CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[systemcat]

I had a hayday in a flea market yesterday buying up discs, and during this event I bought 3 discs I'm betting are uncommon. One disc on this site is noted uncommon but it has a quirk in it's information on the backside. Quote un quote this disc was produced in '75. ...I know the format was in development during the 70's and almost got introduced back then. But I thought commercial discs didn't start till it's introduction in the 80's.

Here's a couple shots of the old gem:





Not 70's but I wonder if they are uncommon:

[blindfury420]

Pretty good find! The service alignment disc is a nice find and works with all the rca players unlike the white test disc!

The preview album is a nice find too! Not the extremely rarer Gene Kelly disc but still a great find!

Who doesn't like finding one of the interactive disc's? haha The Disney one is less frequently seen of the real retail interactive disc's! I only see the shuttle one less!

What one says made in 70's? The preview album?
_________________
I dont own

McMicheal 5001h
Hitachi VIP202P
JCP 686-5705
RCA SKT265, SKT300
RCA SJT400X, SJT425

[cedmagic]

The 1975 date on the Service Alignment Disc is for the Icarus hang gliding movie on Segment K. RCA included about 5 minutes of this documentary for playback test purposes. You can see a sequence of stills from Icarus starting here:

http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/demo-program/1808-icarus-title.html

Note that the later sailplane images are from Test Disc T-0761, with that portion of the documentary not present on the Service Alignment Disc.

There are playable CEDs dating back to 1972, but they require a prototype player to match the groove density of the disc. Experimental Disc #234 was pressed in quantity at 4000 grooves/inch as a souvenir for the RCA engineering staff:

http://www.cedmagic.com/featured/lum-fong/lum-fong.html

This disc is playable on a February player, if any of those still exist:

http://www.cedmagic.com/history/february-player.html

--Tom Howe

[blindfury420]

Awesome info Tom, truly amazing how much you know and how much you have done to preserve info about ced's!

Did you make the audio file from a lum fong disc you own?

Do you own a February player?
_________________
I dont own

McMicheal 5001h
Hitachi VIP202P
JCP 686-5705
RCA SKT265, SKT300
RCA SJT400X, SJT425

[SelectaVision420]

pretty cool! im trying to find that top disc too! great score
_________________
Sears 274 & 934(80150,10&11350),sft100,sgt250,sjt090,100,101,200,300,400,vp550, VP4000!
caddy.daddy.fleetwood@gmail.com

[Jesse Skeen]

One of those "February" players and a few prototype discs was on Ebay a couple years ago- I bid around $1000 on it, but someone beat me to it. What pisses me off is a while later (don't remember if it was here or another board), the guy who outbid me mentioned "Yeah, I just got one of those off Ebay a while ago, haven't even hooked it up or anything to see if it works!"
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Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[blindfury420]

I also see why Tom probably never answered if he had a February player haha
RCA SelectaVision CED System Non-Disc Items Wanted duh!
http://www.cedmagic.com/home/non-disc-want.html

Pretty crazy it got that high! Do you remember exactly what it went for? I don't know how you could spend a thousand or more dollars and not try it, let it alone it being a prototype player! No way I could wait to try it hahah That would have been the first thing I'd have done for sure!
_________________
I dont own

McMicheal 5001h
Hitachi VIP202P
JCP 686-5705
RCA SKT265, SKT300
RCA SJT400X, SJT425

[cedmagic]

I don't have any top-load prototypes but do have a slot-load SDT200 that requires a caddy just slightly less wide than the marketed CED system.

RCA Labs did have all five of those engineering models staged in the 1981 photo with the SFT100:

http://www.cedmagic.com/museum/rca-engineering-models/frames-engineering-models.html

But when I first visited the Labs in the late 1990s (then called Sarnoff Corp.), they were all gone. Oddly enough, they did still have in storage the original HoloTape prototype demo machine from 1969. The prototype was much bigger than the mockup machine shown in this photo:

http://www.cedmagic.com/history/holotape.html

--Tom Howe

[systemcat]

Thanks for the information !

Sorry for replying late, I've had a lot going on and I'm still busy as heck.

Today I made out like a bandit at that flea market again. I want to show of my other finds from this grab. Would any one be interesting in a little photo show thread? I still can't believe I walked off with 25 discs today at basically 37 cents apiece.