CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[owenatverrs]

I have had alot of people come up to me in my area asking if they are having a problem with the disc or the stylus. I really dont know how to explain to them how to replace which one. If anyone could give me a description of how to tell the difference. Thanks

[Jesse Skeen]

The biggest problem I've had with the discs themselves where the middle of each side becomes damaged, resulting in 'sparklies' and static in the audio from about 15-30 minutes into each side. Affected discs can start off perfect in the first few minutes, then the noise will start and usually go away by the end of the side. Looking at the actual discs you can see that the surface is scratched; supposedly this is from having several discs stacked on top of each other. The inner and outer edges of the disc are raised so they are protected, but the plastic of the caddy can rub against the middle part if there are things stacked on top of it. When checking discs for condition, I always check the playback quality at 15, 20, 25 and 30 minutes.

I've been lucky with the styluses so far, one of the first ones I had was very snowy and that was fixed when I put in a new stylus. Under regular use I've had one stylus short out during playback and no longer work, but I haven't had one simply wear out yet.
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[owenatverrs]

Finally! Someone who has the same problem! I kept thinking that it was my player, but after inspecting the discs, I noticed that half way there were smudges and scratches. Is there any way to solve this so that I can play my discs without interuptions?

[RT9342]

I'll agree that the problems you all are mentioning sound like the discs, especially if they're only acting up in the middle portions of the discs. As far as stylus wear, I've noticed that as a stylus gets more worn, the detail of the picture seems to deteriorate, most noticably in the letters in the credits or sbutitles - they'll start looking really blurry and psychedelic as the stylus gets worse. Keep in mind though that even if the stylus is good, you'll still see a little of this towards the end of a disc, due to the smaller circumference of the groove. However, if such problem only appears intermittent, then it's probably the disc. As far as finding a way to play messed up discs, I was able to recalibrate my old Zenith VP-2000 to almost never skip at all, even when the disc is so bad that there's no picture at all - it just keeps going until the picture clears up, which usually just takes a couple of seconds. The only problem is I don't remember exactly what I adjusted to stablize it, as I've adjusted many things in the player. I'm thinking it may have been a combination of the STYLUS KICKER, the SERVO BAL (on the tonearm of older units), and even some adjustments to the coils inside the "unserviceable" resonator (later models have these coils outside the resonator, but I don't see anyway to adjust them on the later units, so if your player doesn't take one of the big styli with the removeable cover, you may not be able to adjust the coils). I must advise you though to be VERY CAREFUL with these adjustments - they are very touchy and unless they're right on, the player will go crazy, like if it's stuck in Visual Search or something.