CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[Tommaso]

I have just recently started purchasing CED's off of E-Bay. It seems every disk I play is not perfectly clear. I've heard that CED's are known to be clearer than VHS, but with my movies it is not the case. I mean, they look good, but probably equal to VHS, and sometimes quite a bit less. Could this be that the stylus is old in my player, or that the disk is played out? And, is there a way to tell how many times (approx.) that a disk has been used by inspecting the disk with a magnifying glass? I do have some disks that play very clear, so the problem is probably with my media I am using. I guess it's rare to find used disks of this age that are hardly played. One other question that I have been wondering about that hopefully someone can answer. How many plays can be made on a CED until a noticable change in quality appears? Just thought I'd ask, so if anyone has any info I would be greatly appreciated. I guess you could call me a CED newbie! Thanks.

[CEDken]

Greetings new CEDer!

CEDs can be played several hundred times before noticeable wear occurs. Certainly more times than a typical user would want to watch any movie. When my 16-year old daughter was a toddler, she watched "Wizard of Oz" over and over as only a toddler could stand to do. Plays better now than it did the first playing.

I remember the local Radio Shack had a CED-1 player out front with M*A*S*H playing over and over. After weeks and weeks of play the program had some drop-outs, little flecks of black in the picture, that the sales people thought was due to wear. Still a very watchable picture.
As you have observed, some CEDs have that "better than VHS" picture, some don't. The ones that don't never did. I watched "Westworld" on CED yesterday and the picture resolution was just terrible even though my copy has been played only a few times. It was especially noticeable after watching the razor sharp "The Magnificent Seven" on DVD.

Ken King

[Midwinter]

Just out of curiosity - has anyone ran across or watched one of their own movies enough times to see degradation?

I definitely have discs that have bad spots - no matter how many times the needle has ran across that part of the disc it never gets better and the picture drops out and has issues. I assume this is caused by something other than wear and tear from playing again and again though.
_________________
My SJT400 keeps me warm MIDWINTER when the OSD board overheats!

Trying my wife's patience one purchase at a time.

[Rixrex]

CED degradation is not only visble as picture issues like specks, etc, but also as sound static. If you have only one and not the other, it's probably not a degraded CED. As a CED gets played many times, noticing the degradation is almost impossible from one play to the next. If your CEDs are former rentals, they may have been played enough to cause degrading of the disc. However, I have many rental discs from small town rental shops that are in very good shape since they rarely ever got played (small town, you know).

It's always a good idea to check the stylus first if you see signal quality loss with all discs. Otherwise, if it's just certain discs, and you do not notice sound static, it most likely is just a poor transfer of the original film. If you're unsure, get another copy of the title and see how it is then in comparison.

For example, The Grapes of Wrath CED is a really very poor transfer of the film. I checked three different copies and all were poor image quality. It probably came from a 16mm print that had been made for TV distribution. In contrast, I just watched a CED version of A View to a Kill that was excellent and as good as my laserdisc copy.

Comparing CED to VHS or Beta is fair, if the tapes are from the same time period. CED is usually better than either prerecorded Beta II or VHS from the early to mid 1980s, but cannot compare favorably to VHS tapes from the 1990s with all the enhancements made on them.

Best way to view CEDs for optimal picture quality is on a type of TV they were made for, meaning a direct view CRT set, from 25" and up. Absolute best TV for CED, IMO, is the Sony Wega XBR series CRT flatscreen sets that go up to 40".