video disc player (CED) problems

[Pete Deksnis]

Originally Posted by wa2ise

Ever wonder why the CED system bombed, but DVD was successful?

Back then, VHS was too entrenched to overcome either one of the earlier disc types. Even though the CED system was introduce to the marketplace at a suggested retail price fully one-third below that of the laser system, as quoted from page 273 of chapter 11 in ‘The Complete Handbook of Home Video Systems’ (Reston, an imprint of Prentice-Hall) in 1981: “With the concurrent explosion in small computer sales and continual strong retail movement in VHS-type video cassette recorders, long-range predictions for the acceptance of a non-recording video disc medium remain unanswered.”

[john_w]

IMO, DVD succeeded because:

1. The medium is physically light, compact and kinda familiar (looks like a CD)

2. Marketing, Marketing, MARKETING!!!

3. People finally started to realize that, for the most part, they weren't really re-playing their VHS recordings anyhow. (So why not just rent movies?)

4. For the few rare TV shows worth recording, we now have TIVO!

[rcaman]

AHHH THE GOOD OLE DAYS. i sold about four or five hundred of those ced players at least. we rented the disc and on fridays you could not walk in the store for the people. we mand a lot of money off of the ced systems a lot. we are in a small town of about 2500 people. by the way the first model sold for $400.00 then at the end we were selling them at cost so we could rent the dics i believe $159.00 rented the disc for $3.00 each for 3 days. steve

[Adam]

The belt that attatches to the motor that eventually moves that sliding arm slips, and the various gears it hooks to are a bit gunked up. But I moved the gears manually, and the arm is not stuck, it slides all the way foward and back, without much resistance. I'll replace that belt, and clean those gears, then it looks like it should work.

I got VHS, Beta, CED, Laser Disc, and DVD, and for the most part I watch DVDs because I can get the old shows I like on it, I but I have to say I really prefer the solidity of the older tape players and this CED player. When I go to hit the buttons on my DVD player the whole unit moves backwards. Not only that, but the fake wood covering on the CED also looks really nice sitting ontop of an older TV.

[Celt]

The audio from the stereo versions of those players is quite spectacular as I recall. Those versions came with a composite video out and line level stereo out, along with the usual RF modualted output.

[andy]

CED stereo audio is as good as analog laserdisk audio and has CX noise reduction just like LD. Unfortunately, not too many CEDs are in stereo. It's easy to spot stereo CEDs because the caddy is blue instead of white.

The selection of movies on CED is surprisingly good. I've got a small but growing collection of CEDs I've bought on ebay.

On the other hand, when LD first came out (called DiscoVision) it was mostly really really old stuff. I've looked through the entire list of DiscoVision titles and there were only a hand full I would ever want to watch.

[Celt]

I have one MCA "DiscoVision" of "Coal Miners Daughter" that makes even the worst VHS copy look and sound glorious by comparison. But with a few exceptions like that, I still like the old LD format. I don't know what it is about CD's & DVD's. They just aren't as much fun.

[Chad Hauris]

I really need to get the CED players working that we own...have worked on some for customers but haven't got around to our own. Weren't the RCA units actually made in USA? The RCA players have the same kind of power cord as the RCA TV's of the time rather than a Japanese-type cord. We have a never used new in box RCA CED but the loading belt has gone bad on it.

When was it that DVD's really took off? Seemed like when I was in school in the mid-late 90's VCR's were still very popular...I first got a DVD player in 2003.
To me there is such an improvement in quality in the DVD over video tapes it is amazing.

I think also the price/value of DVD's has a lot to do with their popularity...even the cheapest $39.95 DVD player has far better picture quality than any VHS/Beta machine I have seen. The only thing that comes close is 3/4" VTR's.

[Celt]

Originally Posted by Chad Hauris

I really need to get the CED players working that we own...have worked on some for customers but haven't got around to our own. Weren't the RCA units actually made in USA?

I'm pretty sure the ones I saw were made in Indianapolis, IN.

[andy]

Originally Posted by Celt

I'm pretty sure the ones I saw were made in Indianapolis, IN.

I believe it's the only home video format (with any success) that was designed and manufactured in the US.

Those DiscoVision disks really were bad. I can clearly see defects in the Al coating on the few I have. One defect looks a lot like an insect wing! I've read that MCA pressed the disks in an audio record plant, but the conditions weren't nearly clean enough. I wonder how much better CED could have looked after another 10 years?

[Celt]

I've had several LD's rot on me and become unplayable and also bought several new titles (back then) that had lots of video noise too. At least the CED discs didn't rot out.

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by Chad Hauris

I really need to get the CED players working that we own...have worked on some for customers but haven't got around to our own. Weren't the RCA units actually made in USA? The RCA players have the same kind of power cord as the RCA TV's of the time rather than a Japanese-type cord. We have a never used new in box RCA CED but the loading belt has gone bad on it.

As far as I know, all of the RCA CED players were made in the USA, which makes the CED (almost) the only home-video format that has that particular distinction. [an exception might be the ill-fated Avco Cartrivision system of the early 70's]

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by bgadow

A belt goes bad and the stylus doesn't move, or doesn't move far, and so it just keeps repeating that same section. That's what happened with mine. I still don't have it right, as it skips a lot. The belts I have are not really right.

Yep, that's what'll happen. A new servo drive belt should fix the stuck/repeat-cycling problem, but, yeah, those belts do seem a bit touchy. Try running the rapid access/search buttons forward and back to make sure the mechanism is running correctly.

However, if your player is skipping a lot (almost always in a forward direction, not just jumping backwards and repeating the same small segment) and has generally 'noisy' video-- *and* it happens on all discs-- then I'd tend to suspect the stylus. My first CED player was a Hitachi-made Sears model that had a rather worn stylus when I got it. I didn't have a replacement stylus for it, but there was a trimmer pot on the "arm" that controlled the pre-amp gain; turning that up greatly reduced the skipping and reduced video noise, but that was a temporary solution.

I've noticed though that some discs just seem to skip a *lot* the first time they're played in a long while. On subsequent plays, though, they'll work fine with few or no skips. [The CED Magic site (www.cedmagic.com) refers to this phenomenon as "video virus" on its FAQ page.]