CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[Guest]

I thought it would be interesting to hear how you guys found your CED Players. Obviously, on ebay is kind of a no brainer. What about thrift stores, pawn shops, estate sales, etc? How old were you when you discovered CED originally?

Here's mine: I found my CED player, which is an SKT300, at an indoor flea market in Pevely, Missouri. When I first saw it there, in the little booth, they had $35 marked on it...so I decided to pass. When I got serious and wanted to buy a STEREO model, I headed back to the same place and there it was...with a "love note" saying "All items 25% off." I decided it was time to buy! My previous machine, an SKT90, guess where I found it? In a dumpster! I brought it home, inspected it, plugged it in, and it worked!

I discovered CED when I was 17 (in 1987)...my stepfather to be was given one by his sister and he brought it over for my inspection. He had me transfer his cowboy movies to VHS with it.

[big rich 8]

I FOUND MY FIRST PLAYER A SFT100 AT A PAWN SHOP IN HOUSTON WHEN I WAS 37 BACK IN 1986. AFTER ONLY 2 DAYS ONE OF MY KIDS JAMMED A DISC IN IT AND IT ENDED UP IN THE JUNK,LAST SUMMER I WENT TO A YARD SALE AND GUESS WHAT,ON A TABLE WAS A SFT100 PLAYER AND 40 MOVIES FOR ONLY $40.00. I BOUGHT IT ONLY BECAUSE I USED TO HAVE ONE NOW I HAVE OVER 2OO MOVIES AND I ONLY HAD TO REPLACE A BELT ONCE. I BUY A CED ATLEAST ONCE A WEEK NOW.MY KIDS THINK IM CRAZY

[planetcadillac]

I purchased my CED player in 1991 from an RCA shop when the guy retired. He had a new-in-the-box SKT400 that had evidently been taken in for some reason but never went out. It still came with packing slip and all the usual things. It was opened but evidently was returned new or something because it was never used. I used to have an SKT100 that I purchased off eBay in 2000. Up until 2003 I used CED fairly regularly but when I got the surround system with DVD and joined Netflix I am lucky to use it once a month.

[Guest]

I bought my first player when I was 29 in 1982. It was a Sears brand player. I bought over 200 movies and in 1983 I bought a SJT-400. When RCA annouced that player production was going stop I sold every thing to a friend of mine. I got into laser disc soon after. In 1998 I sold all my laser discs and players to a laser store here in Indy. In 2002 I bought a Toshiba CED player off Ebay. I now have 10 players of which 7 work perfectly. I have about 120 movies.

[Wester]

My family had a player, one of the SGT's I beleive, when I was a kid. We had it for a year or two. Then I was CED-less until last June when I picked up a SGT-200 with 18 movies at a local SA for $30. Unfortunately I've yet to get it working, and there are very few movies that came with it that I will actually watch. Those are the only two CED players I've ever seen in person.
_________________
Also a video game collector.

[rsrendfeld]

I inherited three players: two SJT300s and one SGT200. My kids ruined all three of them.
I bought one SGT200 on ebay it was in great shape: a real deal. I paid $25.00 for it and another $25.00 for shipping. (This is the player I use most often.)
I bought one SJT400 on ebay: paid $196.00 for it plus shipping.It was an absolute piece of junk: Filled with dust, dead bugs in the motor; absolute JUNK. John Stevens (Cedatum) repaired it for me. Repairs were over $100.00 - He didn't charge as much as he should have - I think he felt sorry for me........
I would have been time, money and headaches ahead if I'd just bought a new one or newly refurbished one from John or Cedcentral.
I still have not finished re-finishing the exterior of the player.

A few weeks ago I bought another SJT400, at a local Salvation Army store. Paid 19.95 for it. It looks good. Works but needs a tuneup.

Ron in Indianapolis

[armcan]

Hi all.Well I got my first CED Player from ebay.I was really disappointed when I got it.I will never buy anything as is again.when I finaily got my player I opened the box and took it out.I pluged it in and found that there was a disk stuck in it.The player would not play and it will not shut off.Then I find out that the person that I have bought it from unregistered from ebay and does not answer thier email.I have no clue what is wrong with the player.And have decided never to buy from ebay unless the person that I am buying from is from closer to me.The shipping cost more then the player it self.

