one stereo disc: A live stage performance from the cast of the Fame! TV series. Some of the movies we had were The Wizard of Oz, Trading Places, Oklahoma, On Golden Pond and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. It had a mechanical loading problem when I got it, and I fixed that. I enjoyed it well into to the early 2000's, but got rid of it when the stylus got too worn to play properly. I wish I still I had it for the "Museum Factor". I forgot the model number, but it was most likely a RCA SJT-090.
That’s some pretty awesome technology there. Thanks for sharing never seeing nothing like this.
Actually it was an idea that pretty much sunk RCA. They should have abandoned it
WOW! I even remember those units{ maybe not that unit but } when laser disc came out we actually rented one in 82 for my birthday to make it a special occasion but this format we never seen ... What a neat unit - Amazing it still works today well sort of...
I always thought they were a joke, but then I thought the same for vinyl records and turntables and still do lol.
Still have my players & discs. Still working. My collection was way to quick for the bulldozer.
I remember these. When I was a kid in a small town we used to rent the machines and the movies before we got a top loading Panasonic VHS machine on NYE 1983. My aunt and uncle actually owned one of these machines (a Toshiba), probably the worst investment they ever made lol.
As far as I remember reading, the stylus on a CED player was indeed diamond but had a trailing titanium electrode that was somehow bonded to the back of the diamond to provide the electrical and capacitive coupling which fed the signal to the rest of the player.
Yes you can see the tiny tip. I couldn't see that in prevue resolution that shows on the screen during editing, but it was certainly visible when rendered at full resolution.
We bought a CED player in 1982.Looks just like that one. Have a few dozen discs. The player stopped working a couple years ago. I was trying to copy to DVD. (They were specially edited for CED Gimme Shelter and Queen Greatest Flix). CED was what my father chose over Laserdisc.
I noticed that some of the discs would skip a lot. I guess over the years dust got in or something.
(60 minutes max per side)
Believe it or not, we never replaced the Stylus. But we only used it for a couple years constantly until we got a VCR.
Brand new sealed discs sometimes skipped straight out of the package.
Many did because the format was a joke.
It's a common issue with the format and can occur for a multitude of reasons, including if the disc hadn't been played in a while.
One of the things that can happen is that the silicone lubricant that was applied to the disc can form a smooth and glassy surface that the stylus must cut through to the groove, and sometimes it can't do that on the first run. Therefore, a conditioning play must be run before actually playing the disc for viewing ... and sometimes you may have to run it through more than once before you can bring down the frequency of skipping to a minimum.
It's kind of amazing that the format even worked at all.
I actually replaced the cartridge on one of those machines , pretty nice picture! That was one of the problems with it, the cartridge didn't last long , disc would wear pretty fast!
I saw one of these at my local Salvation Army once. Never knew what it was until I looked it up.
If I remember right, the stylus was diamond made in a special lapping machine then had a metal contact plated/deposited on the back of it. That formed one plate of the capacitor, then the disc was a multilayer deal where the core was conductive (the second plate) and then the shell (thus the dielectric) was molded atop with the information. I lived in a town (Lancaster PA) with a pretty big RCA plant and R&D effort. That company tossed out great ideas left and right. Heatpipes were an invention of that plant - get rid of it, they said, no money in it. So the managers bought the patent and got rich. CED was something they kept. If it had come out ten years earlier when they were futzing with it, it would've been great, or if they went with their prototype tape system instead, they'd have been sitting pretty. But no. Bad management.
I think the diamond stylus was supposed to have been profiled into something resembling a keel shape profile. The metal contact on the diamond was probably formed using chemical vapour deposition and was connected to the rest of the stylus assembly and on to the rest of the player using a trailing titanium electrode as far as I have been able to glean through research.
The CED format was released in 1981. Player production terminated in 1984, owing to sales of players being well below projections; no point in making more players when you have a surplus. Disc production continued until 1986, followed by the acquisition and breakup of the RCA Corporation by General Electric.
CED wasn't the only factor to cause RCA's downfall, but it was a major contributor to its failure as a company, considering how much money was lost because of the venture. That said, a big issue with RCA was that it basically had no leadership for almost two decades up to the point where it went under, so the company was all over the place with its diversification outside of its core business as well as mismanagement.
It basically all started when David Sarnoff retired from the company, leaving the reins to his son, Robert Sarnoff ... and things went downhill from there.
That happens more often than you can imagine. Electronic parts shop. Original founder passed to his son when he retired and he ran the business for 40 years passing it to his son who promptly closed the business.
@@12voltvidsWell, in the case of Robert Sarnoff, he was ousted in a boardroom coup.
You sir, have the most epically messy and delightful workspace of any RUclipsr outside of AVE. 😂
Its actually not that bad. I have seen far worse, namely any TV shop from the 1960s through the 2000s. There is a reason shops had a sign that said employees only. LOL. They all looked like this. Even the benches at Sony were cluttered.
I actually use mine. Not a lot, every few weeks I watch a disc. Pain in the backside to money wise to find one and get it to Australia, and then find somebody to service it. Have about 30 movies I think. Model I think is SGT-250.
I’m on the lookout for a VHD player now….
There is a video on youtube titled "How to Service a F/G Model CED Videodisc Player" (Credit recognition: Josh Gibson ) with examples on how to remove the platter and some of the deeper consepts of its operation . the platter does set down on a braking surface in its lowered position.. dont know if examples like that will be any help but you can look at it if you wish. .
Yes I know. The lever below it raises and lowers it. The problem with this one is the bearing shown at the 49:37 point when I oiled it is worn. That plastic base is the bearing that the platter fits into. It's just worn out. When I pressed down on the disk centering hub i could feel it wandering around. This is what happens in belt drive equipment. There is the constant pull in the direction of the drive motor by the belt that wears the bearing more on one side then the other.
