Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Anyone have a CED (SelectaVision) VideoDisc player?

This is topic Anyone have a CED (SelectaVision) VideoDisc player? in forum The Afterlife at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

To visit this topic, use this URL:
https://ft-forum.com/ft/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=12;t=000251

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 01-31-2004, 04:38 PM:

The "Save the LP" movement of the late 80's inspired me to start collecting 8-track tapes, which then got me interested in all the other dead formats out there. I decided the next logical step was to get into CED videodisc, which is video's 8-track equivalent (despite popular opinion, Beta doesn't even come close.) For those who don't remember, these were a competing format to Laserdisc that was sold from 1981-1986, and were read with a stylus instead of a laser. There's a website dedicated to them at www.cedmagic.com - before I got into this internet thing I thought I was the only one on the planet who cared about them.
When I finally found a working stereo player at a flea market I was so taken with the format that I decided to try and get every title ever produced (there were around 1300 altogether), and 10 years later my collection has passed the 1100 mark last time I counted. I have a stereo player hooked up to my 90's-era TV and sound system, and watch them quite often. The picture is a little "jaggy" for lack of a better word, and often the needle will skip over a few seconds while playing, which they did even when they were brand-new and probably the main reason they failed. The sound is pretty good though.
My latest acquisition came today- "Memories Of Videodisc", which was made for the employees of the RCA factory in Indianapolis and given to them when the plant closed for good in June 1986. It includes still photos day-to-day operations, a video tour of the factory shot in 1983, and a scrolling list of names of everyone who worked there. I'm making a DVD copy right now so I can share this gem with anyone else who wants to see it.

Posted by Claude S. Ayakawa (Member # 1401) on 01-31-2004, 05:28 PM:

Hello Jesse,

I wish you knew one of my friends who had invested a lot of money in the CED system. When his player 'died' and could not get local service to repair the machine, he gave up on the system and took his extensive collection to the city dump and trashed all of them. Because he took very good care of his discs, they were like new and I though it was a shame he dicided to throw them away. When he was collecting CED discs, I was collecting laserdiscs and as you know, that system survived until DVD took over the optical video disc market beginning in 1997, To be honest with you, I never cared very much for both the picture and sound quality of the CED system and preferred the laserdisc format. At one time, I must have had about 600 discs. Although I kept many obscure titles, a good percentage were sold in order to get the money to replace them with DVD copies.

-Claude

Posted by Phil Hill (Member # 371) on 01-31-2004, 05:40 PM:

I agree Claude, I could never figure out the logic of why anyone would prefer/buy an old-fashioned video "phonograph" over the much superior and cool technology of LaserDiscs. Mechanical contact/physical wear vs. no contact/no physical wear...

DUH!

I went the LaserDisc route in my personal collection mainly cuz of the successful history of the arcade games (Dragon's Lair, etc.) and being in the theme park indusrty where I used a ton of 'em.

>>>Phil

Posted by Patrick J. McCart (Member # 1043) on 02-02-2004, 07:00 PM:

I obtained about 25 titles plus a very screwed up player from a flea market a few years ago. The player had to be junked since it was pretty much worn out, but the discs are in great condition. Here's a list of titles I have if you're interested: http://cztoondb.tripod.com/cedpage.htm

Posted by Bruce McGee (Member # 131) on 02-02-2004, 08:22 PM:

I kept my CED player until I was no longer able to get the replacement stylus.

I gave all of my copies to Goodwill. I see them for sale there now and then.

Posted by Hillary Charles (Member # 769) on 02-03-2004, 11:44 AM:

I have an early mono and a stereo player. The mono works better these days.

I think I still have about 70 titles, and for the most part, they play as okay as they ever did (how about that for a glowing endorsement?).

At the time, discs were much less expensive than prerecorded VHS tapes and about half the price of laserdiscs, which made it attractive to me.