[Surge]

[Surge]

Hmmm....Let's see...My first CED was one my grand-father bought from a thrift store for $10 bucks..The cartridge was toast,and the belts stretched from #@$%...Being a tech..I was like I can fix this..I just got out of ITT around the same time,and was like let's dive in to it..I was never trained for none of these,and was like oh no what am I getting in to here..But...I was shocked how simple it was,and how it really worked after I started looking up parts,and the design.I can't really say this was my first unit,because it was his but I started looking for one myself after that..His was a SJT-400 if I remember correctly,and he had very few movies at the time..As for me...I had a friend toss me some movies he thought was laserdisc since he knew I had the nack for collecting those first..When he gave me those,I was like no way these are CED's by RCA,and was like I have to get one of these..I finally found a SFT-100 that needed a little TLC from a record/CD swap shop,and they had like 100 movies also they were about to dump...So $60 put me in all of it,and then it went from there..3-4 years later..I stumbled across this old tech that was cleaning out his lower basement,and to my surprise he had like 5 machines that all worked that he repaired way back in 91 for people,and they never came back and got them..So..they of course ended up in my spare bedroom of classic electronics..Say about 2-3 months later he calls me,and says come get the 4 I have upstairs..He told me out right he wanted me to have them since I knew what they were,and I had the appriciation of the players to take care of them..So..as of now I own 12 total from my first SFT-100 to my new edition SJT-400 with a total of about 500+movies..Well as you can see I'm a collector of 80's electronics,and it's something I have enjoyed for years...Hey.I still repair VCR's for godsakes which most of the good ones went to the trash years back But we all have things we like,and pass's the time for some of us..But..enough ranting...There's my story..hope I didn't bore eveyone...Take care..

[dcs]

I traded a vcr for my first ced player, it needed a stylus and the guy didnt want to put the money into it. It was a SGT100. I later sold it so I could find a better one. That was around 87. I then got a SJT200, which I likes because of the motorized loading and it was stereo. I sold it about a year later, after i copied all my discs. Just recently (last year or so) I have been playing around with them again. I've sold a couple on ebay, and still have about 6 or 7 floating around. Few are finished products and a few still need some repair. This is a very fun hobby to play with, the CED format may not be the best technically, but it is always important to know how a technology grew up. I still have my vhs, beta, laserdisk,ced, all connected and ready to go whenever I fell the need. Not to mention my cassette, 8-track, reel to reel, and vinyl.
_________________
They just don't make em' like they used to.

[Jesse Skeen]

I found my first stereo player, an SJT 300 at one of the Flea Markets in Sacramento in 1993. I'd just discovered the joy of such places that year when I had decided to collect my favorite and not so favorite music on 8-track tapes, since someone had given me a working 8-track player and thought it would be fun to listen to it on a reasonably up-to-date stereo system. I was familiar with CEDs when they were out and thought it'd be neat to collect those too. I'd seen a few discs at thrift stores and used record shops, but made the mistake of not picking them up since at the time I had a rule of not purchasing any media that I could not play. Salvation Army stores often had players bundled with a few discs, but they never had any stereo models and I wouldn't take one that wasn't stereo, and didn't think there were too many around.

The funny thing is that when I went back to the places where I'd seen discs that I'd wanted, they were gone, so in my frustration for something to watch on the machine I just bought whatever discs I did find and decided to try and get EVERY title that was put out while searching for the ones I considered holy grails like the Duran Duran video collection, We're All Devo and the Playboy videos. I ended up finding several other stereo players that I bought so I'd never have to worry about one of them dying and leaving me with nothing to play them on, got a few mono players included in collections of discs I bought so I cannibalized those for spare parts, which I think is really the only use that a mono player has. After a few months of collecting I put a want-ad for discs (this was a couple years before the internet took off) and got a few hundred through responses. I thought there were only about 500 titles altogether and it turns out there were about 3 times that many, but after 12 years I've got all of them except for a few titles that were never put out for sale to the general public. The machine I'm currently using is an SGT-250 that I got last year from an Ebay seller brand new in the box, manufactured July 1982 but never hooked up and played til I got my hands on it. I like this model better than the SJT's because they load and unload the discs and start playing a lot faster, and I often had the SJTs drop the disc off-center from the turntable so I'd have to unplug it, open the machine up and rescue the disc. It also plays the dual-audio discs as regular stereo, so on bilingual discs you can hear the English audio through the center channel and the Spanish dubbed audio through the surrounds.
_________________
Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[brother]

