CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[DarthTicklish]

Hello everyone!

I recently came into possession of an RCA SGT-200 and a big stack of movies. It was probably all in storage for 25+ years by the looks of it but was fairly well cared-for. I got it to play, but not very well. The sound takes a while to come in, and the picture is also very wobbly and jumpy/skippy early on in every movie I've tried. I tried cleaning the stylus, but it didn't seem to improve much, if at all.
Any ideas as to what could be wrong here or what I should do? Is it possible my movies are all damaged? I have no idea how they were stored over the years or how sensitive they are.

Thanks very much!!

[rsrendfeld]

If the player has not been used in 25+ years it probably needs serviced and it is very likely that the belts that drive the turntable and advance the stylus are overdue for replacement.

I have had several players serviced / repaired by John Stevens dba CEDatum - www.cedatum.net. John sells parts and rebuilds stylus too.

Ron Rendfeld
Indianapolis IN


Gravity always wins.

[RT9342]

I agree with "RSRendfeld", but if you don't want to spend a lot of money at first, and if you are not too uncomfortable working on electronics, you may want to check the pickup arm and perhaps adjust the servo adjustment. Though the belts could use replacement, there is a possibility that they are still usable for now (in my experience, the later models have more problems with the belts, perhaps because they used a cheaper rubber later on or something). I've seen the problem you're describing quite often, and in my cases, it's usually been a problem with the servo bal. adjustment (a control hidden behind a small hole on the right side of the top of the pickup arm), or a problem with the little spring-loaded gear that the pickup arm engages with when you insert a caddy (that gear is used to help hold the arm in place when the unit is not on, and if it needs lubricating, it can cause trouble).