@@12voltvids You also have two sleeve bearings that interact with the turntable shaft that need to be lubricated. You can't get to those without removing the platter. And if those sleeve bearings are dry, they will induce drag.
My neighbor's dad bought a player and a few disks. One night we watched a movie over there. It was fine as long as you didn't touch the player or stomp much. It would start skipping and go insane.
The music background from RCA Selectavision VideoDiscs logo is from Isao Tomita- Pictures at an Exhibition, and I didn't know that. It's ironic that it was produced by RCA Victor Records.
Of course it was. RCA controlled every aspect of the ced format and made all the discs.
CED players are literally 'flux capacitors'. And _Back to the Future_ - a movie _about_ flux capacitors - was one of the titles released on CED.
Except that a flux capacitor does not exist. It's fictitious.
Thanks for the video I remember those I'm old wow they must have spent Millions to develop that that's crazy the Edse of players that's cool thanks again have a great day I'm restoring a Kenwood KR 9600 it needs the world but the power packs are good
550 million on this one product
that's one creepy start up tune! - top class video as always
Isao Tomita's rendition of 'Pictures at an Exhibition". Done entirely on synthesizers!
The track is called "Loose Connection" the artist is Dale Jacobs, from the vinyl "cobra". He was a Vancouver bc based composer and electronics engineer. Found out about him when i worked at the tv station. Was a friend of one of the engineers. He brought in the cream of studio musicians to cut that record. Yes he played synthesizers but had some big name musicians working with him at total sounds west. Features Jim valliance in drums. Joel wade bass, Bret Wade guitar Doug Louie on keys alone with Dale, also Tom lavin on guitar
It's a great album. I met him once as he has been friends with the engineer at the tv station i worked at in early 80s and he gave me a copy as we had a copy we used as intro music. Sadly he passed away about 24 years ago. King cancer. Yes he was a smoker like many were back then.
With the sled motor disconnected, it could still play the first few seconds before skipping back because there is an "arm stretcher" transducer that does the fine positioning of the stylus. If you were digging deeper into it I'd check that next.
Yes the stylus pressure is controlled by the tracking servo
i remember growing up with these, my dad had a huge collection of the CED discs, they where cheap at the time and VHS and BETA was super expensive, he ended up selling it because VHS got cheaper later on, then years later he found a machine in goodwill (different than the one your showing) and gave it to me to fix all it needed was a drive belt, and i fixed it, i still have 1 disc the original 1953 the war of the worlds, but my stupid dad sold the machine among many other of my collectible stuff when moving, i was young at the time. and i got so pissed at him.
no, actually a slight warp disc will play just fine the needle is not supposed to move like that. the needle is the problem it appears to be missing the back support wire (similar to the electrode wire) or rubber which holds it steady.
and no, holding the center isnt the problem, not a bearing issue, your body is grounded which is how the disc operates low voltage electricity flows through the disc to the needle. there is a grounding brush on the platter shaft similar to the grounding brush on a vcr head drum. it could be clogged or missing.
No you can feel the platter shaking. There is not a viktage flowing through the disk. The dept of the Grove changes which changes the capacitence of the stylus. It rides in a totally smooth groove with noblateral or vertical movement. The signal is pressed in below the actual groove the stylus rides in. It reads the information below the groove. When i presses down on the spindle it actually removed contact from the disc. It was stopping the wobble that allowed the disc to play. Soon as I released the wobble returned.
@@12voltvids CED discs are made of conductive pvc with use of carbon a small voltage goes through the disc, to ground, its a grounding issue, this is causing the color issue, trust me, also i forgot to mention watching your video made me break out my RCA CED player SJT 300 which i bought years ago and replaced the stylus, found on ebay, my player has stereo and rca component outputs. along with the typical coax. i still have the remote. brings back soo much memories. someday id like to get more CEDs to collect.
@@jr-pl9kj
Yes i kbow. I remember seeing a documentary on it. Forms a capacitor the disc being a grounded plate and tip of the stylus the other plate. Capatence changes.
I never serviced this was the first one i have looked at.
Have no idea what goes wrong. The disk did have tons of wobble.
It wasnt just pushing down on the spindle but pull it slightly to atop the wobble.
@@12voltvids the wobbling thing, sounds like the platter needs oiling usually done under a bolt accessible under the machine in the center, i hope my comments can help you out. let me (or us viewers) know how it goes. there are service manuals for these CED machines available online for free in pdf format. heres a link manuals.lddb.com/CED_Players/RCA-SFT-100_EN__Service_Manual_Scan.pdf
I bought this unit at the thrift store a in November of last year. it was a player cost $9 it was a great deal not a steal. the stylus is intact when I try look for a outlet to see the player function works. but sure enough the power switch mode the light flashes see L. it stand for load disc on there. I bought the thing. took it home had some couple video discs from the previous thrift store to try it out test it see it's works. it works perfect. I just bought some couple of CED titles online they were National Geographic and Gloria both sealed copies. I was planning to get a few more RCA video disk movies they have. I used to have this I was so young I remember it was a Sears brand a clone version of the player like this. my parents bought it the first disc we watched was Star Trek the motion picture. the last disc my parents bought Popeye in stereo a blue caddy sleeve. those are my childhood memories I remember. now it's in my bookshelf cabinet for the rest of my vintage video disc player collections. it's so rare too own.
Yes rare. If i found one cheap I would grab as collector piece. I do have a bunch of laserdisk players including one that plays both DVD and laser.
