CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[Spirantho]

Hi everybody,

I recently got a 'new' stylus for my trusty Hitachi VIP201P (£15 off eBay - not bad) and I've been doing comparisons between the 'new' one - which has had an unknown amount of use - and my old one, which also has unknown use but I've certainly watched films with it.

Anyhoo, comparing the two I noticed that on the first part of the side the picture would be great - almost LaserDisc quality. This is of course as it should be! Halfway through the side the skips start appearing as is usual... but the film also starts distorting. Towards the end the picture is very bad with interference between colour, and a fairly large number of skips, on average. The credits for instance are practically illegible, as all the white just blurs into the background.

Now I assume this is because the CED works on a CAV system rather than CLV, so the video bandwidth must be much lower towards the centre than on the outer rim; but is it normal for it to be this bad? I can make a video of it if it helps, so you can see what I mean.

Is this a PAL thing? I believe we use only 3 frames per rotation because we have more lines so is it only a PAL thing? Is there anything I can do to 'tune' my CED player better? Should I get one of my styli retipped by cedatum.net? I think one of them is slightly more worn than the other but I'm not sure because the disc gets cleaner the more you play it, so it's hard to compare them fairly.

Any advice please?

Thanks!
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Ian Gledhill
IanG@--remove this--amiganet.org (remove -- to --)

[RT9342]

Every NTSC videodisc player and disc that I've ever tried seemed to have about the same problems. As far as the skipping problem that starts halfway through the side, I've been told by members of this forum that is has to do with the fact that this portion of the disc is more prone to being scratched by the caddy rubbing on the disc, due to the shape of the disc and the caddy. From inspecting my discs, I certainly find that believeable. But as you assumed, the CAV format does have a lot to do with the quality loss towards the end of the disc. Unfortunately, the speed that RCA selected is really a bit too slow for high quality video once you get to the small diameter of the inner portion of the disc.
However, I've also noticed that it will look a lot worse on a stylus that has been heavily used. With a good stylus, the ending credits are usually somewhat legible (though they will be kind of blurry), but if the end credits appear to have different colors smearing between the letters, your stylus probably has a lot of wear.
If you can, please pull one of your discs out of the caddy just far enough to see the pattern in the grooves. They have a rainbow-like reflection, and you can see divisions, almost like if the disc is cut into pizza slices. Count the number of divisions and divide it by 2 - that's how many frames per revolution the disc has. I always assumed all discs were 4 frames per revolution, but the PAL discs could very well be 3 instead of 4 - I don't know. I would hope it's 3, because if it's 4, then the PAL discs will certainly suffer from more problems than the NTSC discs, but if it's 3, then they shouldn't be any worse (possibly even a little better than NTSC discs).
As far as the color interference, maybe you can explain a little more. Is it problems with fine horizontal color lines? (For example, yellow objects look like a bunch of little orange and green stripes.) If so, that probably has something to do with the PAL encoding.

[Jesse Skeen]

I'm going to have to try and get a PAL CED player, seeing as how most of the newer TVs in the US will display it now. I've got just one PAL disc which I got from an Ebay seller in the US, Dolly In London. I tried playing it on an SGT-250 but it won't start, the Stereo indicator lights up though. The disc itself looks like it was still made by RCA in Indiana, were any CEDs made in the UK?
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Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[Spirantho]

I did a little more investigation last night....

The film I'd watched which particularly suffered was Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which is probably to be fair the worst case scenario - the film is very long for a CED so the credits (which are narrow-spaced and white against coloured background) are a full 60 minutes into the side, according to the position light.

I can take photos or even a video if it'll help but basically the letters blur by small horizontal lines (if any of you know what I mean, it's kind of like HAM artifacting on an Amiga) - in other words most of the letter will be fine but at a particular point, e.g. the top of the loop of a 'b', the line will elongate and run into the next letter.

Most discs seem ok but also they don't usually go on as long as Close Encounters.

Do you reckon it's worth getting a stylus reset? I don't want to ruin a Hitachi stylus but if they are worn I won't know it as I don't have another player to compare with. Shall I sort out a video or still picture for you to see?

@Jesse Skeen
CED players are rather rare and very cheap in the UK! No-one's heard of them! You'll pay a lot on postage, though, of course. The Hitachi VIP-201P is by far the most common but is also a good piece of kit, and has composite video output so you should have no trouble on a dual format telly.
There aren't many PAL CEDs - I reckon 90% of the films sold seem to be about 30% of all the different titles that was released, hence why I have multiple copies of various films!
_________________
Ian Gledhill
IanG@--remove this--amiganet.org (remove -- to --)

[RT9342]

I do believe that CEDatum could do a fine job repairing a worn stylus, but the only thing I would be concerned about is if it got lost through 2 international shipments (to the U.S. for repair and then back). From what I've been told, replacement styli for Hitachi players are very hard to come by, no matter where you live.

But from what you're telling me about the credits now, I don't think there's any real problem with your equipment. I'm afraid I haven't messed with an Amiga, but I think I get what you're telling me about the credits on Close Encounters. While I don't have Close Encounters on CED, I have it on laserdisc, and the credits on the laserdisc have the same problem. Most of my other laserdiscs (especially the latest ones, like Titanic) look much better - in fact, if you didn't know it was on laserdisc, you'd think I was using a DVD player with audio/video cables. So with that in mind, I think the problem is in the mastering. For one thing, the credit sequence in this movie takes the full widescreen image and squeezes it - that alone will affect the detail of the letters. But also, I don't think RCA's mastering was all that great (my laserdisc copy of Close Encounters has the RCA brand name on it, just like the CED). I think CBS/FOX discs were mastered better, though the mastering processes unfortunately didn't get really good until after CED's were discontinued. I would love to have been able to see how digitally-mastered CED's would have looked.

[Spirantho]

[cbertra2]

I have had two Hitachi styli rebuilt by CEDatum and I can tell you they are first rate, top notch. These guys really know what they are doing.