Looks like I was the only bidder for these RCA Selectavison players and discs.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230480397480

Does that mean I was foolish price wise?

John

Looks like I was the only bidder for these RCA Selectavison players and discs.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230480397480

Does that mean I was foolish price wise?

John

I tend to not bid on items that appear to be heavy where "free shipping" is offered, fearing that something is wrong... but this seller appears to have a good reputation...:scratch2:

Many are turned off by the "VHS quality" (or less) that the CED discs offer. Resolution aside, "skipping" is a problem as the disks wear, and the early players may have have 2-pole motors, so some 60 Hz "wow" may be observed on the picture. Does anybody sell the replacement stylus ?

But for a huge number of titles and two players, 100 bucks seems reasonable to me.

jr

I tend to not bid on items that appear to be heavy where "free shipping" is offered, fearing that something is wrong... but this seller appears to have a good reputation...:scratch2:

Many are turned off by the "VHS quality" (or less) that the CED discs offer. Resolution aside, "skipping" is a problem as the disks wear, and the early players may have have 2-pole motors, so some 60 Hz "wow" may be observed on the picture. Does anybody sell the replacement stylus ?

But for a huge number of titles and two players, 100 bucks seems reasonable to me.

jr

At least on the few CED enthusiasts sites I've looked at, they claim that styli are still available for the RCA unit. I don't expect to be playing it that much. It's more of a interest in old technology. I have blu-ray, dvd, and laserdisc. I really like the laserdisc. Although I haven't compared it to dvd now that I have an HD set, I used to like it as much or more than DVD's. Maybe it was something like the vinyl vs cd issue. Looking at the specs, I'm sure the CED won't be as good.

There's not a spot in my house that hasn't seen cat hair. I hope that doesn't end up being a serious issue with the Selectavision.

Oh, I do have VHS and Beta also. Beta seemed marginally better, but the transport was much quicker to respond with Beta.

John

I would have had no reservations buying that - you've got a neat piece of history along with 150 or so great movies!

Neat find. A good friend of mine picked one up with a few movies cheap at a hamfest in the late 80s. It worked fine and we had lots of fun with it.

That is a nice find for the price. I see lots like this pretty frequently, but they usually contain just terrible movies. Yours contains plenty of good media and TWO players. You should be able to get a working setup out of these. THe only thing you're missing is the lack of stereo playback-any CEDs you get that are in a Blue sleeve are stereo.

Belts can be an issue on some of the RCA units-I don't think yours use any, so they should run okay. I have yet to see one fail electronically...mechanically, all the time.

I have two CED players ..one PAL and one NTSC ... the key is the stylus and I know that you can find RCA stylii still ... check the CED Magic site for hints about that and other technical info and hints.

The disks suffer from skipping especially when new as the lubricant on the disks will cause it ..strangely over a few plays this often improves.

Disks that have been stored (and obviously they have been) often suffer from the lubricant becoming hard and causing the same issues.

As for quality ...I find it sits between VHS and SVHS at best.

I still love the way the disks load and eject the covers and it really impresses my buddies.

Congratulations on joining the CED fraternity!!!

80s tech can be soooo very cool!!!

Well, it arrived today in two heavy wooden crates. One weighed 150 pounds and the other 230 pounds. I didn't realize the discs weigh about 1 pound 6.8 ounces each and the player about 20 pounds each.

One suffered some damage to the corner of the case in shipping, and it looks like the platter may have slipped.

The shipping costs must have been close to what I paid for everything. I'm glad the shipping was free!

I hope to be out of town this weekend so it'll probably be later next week before I get to try out the undamaged one.

The discs really take up space! Video discs seem to have so many disadvantages compared to laser discs I don't understand how they managed to sell as many as they did.

I still think they're really cool though!

John

WOW! I bet the seller lost money on that deal ! how did he ship them?
Hope the second player works ok!
jr

They were shipped UPS. They were listed as 150 pounds each, but one of them weighed 230 pounds and somehow UPS missed that when they were put into the system. They made me pick that one up because it was too heavy for the delivery guy.

John

As for quality ...I find it sits between VHS and SVHS at best.



I used to work for RCA at the Smirnoff Labs in Princeton NJ when RCA was trying to sell this system. RCA dropped about 2/3 a billion dollars on this thing, this in 1980s dollars. They started work in the mid 60's, and eventually created something that sort of worked and released it in 1981 or so. But the VCR was out by then, and as you couldn't record with the discs, there was no real market. The video resolution was about 3 MHz, vs 2 MHz for VHS VCR tape. Biggest problem, which they never did solve, was skipping caused by dust and impurities in the disc material. The players could detect a "locked groove" condition, if the needle got bounced backwards on the disc, but they could have written the firmware to maintain proper cadence if the needle got bounced forward into the movie, but management said, "ship it!". This made for crappy playback performance. :thumbsdn:

In 1984, corporate management said "f*** it, this thing is a bomb, never gonna sell, so let's can it. They continued to make discs for a couple of years so people with players wouldn't be orphaned...

RCA having blown all that money probably prompted RCA shareholders to let RCA be corporate takeovered by someone who'd manage RCA better. GE ate RCA in the late 80s. I was there, it wasn't pretty... :tears:

I've only seen pictures, ads, and read articles in magazines describing video disc and laser disc players, but from what I've read about them, they were just a stepping stone or a bridge to today's DVDs -- with the introduction of the VCR occurring some time in between. I think DVDs have it all over LDs for at least two reasons: one, DVDs are much smaller than LDs or video discs (making DVDs easier to store and to load into the player), and two, DVDs -- thanks to today's vastly improved recording techniques -- can hold several programs on a single disc, whereas video discs and laser discs could only contain one movie each at best.

