CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[CaptainInsano]

Greetings everyone,

I have been interested in CED stuff for a while now and have been lurking on here for a couple of months. I lucked up and ran across a Sears CED player at a thrift store today for $5 (they wanted a bit more to begin with, but couldn't tell me for sure that it worked) and picked it up because I have never seen one in the wild. Of course there were no discs to be found, so I'm not sure if it works or now....

Its a Sears model 934.54811350 and looks to be in very good shape. When I plug it in, it doesn't have any lights on it or anything indicating it is "on" & unless I missed it somewhere, it doesn't look like it has a "power" button. All the little indicator lights seem to relate to playback, so should there be any lights on the unit if I don't have a disc inserted in it?

Any insight, hints, etc would be greatly appreciated.

[Jesse Skeen]

I had the same confusion when I first found a Sears (made by Hitachi) player- it powers on when you insert the disc caddy, and powers off when the disc is removed. I have a Panasonic 8-track deck that works the same way.

Anyone know why the turntables on these are so small? They're barely the size of the middle of the disc, yet they do the job.
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[CaptainInsano]

Cool - thanks for the input. There is hope for the unit yet then. I'll just have to hunt around for a CED to try out on it.

Thanks!

[RT9342]

I've never seen one of those players with the little turntable, but I'm guessing they may have been concerned about the possibility of disc damage possibly occurring if the disc is sitting down on a turntable. To be honest, I've actually wondered why most players didn't use a small turntable that only seated the middle of the disc. After all, that's pretty much the way CD players and laserdisc players are (though I understand that it was done that way so that the laser can access the bottom side of the disc, but even the PR-7820 laserdisc player, which scans the disc from the top side uses a small spindle). I think RCA really looked at this technology from a record point of view, hence the black vinyl disc that starts at the outer edge, the stylus & tonearm, constant disc RPM, large turntable, etc.

[cbertra2]

The problem I have had with Hitachi brand of players and that includes the Sears model that have the small platter is that if a disc is warped more than usual the warp is exaggerated. On other players that have larger platters the warp tends to average out more per revolution because it being supported on its outer edge. When the stylus rides over the high point of the warp it will get a short snowy effect utill the sylus regains full contact with the groove. This will continue every revolution and will deminish as the stylus gets closer to the center. You can take this same warped disc and it will play fine on a player with a large platter.

[Jesse Skeen]

Laserdisc and CD players "clamp" the disc on the top while it's spinning; on these CED players the disc just spins on top of the small turntable with nothing over it. I've run them with the cover off, the main board's over the disc but it's hinged so you can make adjustments on it while it's playing.
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Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[RT9342]

Interesting.....yeah, I can imagine how the small turntable could be a problem if there's no means of clamping. I guess I assumed that the disc would be clamped in some way if the turntable were small like that. What a weird design.