Also in our basement waiting for the museum, is Pioneer's first laserdisc player and a Quasar Time Machine VCR with one of the stacked-reel cassettes still in it.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 02-03-2004, 05:31 PM:

Wow- I actually have a Quasar Great Time Machine VCR, but no tapes for it- don't even know if it works. Last week I got a 1972 Cartrivision VCR from Ebay, should be coming this week! This was the first home-video format, beating Beta by about 3 years!

Posted by Steve Guttag (Member # 268) on 02-03-2004, 06:23 PM:

Hey, I got a Pioneer VP-1000 laserdisc player too!

Steve

Posted by Bobby Henderson (Member # 840) on 02-03-2004, 07:23 PM:

My Aunt Patricia has an RCA Selectavision player (the version that used a stylus). The player itself no longer works. She has around 200 movies, including the original "Star Wars" trilogy, "Jaws," "Back to the Future" and many other big hits. I have no way of knowing if they're still in good shape or warped all to hell. Only bad thing about them is most are pan and scan.

Posted by Brett Garten (Member # 1996) on 03-23-2004, 02:22 AM:

One good thing about Selectavision is they used to rerecord over the unsold discs. Once a rerecorded disc starts to wear you casn see artifacts of the older image superimposed with the newer one. Makes for a very avant garde effect. You can even scrape off the layers to see what was on it originally and produce very interesting effects.

Posted by Michael Schaffer (Member # 1204) on 03-23-2004, 04:30 AM:

I never heard of this system. Was it ever marketed in Europe?

Posted by Paul Linfesty (Member # 214) on 03-23-2004, 08:38 AM:

quote:
One good thing about Selectavision is they used to rerecord over the unsold discs.

Now just how were they able to do this? Selectavision discs weren't magnetic, but had grooves. They were stamped out, not recorded.

Posted by Stephen Furley (Member # 1277) on 03-23-2004, 09:05 AM:

Yes Michael, but it was never very popular here. I have a PAL disk somewhere, but no player. There was also the VHD system from JVC which was a grooveless capacative format. Then there was the tel-dec system, which never reached the market, which used a physically modulated groove, the less said about that one the better, and of course, the original Baird 30 line disks from the '30s, some of which somebody has recently managed to play. The results are on a web site somewhere.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 03-23-2004, 03:47 PM:

No, there was no way they could "record" anything over a pressed disc- for the later titles they did stick new labels over the covers though- they'd label a certain number of caddies for a title but some discs would get rejected upon inspection so they'd have some labeled caddies left over but with no discs. Towards the end of the format they used these caddies for other titles, sticking a new label over the old one. I used to peel these back enough to see what was underneath, but could never get them back on without looking sloppy so I quit doing that.
The older Discovision laserdiscs often had hidden stuff on the unused sides though- they'd spray it with something to make it unreadable but you can clean it off with alcohol and play it. Usually it's a test-pressing of a side of another released title, but sometimes you get late 70's General Motors training discs that are a lot of fun to watch. On my side 6(?) of "Three Days of the Condor" which is in CAV format as all early titles were, I found a test-pressing of Side 2 of "Bullitt" in CLV format, which was never commercially released on the DiscoVision label.
BTW I got my Cartrivision unit but can't get it to play [Frown]

I think the capacitor that starts the motor's got something wrong with it, I'll have to go find a replacement when I've got time- working 9-5 M-F sucks!

Posted by Mike Blakesley (Member # 26) on 04-09-2004, 10:11 PM:

The store I work at used to sell these things. We sold Zenith TVs, and when videodisks came out Zenith decided to go with the CED type (their second major video blunder...the first was when they went with Betamax.)

Some people here in town actually opened up a video store featuring these things! As you might expect, they didn't hold up too well in the rental market.

Posted by Steve Anderson (Member # 364) on 04-11-2004, 10:27 AM:

I have mine in the original box stored in the closet...plus about 40 discs. Stereo audio was what made me purchase one when they came out.