Well until about a month ago never heard of CED despite living on E-Bay!

I had really got into Laserdisc - but the office girls for my birthday thought they had bought me Laserdiscs off E-Bay - but in fact bought me about 10 CED disks . Of course I was then hooked .

Yep i have got my Players off E-Bay - now have 2x Hitachi PAL UK models. The first one a fair buy @ £20 which squeals and jumps - but the second a real jem @ £15 with remote control 2x Stylus and 36 CED disks one of which has never been opened (Fred Astaire Band Wagon).

I am now on a mission to obtain as many spare Hitachi Sylus as possible.

Machines are pretty rare in the uk as only about for a short time
_________________
All the girls love me like a brother

[mnallard]

Let's see...my first CED wasn't really mine, but my Aunt and Uncle first got the SFT-100 when first introduced. They liked the kids shows available because it gave my friend (who they used to babysit often) and myself something to watch that was decent. When that player gave them problems during their "rent-to-own" agreement, they took it back and came home with the SJT-100. I was only 7 years old at this time.

Shortly thereafter (about 2 weeks), my Grandmother bought one so I wouldn't be occupying my Aunt and Uncle's player too much. I also had a cousin who had the same model and an Aunt who was luck in buying the SJT-200.

When the players died out, I got myself at auction an SJT-200 for only $50, brand new. I was 12. As VHS replaced the CEDs in my family...the players found their way in closets, never to see the light of day for upto 5 years.

It wasn't until I was 16 that I found my Grandmothers player under her bed while helping her clean her house. I was living with her at that time and brought out the player. She said, "What are draggin' that old thing out for? It doesn't play." And neither did the other players she had under there that the other family members had gave her. I simply said..."I'd like to see it again for old time sakes."

I popped the top on all players. To my amazement, I laughed and shook my head. The only problem they all had was the stylus had collected so much dust when playing that the dust formed such a hairball the tip couldn't find the disc's groove. 2 players needed new loading belts which our local Radio Shack still carried for $3. I got all 5 players working in no time at all.

When I asked about the players, the other family members said I could have them...they had no interest in them at all seeing them as a fluke. I also managed to walk away with every movie they had on CED. My SJT-200 got struck by lightning shortly before my mom passed away in '98. When I went back to her home, some 100 miles away, I found that the place had been ramsacked during my time of grief and all CED players and movies had been destroyed beyond repair...some even beyond recognition.

I now have a small collection going again...having ordered one from e-bay, a SFT-100, and aquired a SGT-075 during my employment at Wal-Mart. I spent $20 for both and have found numerous places to buy CEDs. I'm now 32 years old and share these movies with my wife, her 11-year old sister and my mother-in-law (who loves my old western movies I have on these discs). Just recently, the stylus' in both players lost their tips. I still have the players, but I no longer have the cartridges (stupid me!).

I have learned alot from these players and everytime I see one or a movie that I used to watch with my Grandmother when I was a kid still puts a smile on my face. I've got nothing but great memories from growing up with the RCA VideoDisc players...and I would not part with them for nothing! Keep these players and movies. They do make great babysitting tools and they will create great memories with your kids. Make a time that is devoted to the whole family to pick and watch one of these now classic movies. The CED R-rated movies compared to today's R movies are more like PG to PG-13 movies. Make some great memories, share with friends and family...teach your kids how to use the system...and you'll be amazed at what happens. This is the only player to make those memories.