My best deal at thrift store. Samsung sv5000 mukto system VCR 25, Sony tcdd5 cassette recorder 10.00 Toshiba dvr7 DVD recorder / VHS 25
@@12voltvids wow that's cool. I have a laser disc player and another DVD and laser disc player and the Blu-ray player. also I have DVD recorder player and VCR combo player as well. they're all both from pioneer. 👍
There is a bunch of these on Ebay USA and there is one that comes with 16 movies but it sounds like it has the same issue as yours.
The description reads-
“This player works, takes the movie and plays. The color does fade and move, so repair may be necessary (possible new belt needed). Comes with all the movies shown and in original box with original styrofoam. Machine looks to be in almost unused condition. Please ask all questions before buying.”
It's junk just like this one. Worth 0 dollars. Just like the guy on Facebook now that was asking 75 for a broken DAT. Has had no bites so he has reduced to 50. Last broken DAT I bought was 10.00
Iv worked on a couple of these things Usually that model is actually very reliable. Most of the time they just need a new belt but they are very RPM picky and what you see there is typical of a dry or bad bearing, I have seen some guys bring them back to life
Bad bearing, can feel it vibrating.
Motor looks basically identical to what's in a broan 688 bathroom fan with a longer shaft.
i had a chance to buy one of these players with a stack of movies a couple of years ago and i never seen or heard of the format. I kind of wish i had picked it up but then why bother if i had a good laser disc and vhs player. still pretty neat look into how this format operates.
hello dave from cornwall in the uk well done on all your video's
I worked for an RCA dealer and there were continuous complaints of skipping. They had model numbers SFT-xxx, SGT-xxx and jumped to SJT-xxx. They probably skipped a model number starting with SHT because it was a piece of you know what!!! The shop display demo disc skipped like crazy. What a way to sell a product!!!
149000 was what RCA called a QT (Quick Turnover ) part. Stylus assembly.
Actually the motor in this unit is only a 2 pole motor (not a 4 pole). Again. Cost cutting.
People are asking crazy prices for these pieces of junk
There use to be a place that rented these when I was kid (yes I'm old) this was my first experience watching the star wars trilogy. A side story about that place that rented only CEDs it burnt down and after reading about the format flopping years later I'm wondering if that fire was no accident.
Things that make you go hmmmm.
There's another channel that did a deep dive on the CED format and development (not posting the exact name out of respect for your channel).
Quick summary is that it was an ambitious product that took way too long to develop and your comments about Videotape killing it was very true.
(Edit - obviously I wrote this before getting to the end as you mention this)
I remember seeing one of these things in Radio Shack. The video was stunning; it was broadcast quality - like 320 lines of resolution - over the air analog quality. The discs were constant angular velocity and would do a clear still frame. The discs and technology were flimsy and precarious., but when new was as good as laserdisc through analog RF connection.
No you didn't. You saw a laserdisk. In cav mode laser ebdided 1 frame let revolution. This does 4 per revolution. Laser disk had 340 lines resolution, broadcast quality. This piece of junk had 240, same as VHS.
@@12voltvids No it was CED Selectavision. I went back and checked; I am wrong about still frame. But checking specs online they claim it was superior to VHS and SVHS. I remember it looking vastly superior to VHS or Beta. Laserdisk has about 5 Mhz bandwidth or 400 lines. Of course with RF connection best you can get is 320.
@@12voltvidsRadio Shack did sell a CED player model, the Realistic CED-1, made by Hitachi.
Of course, Radio Shack also did sell a LaserDisc player much later on, the Realistic MD-1000, made by Funai Electric.
But, yes, CED could not do still frame video because one single disc rotation is four frames of video. To have a still frame with CED, you'd have to have four frames of the same image.
The only thing that came close to that were still frame images made specifically for Interactive CED titles, and the only machines that could play those as intended were the RCA SJT-400 and SKT-400 random access players.
movies on a vinyl, that's new. or should i say old? Thinking about the "invalid traffic" on channel, i hope youtube doesn't see it as such when i start a video on thursday evening, pause it and resume on friday. when i do that, youtube reloads the video
Invalid views are views with ad blockers.
The yield rates for early laserdisc pressing at the DiscoVision plant near LA were awful, apparently in the single digits at the beginning. So if you bought a disc you were also paying for all the ones they threw out. I think it took Pioneer buying the plant and retooling it to get them up to acceptable levels. The stylii for these machines are also quite sophisticated and complex to make; apparently when they killed the format RCA made enough spares to satisfy their projected demand for replacements from existing machines and then decommissioned the tooling (I wonder how long you could get them from RCA).
And I've actually seen used CED movies for sale at BMV Books in Toronto multiple times (somebody bought them, and they didn't sit in the store for months either).
That your colour varies on playback is due to the variations in speed. Might be the drive belt or the platter's magnetism is lacking. And don't try to adjust those front switches. Thanks for the video.
Platter bearing. Watch it through to the end and you will see.
So cool to see that disk under the microscope.
Technology Connections made a five part trilogy about the CED debacle
This episode reminded me of the odd equipment Matt from Techmoan does on His channel..
The shop I worked for, Starting in 84 was a full fledged High end Audio / Video store.
I worked in the Telephone / Sound dept till 2021.
We sold the GOOD Stuff HAHAHAHAHA...
I never saw a Video Disk in the Store, But there was a new in the box laserdisc Player sitting there till the Day the Shop closed up 6 Months After I retired. The Store front actually closed about 1990 and we were just Phone & Sound from then on. Randy may have it the Storage locker yet ??
Thanks Dave...
Laserdisk players are different and also highly collectable due to the volume of music and concert footage that was only released on laserdisk and no other format.
@@12voltvids I think there was a few new Disks too..
