Here's a pic of my '56 CTC5 playing an episode of Star Trek from the late 60's on a very old (for laserdisc players anyway!) 1981 Pioneer VP-1000 laserdisc player. How's that a for a mix of vintages? I totally recapped this set about 4 years ago. When I finally got it to work well I couldn't believe it. Amazing this set survived, found it in a junk store for 70 bucks, and it's obvious that at one time it fell completely over on the channel knobs side cuz the cabinet has a big indented crack around the giant channel knob. This monster refused to die! Can't wait to watch a little bit of the Rose Parade on it again in two weeks.

I'll post some pics of a couple of Zenith porthole B/W's I've fixed up too, and an old Hoffman and a Packard Bell, all with the round picture tubes. I also fix up pinball machines (LOTS of them) and dabble in old radios a little and now busy goofing with a couple of Victrolas and old records. Thanks for looking. If it's old and smelly, there's probably one in my house (besides me...and my dogs)...Mark French

Hi mark welcome to ak. That is a great set. I did not know that there were lasar disk players in 81. The picture is awesome. Can not wait to see your other sets.
ED

Looking good! I knew there was someone missing from the TV forums-good 'ole Frenchy! Welcome!

I've got a newer disc player, early 90s, an RCA that was a leftover demonstrator when the local tv shop closed. I don't have any discs so I've never tried it out.

Wow ! And again, Wow! These '50s color sets never cease to amaze me w/the quality of their pictures. Would about give my eyeteeth for a good one someday...Welcome to the monkeyhouse, Frenchy ! -Sandy G.

Been wondering when you would make it over here! Did you have to adjust or modify the set in any manner to aid the LV playback?

It would help if they wouldn't try to jam MSN and AOL when I send my reply, or I would have welcomed you earlier :no: :yikes: :lmao:

Steven

There's a Truetone color roundie in Estano's basement I will take off his hands if I have the room soon.

Hi Mark,
Glad you finally made it over to AK. Welcome aboard and as you probably already know we have a big vintage tv following here. These are a great group of people and for the first time i feel like i'm home. Glad to see you on here with us bud!
-Tony

Hi mark welcome to ak. That is a great set. I did not know that there were lasar disk players in 81.


That was the year RCA came out with their videodisc system. The "CED" disc, "capacitence electronic disc". It bombed. They canned it in 1984.

If I remember correctly Laser Discs (optical, not CED) were demonstrated at a trade show (Consumer Electronics Show) in 1974 or 75 possibly by Philips in collaboration with MCA? I know the trade name at that time was Discovision.

With the videodisc it's just as stable as a dvd (no tearing) but I still get those goofy 'data' lines like I get on a few tv channels. (Those retrace lines that newer sets muffle out but the old sets weren't designed to since those data lines weren't in the signal back then.) No way I've heard of to get rid of them but not that obtrusive anyway unless you sit right in front of the set. Pretty sure it's the original pic tube, I think I saw a date on it. All I have is a few ST discs and a disc of that NBC Peter Pan special of the color show they did in 1960 or thereabouts. I love the look of those real old videotaped shows using those early TK41 (?) color cameras.
I found the picture comes in much better if I run the antenna signal thru a vcr as a tuner and watch everything on channel 3, the vcr boosts the signal plus I don't have to mess with fine tuning the beast, and can use the remote to change channels, but I'm sure lots of people probably do that here. I believe this laser player was one of the first mass-produced laser machines back then, weighs a ton. Didn't have to fix anything on it, worked great after hauling it out of the Salvation Army for $25. Has that cool window where you can actually see the disk spinning....Frenchy

That vintage "Pioneer" laser disc sounds intresting!

I had that same LD player for awhile in the early 90's.

there is a thread in the Home Theater section about Laser Discs:
http://audiokarma.org/forums/showthread.php?t=27649

I had one of them RCA CED players back in the '80s. Had a decent picture & adequate sound, but God help you if one of the discs got dust, a hair, or otherwise "contaminated". They'd skip, blip, blerp, whatever, & new ones fresh outta the celophane were about as bad as old ones. They were in this "protective" sleeve, & there was no way to remove one to try to blow it off & get all the crapola off it. A good idea that basically tweren't worth a damn, IMHO. I think they were all done by '86 or so. -Sandy G.

I also owned the RCA CED machine. Mine was about the last model they produced. It had all the bells and whistles. The CED was RCA's last electronc innovation and pretty much nailed the coffin shut as RCA went deeper in the red. RCA spent millions developing, promoting and advertising this doomed stylus in the groove technology and even opened company owned stores that only sold CED discs and players. GE finally jumped in and bought the ailing company. CED discs were produced for several years after the last players were manufactured. Check out this site for the complete CED story: http://www.cedmagic.com

You can access the CED disc to clean it if needed by putting in a player that has the top off (at least the models I have worked with).

---

About 15 yrs ago Fair Radio Sales in Lima Ohio had a lot of CED discs and players. They have moved to a different location in Lima than when I visited it, but they may just have the CED stuff still. There are still items in the catalog that they had back then, so it may be worth a call (the CED's are not in their current catalog).

This may be too far away for you but last time I looked Trade-n-Treasures secondhand store in Midland Texas on Illinois St. had a good selection of CED's. This was about 6 mos. ago so am not absolutely certain they are there now.

Does someone sell kits of universal belts that would work for these (or can the actual belts be ordered?) Between my two CED's I had enough good belts to just get by, although one is still a little lazy. I bought a couple kits of belts 10 years ago, just a sort of universal VCR kit, but they are all used up.

There was a big box of CED's at the flea market this fall but the vendor wanted something like $5 each or some such. I would have given $5 for the whole box! Who else would want them, besides me and the rest of the tv nuts here!?

Does someone sell kits of universal belts that would work for these (or can the actual belts be ordered?) Between my two CED's I had enough good belts to just get by, although one is still a little lazy. I bought a couple kits of belts 10 years ago, just a sort of universal VCR kit, but they are all used up.

There was a big box of CED's at the flea market this fall but the vendor wanted something like $5 each or some such. I would have given $5 for the whole box! Who else would want them, besides me and the rest of the tv nuts here!?

Visit this web site: http://www.cedmagic.com/selectavision.html
They have various pages on player maintenance, movie listings and
more than you'd ever want to know on videodiscs. :lmao:

We used a belt from a VCR or CD player belt kit to fix the loading mechanism on a CED player recently. Had to clean off a lot of disintegrated rubber from the old belt. I think this is the only belt in it isn't it...seems like it is a direct drive turntable motor.

Here is a link to Studio Sound belt kits:
http://www.studiosoundelectronics.com/belts.htm#kit
We have used their belt kits with good results.
They also sell individual belts.

i sold about 3 or 4 hundred of those ced systems and we rented the disc by the hundreds. i hauled away a truckload of players about 3 years ago. kept about 4 that worked. technology has changed. the first player cost me about $350.00 wholesale. i also would order about 40 rca console tv,s at a time back then. and we are in a small town of about 2500 people. :banana:

The RCA CED videodiscs have always amazed me too, that they were actually able to squeeze whole color and stereo movies onto something that was almost as low-tech as a 33rpm record album, just a vinyl record with grooves in it. When you pull a disc out of the case and look at it it's just plain hard to believe...Frenchy