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 04-11-2004, 05:45 PM:

Zenith sold the first DIVX player too- I still need to get one of those while they're still around. I bought 15 of the discs when Circus City cleared them out.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 04-11-2004, 08:54 PM:

Why would you want do that Jesse? In vitually every case, DIVX versions of titles were pan&scan only. AFAIK DIVX did only full-frame versions--no letterboxing, certainly no anamorphic widescreen. No extras of any kind either. DIVX was definitely a low-end market format, price-driven and aimed at people that didn't care about the technical features of the releases. Were there any titles that were DIVX only? That might be the only reason to hold on to one. Again AFAIK there were no DIVX "exclusives".

DIVX--remember, the "V" is silent. Gads what a format. [Wink]

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 04-12-2004, 03:18 AM:

What can I say, I have a soft spot for failed technology! Yes, I absolutely hated the concept of DIVX when it came out, but since it died a rightful death I felt I ought to at least pick up a few discs since I figured few people would probably be saving them (all the unsold ones were destroyed from what I heard.) I have Tomorrow Never Dies and Amistad which are labeled as being anamorphic widescreen, also Armageddon, Deep Impact and Roger Rabbit which are letterboxed. Amistad includes a making-of feature which the cover indicates "can be viewed at any time without charge"- it probably can't be played now though since the player still had to phone in to the system to make sure you still had "permission" to play it. That was the concept of "DIVX Gold" discs which never materialized, but were proposed to not have the pay-per-view structure of the regular discs, but could only be played on DIVX players and were still subject to having plays phoned-in and play could be disabled at will. That was what I hated most about the format- suppose some hidden obscenity in a Disney movie was discovered, so the company could simply tell the machines not to let any existing copies of it play anymore?
Interestingly enough, the Cartrivision tape format in 1972 had a similar concept- rental tapes had a mechanism that would not allow them to be rewound in a consumer machine, so you could only watch them one time before returning them. I have a few of these tapes and they all were previously been taken apart, presumably to defeat this "feature".
CED was a silly format as well (they NEVER should have let it reach the market until they could completely eliminate the skipping), but since it's now long-gone there's just something about it I find appealing, much like 8-track tapes.

Posted by Mitchell Dvoskin (Member # 751) on 04-12-2004, 08:40 AM:

I'm still waiting for the Sanyo V-Cord format to catch on...

Posted by Michael Coate (Member # 757) on 04-12-2004, 12:43 PM:

quote:
DIVX did only full-frame versions--no letterboxing

From Widescreen Review magazine's 2004 Ultimate Widescreen DVD Movie Guide issue, p29:

Always
Amistad*
Armageddon*
Born On The Fourth Of July
Deep Impact
Dragnet*
Fletch*
Havana
The Holcroft Covenant
The Longest Day
The River*
The Thing
Tomorrow Never Dies*
Who Framed Roger Rabbit

quote:
certainly no anamorphic widescreen.

See asterisked titles above.

Posted by Paul Mayer (Member # 355) on 04-12-2004, 01:16 PM:

I stand corrected. Still a dumb format though. [Big Grin]

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 04-12-2004, 01:44 PM:

I've got a couple unused Sanyo V-Cord blank tapes that I found sealed- 1 I opened and the other I'm keeping sealed, never seen a machine for these though.

Posted by Matthew Bailey (Member # 601) on 04-14-2004, 10:04 AM:

Come to think of it,I think it can be found in the search engines is another disc format called Vinyl Video. It uses mostly any stereo turntable & uses a decoder box to decode the video & sound from the grooved surface. Unfortunately, the format is in black & white. Here it is. http://www.vinylvideo.com

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 04-14-2004, 04:19 PM:

I was going to get one of those til I saw the price. It looks like more of an "art" thing though.

Posted by William Hooper (Member # 71) on 04-15-2004, 03:04 AM:

.wav files work, too:

http://www.sptv.demon.co.uk/nbtv/
http://www.terramedia.co.uk/documents/baird_televisor.htm
http://www.nbtv.wyenet.co.uk/gallery.htm
http://www.nbtv.wyenet.co.uk/clubshop.htm

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 02-08-2005, 02:39 AM:

Bumping this up in response to the Laserdisc Appreciation thread. Currently I've got less than 40 CED titles to go until I've got one of every title that was ever produced! [Eek!]

