CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[cedmagic]

The news story about the block of cheese with a cell phone charger taped to it reminded me of my experience carrying CED's on an airplane back in 1994.

While attending the Consumer Electronics Show I went to a few Las Vegas thrift stores and picked up about 10 CED's. Taking these home as carry-on luggage, the inspector wanted to look at them, as they showed up as a solid chunk of high-density plastic on the x-ray machine. I wound up opening a caddy and explaining they were vinyl records that stored movies rather than sound.

Has anyone tried taking CED's on airplanes, either as carry-on or checked luggage, particularly since 2001?

--Tom Howe

[Rixrex]

No, but I think I might instead ship them well-packed rather than risk them getting taken or ruined. Just 10 wouldn't be too bad to ship.

[ckaplan]

Actually I carried on 5 or 6 discs just 2 months ago. Through 2 airports at that.

The Simi-Valley public library was selling some donated discs (previously discussed here) and I bought a few.

I think I flew from LAX to Vegas to Boston.

While TSA has stopped me for all kinds of idiotic reasons, they let these go right through, no questions asked.

Many years and many jobs ago I remember carrying through a box of bullets (no gun) without being stopped. But I think the best was the time I carried on a Mac+ that was broken. This was back in the days when they would ask you to turn on a computer, but since it was broken (and not battery operated) this wasn't possible. I actually had a Mac cracker tool with me so I opened it up to show them it really was a computer. After about 10 rent a cops looked it over they let me board with it, but warned me that if I was traveling on internationally it may present a problem. Keep in mind that the CRT on these wasn't possible to view inside, so there visual inspection really told them nothing.

But as we all know, our country seems much more interested in the appearance of security than in security itself.


-CK