CED Performance-is it Supposed to Be This Bad?

[leadlike]

One of my hobbies has been to pick up outmoded formats-and the RCA Selectavision CED discs are a favorite of mine. For the uninitiated, CEDs are not laserdiscs, but rather a vinyl disc that when played back used a needle to track the grooves in the disc. The relative capacitance of the recorded data on the disc worked to reproduce the picture and sound.

I have a base model RCA player, and I trot it out about every six months to keep it in shape. I even have a spare needle for it! My questions relate to improving the picture quality of this system. Today, while watching a disc, I got to thinking about what I would call the signature style of a CED produced picture, that is to say, a soft focus picture with flat colors and worst of all, a hail of blue purple static that can be very visible during darker scenes. While these things had probably the poorest picture ever in a home video format, I wonder if my player is showing its age. If anyone has any experience with these things, and any tips on improving picture quality, I would like to hear them.

And to anyone who would be interested in investing in their own system-be prepared for lots of skipping! I remember my Dad yelling at anyone who dared to stomp through the living room while he was dubbing a CED to VHS. All of his dubs skip, BTW. I was lucky enough to have a new needle and a still wrapped disc a couple of years back. Yep, skipped right out of the package. Still interested? Check out the website CED magic, pretty much the only place on the web with any real info on this format.