Too bad that there is not a way to fix the bearings for as how rare that machine is would be great to have it in a fully working order even tho it is just a shelf piece to look at or for in a museum .... I know time wise it is not feasable to try to fix the bearings as you wont make any money off it but sure would be great to see it really resotored some how in a fully working unit... Good video Dave
It's a plastic bearing
@@12voltvids but i would think anything with the same size should do... anyway good video
I wonder if you can drill it out and insert a nylon drill bushing in there. I did that with a dishwasher pump and it lasted 2 years of daily use, which was the same as the factory pump motor regardless.
If I ever part with my CED player and that same movie… you can have it. I need to downsize my museum
In the early eighties I wanted one of these discs players. I voraciously read consumer hi-fi and video magazines opting to go with LaserDisc for the more superior sound and picture.. Not that I was smart. Far from it. LaserDisc too was a plagued format. My Magnavox player did not handle warped discs well...and most rented LaserDiscs would become warped likely from users hot cars and other poor handling. To buy discs was still expensive enough that it didn't make sense for me to buy a movie I'd only want to watch once or twice. Matsushita and Pioneer lost a lot of jack pushing the LD format which ultimately failed too.. At the time most folks chose VHS over these discs. That was actually being smart. Outside of the novelty of owning new tech (which wore off fast) the benefits of early optical discs were few if at all. Good nostalgia here of a time when the race for the future of home video was a hot sector of the consumer electronics market. I enjoyed your video and could clearly see the built-in reasons these players were what Steve Jobs later referred to Blu-Ray as "a bag of hurt", LOL.. Blu-Ray was (and actually still is w/ 4K) like a Porsche 911 opposed to these early optical video formats which were more like the East German Trabant comparatively speaking.
I found one of these for $15 at a local thrift store with five discs. Mine's the Zenith clone. Said to myself, "I'm the only one in this store right now who knows what that is, and it's coming home with me." Somebody thought it was an audio record player and had some religious record stuck in it. Removed the audio record and it then worked perfectly.
Hope you used that record as a frisbee to see how far it would fly.
Had one of these in college, they were in several video rental places, when VHS took over all the stores sold the rental players for $75 I picked up one and bought a bunch of discs for $5 each till nobody wanted them then they were $2 still have them all Player still works. I thought it was fine at the time as VHS players were way more money. But i hated flipping disc in the middle of the movie. And some of the long movies had 2 discs and you have to flip it twice. I am not so sure it was the same quality as VHS i think it was better, but no way to record. I won't say it was leaps and bounds better, in fact i doubt there was much difference. I got all mine at a RCA store.. The funny thing is that the store is still open 40 years later but it's not RCA anymore.
I have a selectavision in the garage. I don’t have any disks though😞. Had these not been delayed so long from release they would have been ahead of their time. They were developed in the early 1960s but by the time they got released there was already the other technologies you mentioned and they were much better quality and no contact with the disc.
Yes had it launched in the early 70s RCA would probably still be around.
My brother bought one of those back around 1980 or so at Bond Furniture in Loveland, Ohio. Those things would skip like a record too, even playing a brand new disc. They would skip just like a record in the same spot every time. We thought it was a cool machine at the time, we didn't get a VCR until around 1984. Movies we had....Star Trek: The Motion Picture....Paul McCartney in Wings, Rockshow....On Golden Pond....Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...The Shootist...etc.
I can't remember how much my brother paid for the machine but I believe I paid about $14 for Butch Cassidy at the time. Don't remember what ever became of that machine or the disc...my brother probably had taken it with him when he got back from basic training. I still remember that cheesy wooden case that machine had.
I had seen one of these units and about 100 disc for sale on Craig's List a couple of years ago for about $50. The ad said the machine still worked, if I remember right.
The movies were 15 to 20. By comparison a pre recorded VHS or beta tape was about 100 at the time. The players hit the market in 1981 after 17 years development and they were dropped in 1984. I remember well the demise because i worked for a large independent Sony/RCA dealer at the time. Had only been there a few months when rca announced the end of their video disk right after the Christmas selling season. The players went on sale for 99.00 on boxing day to blow out inventory and what didn't sell rca bought back. New movies were promised and delivered for 2 more years for existing owners to stock up. Replacement cartridges were also available for a few years after production ended. The shop I worked at put all the movies on sale for 4.99 for the few people that had bought players. Nobody bought them. The rental disks and the display player were all taken home by the shop owner as well, he owned them LOL. Unsold movies and unopened players were returned to RCA for credit. They were a tough sell with a laserdisk sitting next to it.
@@12voltvidsI guess the RCA machine was kind of obsolete by the time it was released. The "Edsel" of video players is an accurate name for it. About the time the RCA machine was killed off, Zenith killed off it's line of Transoceanic shortwave radio's. Sony had taken over shortwave radio sales with a more advanced and better product with it's ICF line.
Yes, I remember the high price of VCR pre-recorded tapes back in the 80's. $80 to $100 for new releases. We rented movies and rarely bought them. A blank VHS tape, made by Fuji, was around $14 or so. We would tape movies and shows off of TV. Usually in long play 6 hour speed and always have tracking problems on that speed.
You got me thinking about these RCA machines again and it made me remember the DVIX debacle from Circuit City in the 90's. That rental disc format came out at the same time DVD's we released and they flopped. I believe that was the beginning of the end for Circuit City.
@@StevefromOhio1972One of the factors that led to CED's failure was its timing; it simply came out way too late.
