CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

AllanF · Joined: 12 Nov 2008 Posts: 1 Location: Los Angeles, CA

Does anyone know if RCA did their own telecine transfers? I suspect that they did, because, for example, their video masters of the initial launch RCA released MGM titles are superior to the VHS masters that MGM was releasing itself. I suspect that MGM sent them a print and they did their own 1" transfers. Also, just got The Red Shoes and i'm pretty certain this is the same video transfer that Columbia House was selling on VHS in the mid-80's...

RT9342 · Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 224 Location: San Antonio, TX

I'm sure other people could answer that question better, but I'm pretty sure RCA did their own telecine transfers. I've noticed that even on CED videos that were realeased by RCA and CBS that the RCA ones tended to be a bit darker, and that sometimes dark scenes from movies would be too dark. I get the impression that they either did their own telecine transfers or had someone doing them exclusively for RCA, but it seems like I recall someone once before mentioning on this forum that they in fact did. If you watch the RCA video that shows the videodisc mastering, it shows them doing the videotape-to-masterdisc transfers in house, but I don't recall the video going into much detail on the film-to-videotape transfer.

CEDatum · Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 6:04 pm Post subject: CED Mastering.

The RCA facility for mastering and videodisc production was at the Rockville Rd plant, Indianapolis. Mastering originated from 1" C Format broadcast grade videotapes. In most cases these tapes were sent from the RCA Videodisc office in Hollywood CA. RCA and the Movie companies/studios used Post Production houses to do the film to tape transfers and tape prep work. The most popular telecine at that time was the Rank Cintel flying spot scanner. This telecine was very gentle on film. The film rolled in a continuous motion and the film sprocket holes were not needed to index the film frames. The mastering tapes were made from the best archive film stock. The mastering tapes were sent to Rockville Road under high security.

John at CEDatum.

DiscoKat · Joined: 10 Jul 2008 Posts: 11

RT9342 · Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 224 Location: San Antonio, TX

Thanks John for the good information on RCA's mastering. Speaking of James Bond movies, while I agree that for the most part RCA's CED mastering was good for its time, I'm wondering if anyone else has noticed that the James Bond CEDs produced by RCA are too dark sometimes. Watch the first scene in Goldfinger, for example. I don't care how high you turn up the brightness and contrast on your TV - it's almost like watching a blank black screen. I believe From Russia With Love was the other one that I can remember that had this problem. (I've noticed that some early laserdiscs, not necessarily James Bond movies, have this problem too.) Unfortunately the only CBS James Bond CEDs that I have are not the same movies as the RCA CEDs, so I can't compare the different versions of the same movie, but I haven't noticed the problem with my CBS James Bond discs. I don't know if CBS and RCA had different black clamping settings on their videotape players and/or their disc cutting equipment, or if perhaps CBS was possibly getting their master tapes from a different source than RCA. Does anyone know more about CBS's disc mastering?

favtak · Joined: 06 Apr 2009 Posts: 2

I'm looking to purchase the James Bond CED's. It appears that only few of them were released twice

-- Dr No, From Russia with Love, You Only Live Twice, Diamonds Are Forever, and The Man with the Golden Gun, by RCA and CBS/Fox.
Does anyone know which came first -- RCA or CBS/Fox?

- For Your Eyes Only, by CBS/Fox and MGM/UA. Does anyone know which came first -- CBS/Fox or MGM/UA?

Thanks.

RT9342 · Joined: 29 Nov 2006 Posts: 224 Location: San Antonio, TX

Good question...hopefully someone else can answer this better, but as far as the ones available by RCA or CBS/Fox, I believe that the RCA ones came first. I've also noticed that most of the time that a CED was released by both RCA and CBS/Fox, the RCA version is mono and the CBS/Fox version is stereo (but I'm sure there are some exceptions). I don't know about For Your Eyes Only...but I'm suspecting that the CBS/Fox version was first, mainly because I've seen CED videos in volume form, where the earlier volumes were released by CBS Video or CBS/Fox, and the later volumes were released by MGM/UA.