As was mentioned by another poster, the introduction of the VCR in the early '70s slowly but surely killed off the videodisc/laserdisc in much the same way as DVDs have made VCRs all but obsolete today, and Blu-ray is threatening to send standard DVDs into obsolescence as well before too long.

Another advantage DVDs have over LD and video discs is that the data pits on the former are read by a laser beam, whereas the latter relied on a stylus mounted in a video pickup unit to read the information on the disc. Styli can and do wear out over time, and videodiscs/LDs must be handled carefully since they apparently have grooves, much the same as do phonograph records; scratch a videodisc or LD (even lightly) and the disc may be rendered useless. DVD players, on the other hand, are equipped with error-correction circuitry that will compensate for small scratches on the disc and will also inform the user, via an error message on the TV screen, if the disc is unreadable. I don't know if LD or videodisc players have such error-detection systems, or any means to alert the user to an unusable disc. I would think they would, unless the LD/videodisc system relied on the picture quality to tell the user if the disc is playable, marginal, or outright defective. Was there a system in any of the LD/videodisc players that informed the user of problems with the disc, via an indicator on the front panel or by some other means? :scratch2:

Laser discs don't have grooves, they are read out by laser. The audio can be digital and or analog. The digital has some error correction.

The video is analog. The biggest problem here is the fact that laser discs are laminated disks of polycarbonate. Some don't stand the test of time and defects caused by the separation of the glue add what looks like impulse noise to the video.

I actually prefer laser disc to DVD when viewing standard def because it doesn't have the pixelation that you see with DVD in scenes having motion.

But I admit, DVD's do have it all over Laserdiscs in general.

John

Yeah, go figure, CED videodisc bombed, laserdisc did a little better but not a blockbuster, then years later DVDs were a blockbuster. :scratch2: All of these were playback only systems.

I think the cost of the laserdiscs helped to keep it from gaining popularity quickly as did the fact that people would actually have to get out of their chair to change sides or discs. :yikes:

The rental price for laserdiscs wasn't bad, but to buy one could cost $75. Even Bluray doesn't come close to that.

John

I finally got around to trying out the unit that doesn't appear to have sustained damage in shipment.

It plays for nearly two minutes and then skips back and keeps repeating. This is true for any of the disks I try. I guess it must be an issue with the player since it always seems to occur at the same play time.

The color oscillates on and off with a 2-4 second period.

Guess I need to find a service manual for this.

John

Well, the CED magic page has a lot of useful information.

The 1-2 minute play time is probably due to a bad servo belt.

The 2-4 second color/bw cycle is probably due to a bad turntable belt.

Guess what I'll be ordering!

John

John,

good luck with your CED player...

CED magic is an invaluable resource and Tom, who runs the site is a true enthusiast with vast knowledge!!!

I hope you get the player up and running well soon!

I had an RCA CED player back in the 80's. I believe it was the last players they produced model SKT 400. It was compatible with RCA's Dimensia series of AV components that could be linked together and operated with a single huge remote. I recall When RCA announced the end of production the discs and players were sold at give away prices by dealers. There was,for a time, dedicated RCA CED stores that only sold the players and discs. Other Manufacturers such as Zenith, Toshiba, Hitachi also produced and sold the CED machines. Many were produced for Sears, Radio Shack, Penny's ect. Tom Howe at CED Magic is a great guy and has a wonderful site devoted to this product.

-Steve D.

Tom and I once exchanged CED players... I had stumbled across two brand new, un-used, still in their box Hitachi PAL CED players. This was around 2000. (Bizarrely they were literally around the corner from home ...a bit like finding a CT100 in your local TV repair shop in its carton!).

Rare animals at the best of time but in unopened boxes ..that was something.

After some discussion with Tom I sent him one of the players (.. all the way to the US across the Pacific) and he sent me a basic NTSC RCA player in return.

ebay was a good place to find disks and even stylii.

Thankfully the RCA player is 110volt/50/60hz so a simple step down transformer enables me to happily play NTSC disks.

People still marvel at the idea of a vinyl video disk played by a stylus like an LP!

I just resurrected a CED player and can't resist sharing a couple of photos.

http://antiqueradio.org/art/WardsGEN10301FirstImage.jpg

http://antiqueradio.org/art/WardsGEN10301FirstImage1.jpg

The player is a Wards (Toshiba) GEN10301 that my Dad the packrat had sitting in his basement for about 20 years, along with about a dozen discs. He got it at a garage sale for a few bucks and had never even tried it out. The rubbery belts had all melted into gobs of sticky black goo. After cleaning up the mess and installing new belts, it just worked.

My son (24) is an avid collector of old LPs and obscure VHS movies, so he is ecstatic about getting this gizmo working.

The CED Magic (http://www.cedmagic.com/selectavision.html) website is a great technical resource, as Steve D. noted.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Very nice Phil. The CED "magic" continues........

-Steve D.

In regards LaserDisc, only on industrial and lower-end consumer players, and early players did you have to flip the disc to play both sides. From mid-level up to Top level the players were built to play both sides with just a brief pause while the lead assembly moved around to the other side and the disc spindle motor reversed rotation.

I wrote a little article about reviving my Wards SelectaVision player:

http://antiqueradio.org/WardsGEN10301CEDVideoPlayer.htm

It plays nicely after replacing the belts and cleaning the stylus.

Has anyone ever seen a service manual for this? Sams doesn't list the model (GEN10301). I like reading schematics, although this one probably just shows a lot of black box ICs.

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

Phil-

There were only a few manufacturers of those players, so that Montgomery Ward's player was probably made by Toshiba, Hitachi, or RCA, or there may have been others. If you track down enough pictures and/or player feature descriptions, you may figure out the "brand name" version of your player and find a manual that way.