Of course, a big reason why CED came out late was because it wasn't ready at the time it was supposed to have come out in the late 1970s. At that time, RCA hadn't figured out how to manufacture a disc that wouldn't deteriorate not long after being made and they also were grappling with disc handling issues that necessitated the design of the caddy-based auto loading mechanism; no matter how well RCA designed the disc to be handled by people, the disc would inevitably have its signal surface be touched by human skin, and the oils and soils from such contact would degrade the signal surface.
By the time CED came out, VHS was already dominant and LaserDisc, more or less, secured a niche as a higher end format.
Also, RCA's strategy for making money on the format depended on software sales, with the pitch being that buying a videodisc was cheaper than buying a prerecorded video cassette ... and that collecting videodiscs could be fun. This was because videodiscs, both CED and LaserVision, were direct sale whereas video cassette sales followed a tier (rental market first, then collector market, and finally mass market).
However, while it was cheaper to buy videodiscs, it was cheaper still to rent a movie. RCA's sales and marketing strategy did not take into account the effect that video rental would have had against their business. And most people preferred to rent rather than buy, especially if buying meant taking a chance with a lot of money on owning a movie they may wind up not liking.
Another problem was that RCA ... and those who pushed LaserDisc, for that matter ... were intending for the videodisc formats to be supplemental to video cassette formats in a video system, much like how the audio cassette supplemented the turntable in a stereo system. The problem, however, was that video equipment was VERY expensive compared to audio equipment. Unless you were really well off, you couldn't afford to have both a VCR and a videodisc player, especially buying them all at once.
Most people bought a VCR as it made the most sense, value-wise, at the time; the video quality was good enough and you can record, so why spend extra on a videodisc player for a basic capability that you already have with a VCR?
And with regard to LaserDisc, at least it did offer higher quality video and sound, so it had a selling point for those willing to pay the premium for it. CED had no real advantages to make it preferable over a VCR.
As an aside, JVC had been planning on releasing its VHD videodisc format in North America, which operated on the same basic principles as CED but was a far superior execution. However, JVC wisely reconsidered and canceled VHD for North America; observing how CED and LaserVision were faring, JVC probably concluded that VHD would likely not succeed in an already crowded videodisc market ... and would also likely be in competition against their own VHS format. VHD wound up being a Japanese-exclusive format, though VHD also saw some business in the UK, but only for commercial applications and even then without much success. VHD was relatively short-lived in Japan, however, as LaserDisc was the preferred videodisc format in that country up until the advent of DVD-Video.
I still Have One just Like this Player and A pioneer that Takes that Big CD looking type disc, My RCA is This type Of caddy Disc, Both players Been in the Family since new and Still work All that was needed is A bit of Cleaning ETC from time to time, yet i'm looking for more Movies for the Pioneer Lazer disc player, i have 10 of The Movies for my CED player, Just seems here both are rare or hard to find now.
They are hard to find these days. I have perhaps 100 or so laserdisk disks. Some rare laserdisk only releases.
@@12voltvids I only Got one for mine , its A cartoon one, The other RCA i have about 12 Disc for that one .I like to keep anything thats an odd format myself too, but here Can't find Any at all no place, I live in NY state, but seems noe many Disc or even players here either. The 2 Players i had been in the Family for Qiute a number of years, since no one else wanted them i took the Players home here with me.
A neighbor bought one of these players back in '81 or '82; yeah, the picture quality wasn't much better than VHS as I recall. From what I've read, this was basically RCA's attempt at another big breakthrough on the level of NTSC color TV.
240 lines resolution same as VHS and mono sound. They did bring out a stereo version and one with digital memory so it could play slo-mo and still picture mode.
@@12voltvidsPlus, CED used chroma-under-luma for color, which VHS and Beta also used.
LaserDisc, at least, was true composite video.
As for CED stereo with CX, it wasn't bad ... and it was far better than linear stereo on VHS, even with Dolby System ... and then Beta hi-fi came out followed by VHS Hi-Fi, and they both blew CED sound completely out of the water.
Of course, you also had LaserVision stereo sound with CX, and that was better ... and then came LaserDisc Digital Sound. 'nuff said.
And one of the biggest competitors to CED ... was VHS ... and RCA kind of shot themselves in the foot with that, since they were some of the biggest pushers of VHS having introduced it for North America.
And it was kind of a signal of RCA's decline. RCA had been developing their own video cassette format, but then canceled it and eventually obtained licensing for VHS from JVC, though RCA would have their VHS VCRs and cassettes made by Panasonic.
It's too bad RCA didn't discount the players, discs, and stylus long enough to get them off the showroom floor to people who didn't care if they just had a unit that only played discs.
They did. The players dropped to 99.00 to clear them out. A couple of them sold, but most went back. Boxing day they dropped to 49.00 and any that didn't sell were shipped back.
$77. The first thing out of my mouth was totally inappropriate for this channel, but it started with an "F" and ended with the word for eternal fire and brimstone. Also, I agree, the shipping totally outweighs the repair cost. You might want to consider only doing stuff locally in Canada, unless your USA counterparts want to actually pay the postage, of course.
Of course they pay.
As the old proverb goes, the invention of the light bulb was not a result of infinite refinement of the candle. Well, what RCA did with CED proved the dangers of failing to learn from the history. RCA engineers simply took the LP record format and iterated it to barely idiot-proof fragile product, while at the same time making every effort (and a lot of compromises along the way) to slash the player's price tag to the bottom. This is the reason for the bare-bone analogue approach for the CED recording, where the entire TV signal was directly etched to the surface of the disk, negating the need for any extra circuit logic, even for a simple aspect as the vertical blanking signal. This race to the bottom in the end is took the whole company with down, given the fact that RCA had to even subcontract the manufacturing of their first VCR machines -- to expensive and complicated to do it themselves apparently.