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 02-11-2005, 08:32 PM:

I don't believe that CED discs had groves. The "C" in CED stands for capacative. It used a stylus that rode on the disc (I don't remember how tracking was done), but as it wore you would see adjcent tracks in the background.

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-11-2005, 08:59 PM:

CED discs do have grooves. Quoting from CED Magic:

quote:
The shelf life of a CED is basically unknown, but I'd make a guess that it's around a hundred years. Of course, that begs the question of whether there will be any functional CED stylus cartridges still in existence to play the discs. Some people might think a hundred year estimate is awfully long, but consider that vinyl audio records have been around since the late 1940's, so there are 50 year old vinyl discs out there that are still playable. The counter argument to this is that CED grooves are much smaller (38 CED grooves fit inside a single audio LP groove), so CED's won't last as long. But the CED stylus is correspondingly smaller and the stylus tracking force is much less (0.065 grams on CED's vs. 2 grams typically on audio LP's).

Posted by Bruce Hansen (Member # 281) on 02-12-2005, 08:38 PM:

There are no groves on an RCA SelectaVision (CED) disc. There are tracks, but no groves. If you open one up you can see this. The surface is smooth, and looks something like a laser disc, except that it is black, but you can see the vertical sync (notice that there are more fields per track than on laser disc), and changes in the video. If you want to open one, just stick teekers (small screwdivers, or use tooth picks) in the outside edge of the "locks" and press inward, while pulling out that top plastic piece.

BTW: CED stands for Capacitance Electronic Disc

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 02-13-2005, 03:26 PM:

Actually it stands for Cancelled Electronic Dinosaur [Smile]

Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 02-13-2005, 04:10 PM:

Uh, OK, there are no groves. Or, presumably, grooves. All the info on CED web sites and the original CED equipment reviews that were published are full of misinformation, and this list of technical specifications for the CED format must be bogus:

quote:

Disc System: CED 525/60Hz NTSC(US) 625/50Hz PAL(European)
Playback System: Mechanical tracking grooved capacitance
Playback Sensor: Diamond stylus with titanium electrode
Max Playback Time (in 1983) : 63 min/side (NTSC), 75 min/side (PAL)
Video Signal to Noise Ratio: >46dB (CCIR)
Chrominance Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >40dB
Chrominance Bandwidth: 0.5MHz
Luminance Bandwidth: 3.0MHz
Horizontal Resolution: 240-270 lines (magazine reviews)
Audio Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >50dB (USASI), 70 dB (with CX)
Audio Bandwidth: 15KHz
Stereo Separation at 1KHz: 26dB
Dynamic Range Mono: 50dB
Dynamic Range Stereo: 70dB
Audio FM Signal Deviation: +/- 50KHz
Audio Carrier, Mono: 716KHz
Audio Carrier, Additional Stereo: 905KHz
Disc Diameter: 12 inches
Disc material: PVC, carbon-doped
Rotation Rate: 450RPM (525/60Hz), 375RPM (625/50Hz)
Groove Density: 9,541 grooves/inch
Recorded Band: 2.83 inches @ 60 minutes recording
Still Frame Capability: 27,000 frames/side @ 60 minutes

It appears that RCA also erred in their 1971 CED Patent Application. [Razz]

The competing JVC VHD (Video High Density) disc system was capacitance-based and groveless as well as grooveless.

[ 02-13-2005, 07:26 PM: Message edited by: David Stambaugh ]

Posted by Jesse Skeen (Member # 586) on 02-14-2005, 01:35 PM:

Yep, the discs do have grooves, but they're literally microscopic so you can't really see them looking at the disc. The videotaped tour of the RCA disc factory showed a comparison between the size of a videodisc groove and that of a normal record groove.