RCA 15" Color, and RCA SelectaVision Stereo CED Video Disc Player

[BigDavesTV]

The other day, I gave my RCA 15" Color from 1972, (CTC-51 chassis), and my RCA SelectaVision Stereo CED Player some exercise! The disc is one of my favorite stereo discs, The Doobie Brothers in concert, Santa Barbara, CA, I believe the year was 1981. I am the original owner of the RCA SelectaVision Player, I bought it new in 1984. I recently had to replace the load belt, for it to load / un-load the discs properly, that is the only repair I've had to do, other than Stylus cleaning, occasionally!

[ceebee23]

CED is such fun

[ChrisW6ATV]

Pretty cool. I don't think I ever saw a CED player operating when they were on the market, though I have had Laser Discs and players since 1984.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by ChrisW6ATV

Pretty cool. I don't think I ever saw a CED player operating when they were on the market, though I have had Laser Discs and players since 1984.

I must've seen my first CED player in the late 70's or early 80's. I was pleasantly surprised to see how good the quality of the picture was by a read by a stylus and cartridge, versus a lazer read disc. I was tempted to buy one, but I bought a VCR instead.

[AdamAnt316]

CEDs are fun. I found my first CED player, along with about 30 disks, at an antique radio swapmeet for $30. The player, a Sears-rebranded RCA SFT-100W, needed a lot of work. The belt was loose, of course, but the platter bearings also needed to be lubricated, which was a pain since the screws holding the platter on were butchered (had to cut new slots in their tops using a Dremel tool). I tried ordering several belts, but the only one which worked properly was an OEM replacement from CEDatum. Once all that was done, I had a nicely-working CED player on my hands, and have since acquired several more (my main unit is an RCA SJT-300). Anyway, here' a couple of pics of the Sears player:

[dtvmcdonald]

I actually owned a Toshiba one. It worked fine for a very
long time. I owned about 25 disks, some bought for almost nothing
as the market collapsed. I actually watched them many times each.

But as time went on, I got more and more tired of movies of any sort.
I eventually bought a DVD player and a few disks ... and found I never
watched them more than once or twice.

Eventually (years after DVD dominated) the Toshiba stopped working and I never git it fixed, so I threw it out. I never was able to get a repair manual.

I never owned a LaserDisc player.

[wa2ise]

Used to work for RCA when they tried to market CED. RCA was trying to find a reason for people to buy it, as VCRs also existed. Looking for the killer app. One attempt was to develop video games using a disk as a source of video scenes. Thing like a football game where you play being the coach who selects the next play, and then the system plays an example of that play and you see how well your team does. RCA blew about $570 million on CED, which might have lead to GE eating RCA a few years later.

CED did have better bandwidth than VHS tapes, about 3MHz vs 2MHz. One defect CED had was dust particles and/or small impurities in the disk material causing skips during playback. They never did solve this...

[BigDavesTV]

True that, about dust particles, etc. They do occasionally skip! The stylus "cleans" while playing, the few discs I own, are played once in a while, so skipping is very minimal, to virtually non-existent, especially on the Doobie Brothers and a Rush in concert, stereo discs I own. I like to watch these, so they both play very well! :-) I recently borrowed from a friend, and watched Christine on my player, it is a stereo copy, and sounded great! It had not been played in a long time, and skipping was minimal, but a couple spots were very skippy, so I'd "rewind" and replay the section, and then it was good. If I were to watch it again soon, I'm sure it would play well (Christine).

[BigDavesTV]

I bought my first VHS, VCR, about two years after I bought my SelectaVision. I have kept the SelectaVision, because it's amazing how nice looking the picture can be, and it's a fairly rare, now, and fascinating medium, although maybe short-lived, people are surprised by it still working. Of course I still like to play my 8-track tapes, too! :-)

[sampson159]

i had a selectavision unit too.loved it!picture was outstanding.when i packed my bags and left,it stayed and have never heard from it again.to me,it was a fine system and i preferred it to beta and vhs

[AdamAnt316]

Funny story: Several years ago, I attended a DeLorean Car Show, which doubled as a sort-of Back To The Future convention. In attendance were several stars from BTTF, as well as its writer and co-producer, Bob Gale. On one of the days of the event, he held an autograph-signing session, and for shits and giggles, I handed him one of my CED copies of BTTF (which is somewhat rare, since BTTF's home video release was in 1986, which was the year they stopped producing CED discs) to sign. He got a kick out of seeing it, remarking "I had no idea that it'd been released in this format!" He then had to explain to someone watching what the CED was. So I now have two copies of Back to the Future on CED, one I can play, and one which has Bob's signature on it.
-Adam

[BigDavesTV]

Great true story, Adam, thanks for sharing! :-)

[andy]

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