So I acquired one of these a while back. I did not realize this was a completely different format. I tried shoving a laser disc in the thing. I took it apart and was like WTH! I thought laser disk was optical what’s this stylus for? Then I found out RCA was trying to break in to the market with this crap. I did find a video disk and it did play okay but with horrible picture and sound. Sold it at yard sale and never want another one.
Only for the collector value. I wouldn't have a use for one otherwise.
These things are cool, I like them, old technology but still cool…..
This was well before my time - I'm only 35 years old.
A magnetic video disk format also existed, that one was like a floppy disk.
50:39 - 2-pole; probably not even a sync motor, just an induction type shaded pole motor.
Definitely not a synchronous motor. The power line (and the drive belt) don't provide enough stability for color video. I'm sure it's an induction motor running on varying voltage, that allows the circuitry to trim the platter speed to exactly the required 60/n/1.001.
Marvellous video
The CED.... almost a video vinyl record. Neat idea, but it took them WAY too long to get it working. And then it didn't shake out so well.
They never did get it to work properly. They always skipped.
Funny bit of info … I got one of these … fixed it (belts were gummed up and gears were cracked)
Going through it …I thought I had a speed problem… audio was a tad fast… Got frustrated because I could not find any speed adjustments.
Well, I was using The Empire Strikes Back as my test disk.
Turns out Lucasfilm prohibited the release on 2 disks.. they got around it by speeding it up 😆😆😆😆
So don’t use Empire Strikes Back as a test disk !!!! 😂
"A New Hope" was also time-compressed to make it fit on one disc, so that's another "Star Wars" movie where the sound pitch is higher than normal because the film-to-video transfer was faster than normal.
"Return of the Jedi" is a two disc release, so no time-compression was used. But it came out relatively late in the CED format's life, so that's a relatively rare pressing whereas the first two movies are common.
The SFT/SGT belt drive models used magnetic sync plates for speed adjustments while all other CED player models were quartz-locked and no adjustments are possible. But if you are getting steady color video, your turntable speed is right on.
Variations in turntable speed will directly affect video stability, and one of the first things you'll lose pretty much immediately if the speed is off even by the slightest is the color.
I like the no fingerprint disc technology
Remember dad having one in the mid 80's....We used to watch Tom & Jerry, Captain Pugwash and The Complete Beatles on it.
Bought mine in the early eighties from Radio Shack under the Realistic brand. The discs were around 30 bucks with limited selection. This was a very finicky system as skipping would occur frequently. The first selection I purchased was a 2 disc set of the Godfather....
It was terrible. Should never have gone to market. I can think of a few other things that should never have gone to market too. VHS being one. Betamax was so much better and the recording time thing could have been extended like it ended up being. Had everyone got on board there would have been 1 format and that would have been better for everyone. Smaller tape better quality. Then there was HD DVD which also should never have happened. It basically took down Toshiba like the ced system did to RCA. Sony on the other hand did extremely well with beta. Notice I didn't say betamax, as it was their betacam format that ruled broadcast and professional production for the life cycle of video tape. It used the same parts as the betamax system used.. same pinch roller and tape threading system, same size drum. Just a different video head and different video processing and of course a much faster tape speeds. 2 sizes of cassette. A small cassette exactly the same as the betamax used and a larger cassette for longer record times.
@@12voltvids "I can think of a few other things that should never have gone to market too. VHS being one."
Yeah, right.
"Betamax was so much better"
It wasn't better at all, let alone "so much better."
"and the recording time thing could have been extended like it ended up being."
It could never match VHS's recording time because its tape cartridge was smaller, so for a given thickness of tape, VHS cartridges could always fit a lot more of it, and no matter how slow they made their linear speed, VHS manufacturers could always make theirs just as slow.
L-830 was the longest Betamax tape and it could record 5 hours at its slowest recording speed (βIII). That's not even as long as VHS's recording time of 6 hours on a _standard_ T-120 tape at its slowest recording speed (EP), and with a T-120 you're not stuck with the fragile, ultra-thin tape that an L-830 uses. And if you wanted to use fragile, ultra-thin tape with VHS you could go all the way up to a T-240 for 12 hours of recording time at EP speed.
"Sony on the other hand did extremely well with beta."
No, they didn't. Betamax was a failure and Betacam was only a success in the professional market, which is small potatoes compared to the consumer market.
I have three VHS VCRs from the 1980s (1983, 1985, and 1988) that still work fine, so there's nothing inherently wrong with the fundamental design in terms of reliability. Also, I've made recordings on my highest-end VCR (JVC HR-D566U with new Maxell HGX-Gold T-120 tapes at SP speed) that look almost as good as the DVD or BD that I recorded from (when viewed at the same distance, on the same CRT TV, and over the same composite video connection), so there's nothing inherently wrong with the picture quality.
Betamax _might_ be able to produce slightly better picture quality at βI speed, but then I couldn't even fit a whole movie onto a standard L-500 tape, nor even an L-750 tape for movies longer than 90 minutes, and most Betamax VCRs didn't even have the option to record at βI speed to begin with.
Sony shot themselves in the foot with that tiny tape cartridge, and them being a far less open format than VHS didn't help matters either.
Your idea that a wildly successful video format that dominated the consumer market for two full decades (1980s and 1990s) and parts of two other decades (1970s and 2000s), and for which most people had no complaints back then, never should have gone to market makes no sense whatsoever.