[Red October]

I read about the technology about seven years ago and some time thereafter purchased my first and only CED player on Ebay, the SGT-250. I purchased a few discs for it, but because CEDs seem to be very rare in my area, I don't have many as they're more costly to ship than any other format and are difficult to verify as being sound.

[mario]

This is just an FYI and I am sure there are others on this list that know the following. RCA regularly built TVs and other equipment and applied other company logos and bezels. Sears and Pennies were regulars but we also applied the Zenith logo to the CED players - see the attached URL
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=013&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWA%3AIT&viewitem=&item=230040911963&rd=1&rd=1
This is an RCA SGT with the Zenith Bezel. There were far fewer "Zeniths" built . Anyone that is looking for a CED player cant go wrong at $9.99.
RCA had licensed Zenith to build the player but Zenith was hitting hard times in the early 80s and never was able to spin up their production lines, in '82 I went to the plant in Chicago to buy some of the CED production equipment that was never used by them. It was sad back then to see their big old buildings sitting empty.

[Jesse Skeen]

Here's a TV commercial advertising the Zenith player and videodisc rentals at Hill TV in Rochester NY:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2199064060493636295&hl=en

I've also got a couple Zenith System 3 TV commercials circa 1978, always thought these were pretty cool:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6503222716357330342&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3400072117853673429&q=Zenith&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8701565699828562036&q=Zenith&hl=en
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3681595945600758482&hl=en
_________________
Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[UNFORGIVINGPAIN]

(the Short story) In July 2006 I went to my favorite thrift store in Pittsburgh. Picked up a working SGT 200 CED player and 471 movies for $100.

(the Long story)
Well I'm a video game collector and I never heard of CED until a fellow video game collector talked about finding one(back in June 2006). He explained what it was and I was very interested. Well in mid July I happen to see about 10 CED movies at my favorite thrift store in Pittsburgh,PA , they had been marked $3.00 each. So I picked one up and asked an employee if they had any CED players. She just gave me that I don't know anything look, but the man on the phone behind her said "we have two downstairs and I know one works". so he then hooked one up to a TV in the storage room. It worked great. He then said $20 for it and he also had about 400 other movies I could buy $1.00 each. so I went to look at them. Another manager or owner walked over and said I will sell you the player and all of these movies for $100. So I bought them. The weight of them lowered the back of our Pontiac Montana mini-van about 5". After my kids went to bed the wife and I went through them. I picked up 471 different movies and a few doubles that day. I have bought a few more from that same thrift shop. I have approximately 490 CED movies now. So that is the story of where I found my first CED player.

[Wester]

[UNFORGIVINGPAIN]

[RT9342]

Hmmm...a discussion on where we got our CED players - interesting. Well my family's first one was an SFT-100, which my grandparents bought new for us in the early 80s as a Christmas gift. They already had one of their own. After my grandmother died and my grandfather moved, we aquired their SFT-100 and all of their discs in the 90s, as my grandfather didn't want to haul them all off to his new home. Eventually both units went dead, first the stylus wore out in ours, then the transformer blew out in our grandparents', then the motor went out in ours, and I tried to salvage them, but the rebuilt unit never played at the right RPM. One day in 1998 I discovered that a friend of mine had an SGT-200 that his mom was planning to sell in a garage sale. I asked if she'd sell it to me and she offered it for $2. So I took it and began watching old movies that I hadn't been able to watch in a few years. But then our house got flooded and the players and the discs were pretty much destroyed. I guess the discs may have possibly been salvagable, but there was a lot of work to do in little time, and they all ended up being burned, along with the SFT-100s. I was going to try to salvage the stereo board from the SGT-200, but it ended up going in the trash. Later on I started seeing a lot of CED discs (and laserdiscs too) at thrift stores and used book stores, and started buying them, hoping to eventually find a player to play them on. Then I finally found a Zenith VP2000 for $10 at a thrift store, and so I bought it and have been using it, along with my DiscoVision player ever since.

[Samson]

I read alot of info from the webiste. Then started surfing ebay for a player. I bought a SFT 100W with five movies for $30 from a flea market.
I was so excited, didn't notice until got home. That each disc was a two part movie. And that I only had one disc out of the two for each movie.

But later on found found a SKT 90 for $8 at a different flea market.
Then ordered some movies from mailboxvideo, because they had a sale. (Plus the store was listed on cedmagic, or would not have even known).

I recently found a Hitachi VIP1000 with no remote and missing the lid cover for where the stylus goes. It was $10, and I got 17 disc for $1 each. Haven't hooked up the player to see if it works yet or not.

Once again a great website on ced information, collecting, and repair.

[Reinhart]

I was doing temporary work at an electronics repair shop when I discovered that the shop had two SGT-250 players as parts units. The proprietor was going to throw them out but I asked to keep them.

He gave them to me and I was able to build one good player out of the two. I had to swap the DAXI microcomputer IC out of one and I ordered a fresh set of belts as well as a replacement A/V output board since it wasn't putting out stereo sound. All the parts, except the DAXI IC, were obtained from CEDatum. I also managed to procure the correct remote control for it from eBay.

I ended up with a fully functional SGT-250 in excellent cosmetic condition. My SJT-200 ended up going in the closet as a spare unit. I have a Hitachi VIP-2000, but it needs some serious service and will likely be a parts unit if I can procure another of the same model that has better potential for restoration (and, fortunately, I have two replacement Hitachi stylus cartridges, although I do not know their condition).

I wish I could locate a copy of the instruction manual for my SGT-250. I'd love to spend time reading it.

[Reinhart]

I forgot to mention my first CED player. That would be when I discovered and purchased a collection of 12 players in varying conditions from a flea market for about $20. The proprietor was glad to be rid of them.

Unfortunately, some of the players were soo far gone that I had to strip most of them for parts. Some of them I could get back in running condition, which included a couple of SFT-100W players, an SGT-075, and the SJT-200. I sold all except the SJT-200, which served as my primary CED player until I obtained an SGT-250. - Reinhart

[op712]

Being new to the group was due to me finding a SJT090 and a dozen CED's for 10 bucks at my neighourhood thrift store.

Took the top off, blew out the bit of dust in the thing and noticed that the function belt had all but turned into sticky tar.

Took the motor and gears off to clean all of that tar off with a good degreaser and, for the time being, using small rubber bands to get the function unit working (where I'll have to order a couple of those small belts from CEDMAGIC site..)

After getting that all put back together, turned the thing on and it came to like in an instant. Put the TV on channel 4 and the RF switch to 4 as well.

Put a caddie in, watch it unload a disc, started to play, but nothing - Display shows the double bar LED display.

Have I got a shot needle? Or, is there some other trickery that I need to look into?

On the history side of the spectrum : I remember when CED came out in 1981. Our RCA dealership in town really promoted these things with tons of movies available, but deep down inside I knew that the Pioneer's LD system would be the reigning king of videodiscs since I was introduced to the LD system back in 1980. And being an audiophile with a horrid collection of classical records, I just knew that a playbacj machine that depended on physical contact for playing back the medium encoded on the disc would incase the same dilemma with vinyl after a numerous period of plays.

I was totally impressed on the digital sound and FM video playback these things had-let alone that a horribly scratched LD can still play without any problems. But at that time, the video selections for the LD was so scarce to where the RCA CED system really had the jump on the market.

When I found this player last week at the thrift store, I just wanted to get it for the curiosity of it all, but now getting back into the past that I missed when these things came out so long ago.

[Reinhart]

[op712]

[owenatverrs]

I got my first CED player from ebay (the frist model) for about 10 dollars. When I got it home I found that it needed a new stylus, but at that time I didnt know what was wrong with it so I threw it out But after I learned my lesson, I bought a SJT 100 and got a new stylus.

[LloydAZ]

[owenatverrs]

[tjsjhart]

I've been thinking about getting rid of it and the 100+ discs that I have here taking up space and collecting dust. I haven't used it in years.[/quote] Lloyd contact me about selling your CED'S,,, MY EMAIL IS TJSJHART@MSN.COM I LIVE IN SURPRISE