Sony could have dropped the speed so the l750 tape could record 6 hours. They chose not to have an even slower speed. Sony put their engineering efforts into betacam. Cost wise it wasn't that much more to make a betacam deck and with them selling for 12,000 to 80,000 that was a real moneymaker for Sony. They might not of sold millions like home video but there also wasn't 30 different companies making them. There was Sony and Ampex making betacam and all the other flavours of betacam. Digibeta, sx, HD beta. They sold 10s or thousands to tv stations and production companies world wide and with a high profit margin and high profit on maintenance and parts. Make no mistake Sony was laughing all the way to the bank and it started as betamax. Betacam uses the same parts. Betacam SP used a different drum due to metal tape but regular betacam they just added 2 more heads for the component chroma and they were golden.
@@12voltvids "Sony could have dropped the speed so the l750 tape could record 6 hours."
Again, no matter what they did to increase recording time, they would always be behind VHS. Plus, with an L-750 you get thinner-than-standard tape. That same thinner-than-standard tape for VHS is in a T-160, which gives you up to 8 hours of recording time.
"Cost wise it wasn't that much more to make a betacam deck and with them selling for 12,000 to 80,000 that was a real moneymaker for Sony."
Sure it made them money, but like I said, small potatoes compared to the consumer market, even at the exorbitant prices for each unit. For example, there are about 1,750 TV stations in the US (most of their customers were TV stations), but there are about 131 million households. Thousands or tens of thousands vs. hundreds of millions is a drastic difference.
"They might not of sold millions like home video but there also wasn't 30 different companies making them."
JVC got a piece of the pie for every VHS VCR sold, not just on the basic VHS technology, but also on the use of its logo, and for licensing Hi-Fi stereo technology and its logo, and for licensing HQ technology and its logo. Also, there weren't 30 different companies making them. It was more like six Japanese companies three Korean companies (LG/Goldstar, Samsung, and Daewoo). Ones branded GE, RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, Sylvania, etc., weren't actually made by those companies. They were rebranded Panasonics, LG/Goldstars, Samsungs, etc.
"Make no mistake Sony was laughing all the way to the bank"
They would have traded it in an instant for the success that VHS had in the consumer market for decades.
@@12voltvids "Sony could have dropped the speed so the l750 tape could record 6 hours."
Again, no matter what they did to increase recording time, they would always be behind VHS. Plus, with an L-750 you get thinner-than-standard tape. That same thinner-than-standard tape for VHS is in a T-160, which gives you up to 8 hours of recording time.
"Cost wise it wasn't that much more to make a betacam deck and with them selling for 12,000 to 80,000 that was a real moneymaker for Sony."
Sure it made them money, but like I said, small potatoes compared to the consumer market, even at the exorbitant prices for each unit. For example, there are about 1,750 TV stations in the US (most of their customers were TV stations), but there are about 131 million households. Thousands or tens of thousands vs. hundreds of millions is a drastic difference.
"They might not of sold millions like home video but there also wasn't 30 different companies making them."
JVC got a piece of the pie for every VHS VCR sold, not just on the basic VHS technology, but also on the use of its logo, and for licensing Hi-Fi stereo technology and its logo, and for licensing HQ technology and its logo. Also, there weren't 30 different companies making them. It was more like six Japanese companies three Korean companies (LG/Goldstar, Samsung, and Daewoo). Ones branded GE, RCA, Zenith, Magnavox, Sylvania, etc., weren't actually made by those companies. They were rebranded Panasonics, LG/Goldstars, Samsungs, etc.
"Make no mistake Sony was laughing all the way to the bank"
They would have traded it in an instant for the success that VHS had in the consumer market for decades.
I remember that the discs were insanely expensive,any dust would make them skip. And seems like you were putting the disks in and taking them out and back in to get them work. But I still have the disks but not player.
Laserdisk were expensive. The ced disks were 15 to 20.
I remember my family renting one a few times. Watched a Muppet movie one these.
I had laserdisk and had to drive a long way to rent movies. So i would go to a store that rented them once a week and get about 10 movies at a time. Store owners name was Jack Frost. He was a big jazz fan and had all the jazz laserdisk. I remember him telling me that the rippingtons were going to play in Vancouver so i got tickets. When he closed his store he sold me a bunch of his concert disks which i still have. Some 8" and the rest 12" laser.
hi picked 2 stereo decks up some time ago i was lucky the decks worked ok the thing is the discs had heavy wear because the one who had the deck
used it as a music player it's the kind of deck you could show of on here i don't have alot of disc's what you said on here they are money pits
RCA actually had a working prototype by 1969 or '70, but the discs only held 10 minutes per side, LOL. Engineers then spent most of the rest of the '70s increasing the amount of time per disc
I believe it was 30 minutes per side just like laserdisk in cav mode.
Also, the picture of the dog listening to a phonograph under the RCA logo, wasn't that originally "His Master's Voice"? Or, did RCA either own or bought it out?
It was his master's voice and rca bought our Victor so they had the rights to use it.
@@12voltvids thought it was familiar. Victor company, I remember now.
About £500 in the UK really expensive I bought a Kate Bush one by mistake I thought it was a laser disc
My parents had one. Video quality was superior to VHS. The only problem was like a audio record at the time, if you got dust on the disc, the video would skip.
Considering the resolution was the same as VHS you can't say with a straight face it was superrior. Now laserdisk, now you are talking a superrior picture and sound.
@@12voltvids I had found the picture was sharper. I in no way said that it was a greater resolution.
I have two ced players and I swapped the needle out on one of them and I have one that wants to play but it makes a noise but it wants to work, it powers up but no picture, how can I swap parts on one player to another so I can have one working player…..
I have a suggestion: you may want to drop the audio level of your intros music by 12dB when talking over them. Makes it easier to hear what your saying, I'm straining some times. This isn't negative criticism, I enjoy watching all your videos. It's just some times your mic is either too quietly mixed or too hot.
I actually do balance my audio level while I'm doing the production and I'm going to stay with headphones and I hear my voice clear as a bell but the audio is typically 10 to 12 DB below the voice over.
@@12voltvids hmm, I use headphones; it may be my hearing isn't as good.
I actually HAD disks and players in both formats. Being a CB radio junkie i met a lot of pickers that had everything you could think of electronic. I got players from them and at an antique store in area i found a both that had several disk in both formats. Im just extremely sad that GF at the time jacked me for them and lots of CB radio equipment i had collected. That horrid ho!!
I had the hitachi version I bought it at a local auction house . It worked out was schechy on some discs I sold it one I had gotten fed up with the films I got with it .
Great video!
Thanks
Any help with this would be great…
had one of these, ages ago, got it at a garage sale 1985 or so, with 20 movies, I don't remember paying much for all of it, it worked, then died, a miserable death a few months later, I do admit, the intro start up circle/logo music etc is cool , I also made for the time, wall art with the disc covers for some of the movies, definitely a financial blunder from RCA, Coleco would do the same in some ways with it's horrible, ill fated Coleco Adam Family Computer,
Someone has one up on Facebook now with 14 movies asking 200. Needs stylus. Worth about 20 max.
@@12voltvids I agree, way overpriced, for what they are, a electronic oddity,that would be neat to have today, but one would have to fall into my lap for nothing, for me to actually want it, I just don't see the value, typical of Ebay sellers though where everything is literally rare, and therefore valuable in their eyes
You just don't know where to look. The disc abd players can be found and sometimes cheap. I want to get laserdisc player though.
Good ol vinyl infused with carbon, varying capacitance across the disc picked up by the stylus… quite the marvel of engineering but it was too little too late
Not as cool as tracking a reflective spiral track with a laser.
@@12voltvidsTrue that LMAO, I honestly will never understand why RCA continued to pour tons of R&D money into it after the release of Laserdisc in the 70s, and that went in development even longer than CED. Haphazard management and baffling decisions
What did you say that POT does? It almost certainly needs Deoxit. So many points of failure on these.
That pot is just providing feedback to the sled servo and it's working. The failure on this one as shown at the end is the main bearing for the platter. Its plastic, go figure.
RCA bet the farm on this inexpensive, 70s tech and lost. What people really wanted was to record their favorite shows and watch them later. That's something that NTSC 3 will finally put an end to. For over 40 years, people have been legally pirating TV. That's an oxymoron if I ever heard one. I honestly don't even know why they're even bothering with keeping TV alive when video streaming gives IP owners full control over their content. I mean, you need Internet for all encrypted TV content, and it will likely pull the content off the Internet, anyway. I don't even watch TV except with severe weather rips up my home state of Oklahoma, and you'll likely need a subscription for that, too. Welcome to the dystopia of the future!
Next will be data usage fees by ISP. The more you watch the more you pay. Oh wait, thats already here. Pay an extra 20 for unlimited data. I read on C-Net last month that AT&T is going to shart charging 10.00 per month for the ability to skip commercials on recorded content. Netwitz and anazoon and disnay and already charging for commercial free viewing as is youboob.
Certainly another strike against this format was having to turn the disc over halfway through a movie, using the disc's caddy, ala side 1 and side 2 of a record.
Laserdisk was initially the same, and then t hey went to auto reverse players.
Incrível 😮👏👏👏
My thoughts on the disk. Back in the day the original owner of this unit bought it to watch quality action movies. Well that was all good but the owner had a kid. They bought this movie for the kid. By knowing just the parental thing, and kids, this movie has been played over and over. And over and over and over. LOL.
I think these things are cool even though they are old, I just wanted mine to work and I have two ced discs to go with it, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated……I want to figure out how to fix mine…….I got an old tv that I can connect it to, so I would like to know why mine blinks L when in the off position, I haven’t put any discs in mine so even try it…..I want to replace that stylus, well the whole plastic thing but I want to fix the L problem…….
l is to load the disk. I really don't know much about these. This is the only one i have ever worked on.
I have one of those and it blinks L when you plug it in and it’s in the off position, so idk what’s wrong with it, that’s what it does when it’s off, when you put it in the off position, it blinks the L(Loading)…..so any help would be nice
No need to post the same question over and over unless you would like to be banned. Do you want to be like johny shithead and get banned?
I bought one from eBay and in the ad the guy said it works good and it came with ced discs and I connected it to the old crt tv that I have and I put it into the load position and nothing, I put a disc in and nothing came on the screen and then after that I took out the disc and then there was no power, I plugged it into another outlet and got nothing, so idk what went wrong with it, so I got another one from Craigslist and that’s the one that will power up but it wants to work, I swapped out the needles but it makes a noise so idk if it’s a belt or what, I want to swap out the parts out of the one that didn’t power up, can anyone help me with this???
I think the "caddy" idea would have have saved a lot of old stuff.
The original CDROM drive used a caddy. My first Sony CDROM drives in my old XT computer used a caddy as did the first Yamaha CD player in my car.
@@12voltvids I remember those sort also.. that's what made me comment I suppose.
I have two working players, I got hold of the new belts, and changed them out. But It Is the Stylus that Is no longer available. So I have to keep swapping It between the two, till I can get two new ones. If Anyone has any idea where to get these from. They are both UK Pal Stereo machines. GEC McMICHAEL V5000H CED video disc player is the same model as the Hitachi VIP201P
Stylus available on eBay for those with deep pockets.
@@12voltvidsThanks. I have looked on there, but none for my model. When You change out the other belts. Be very careful with the Plastic parts. as these are very brittle. I used a Hair dryer to sofen It first. When Is the second half of this one going up?.
The good old CED player that sent RCA bust.
Sure did.