CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 3

CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 3 • 1/17/1998
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 08:53:50 -0800
From: Neil Wagner 
To: *CED Digest <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Videodisc History, Part 11

>From the March 1981 Popular Science column "Look and Listen"
by John Free

Video-disc race
  Toshiba has joined Zenith, JCPenney, Sears, Sanyo, and Radio
Shack to market RCA's capacitance electronic-disc (CED) system.
CBS will make discs for the video players.  RCA plans to offer
its under-$500 disc machine this spring.  Radio Shack may sell
a Hitachi-made player with more features than RCA's.  An under-
$100 adapter will enable Radio Shack CED owners to play stereo
disc releases.  RCA has indicated its initial entry will be a
monaural-only model with a step-up stereo CED player to follow.
  Later in the year, the vidio high-density (VHD) disc system
is slated for sale by three jointly owned companies just formed
by General Electric, Matsushita, JVC, and Thorn EMI.  VHD players
also use capacitance-type discs but are not compatible with CED.
VHD firms, apparently making last-minute decisions about what
player features to include, stress that the grooveless VHD-disc
system can have stop-action, random-access, and slow-motion
capabilities that CED doesn't have.  To fill the VHD program
library, movie companies and others are being offered bargain
pressing rates ($5.50 for a two-hour disc).
  Not to be outdone in the three-way disc-system battle, Japanese,
Dutch, and U.S. supporters of optical (laser) video discs have
formed a promotional outfit called the Laservision Assn.  Optical-
disc players are now being sold in major cities by both Pioneer
and Magnavox.  Newest optical converts are Advent and Fisher,
which plan to market the noncontact disc machines along with
giant-screen projection TV's.  A Laservision Assn. member, 3M,
is making video discs.

-- 
Neil - nw@ix.netcom.com

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Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 08:57:11 -0800
From: Neil Wagner 
To: *CED Digest <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: VideoDisc Auctions

On Fri, 09 Jan 1998 Tom Howe wrote:
>The explosive growth of the auction web site http://www.ebay.com has
>resulted in CED's nearly always being up for auction there.

I concur that ebay is a great outlet for obtaining CED's.  I've
had good success getting discs I want for a relatively low price.

-- 
Neil - nw@ix.netcom.com

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From: "George Butts" 
To: <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: CED Supply
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 11:15:56 -0800

I recently had a rather disturbing experience regarding the purchase
of CED's and I thought I might  share it with the newsgroup. Last
week I had a few days off and had  an opportunity to visit my local
Goodwill early in the morning.  Usually I don't find much there,
but to my surprise I discovered a giant bin  full of CED's priced at
99 cents per disc. Star Wars, Soylent Green,  American Werewolf in
London, The Wrath Of Khan... Some really great  titles. The manager
came by as I was sorting through them and told me that  a local man
had called the store and asked if they would be interested in
receiving his collection of 400 CED's. The manager wasn't even
exactly  sure what they were, but he said yes. When I arrived there
were  about 100 in the bin. I asked where the remainder were and
he said  that without his knowledge one of his employees sent the rest
to the main  Goodwill store because they didn't think they could
possibly sell them  all. He mentioned that since I  was so interested
(I purchased about 40-I would have purchased more, but many 2  disc
sets had been broken up when they randomly sent the remainder of the
collection to the other store) he would see if he could contact the
warehouse  and get them back. Well, I kept checking day after day.
He wasn't able to find anyone at the warehouse who had seen them. Then
this weekend I discovered their fate. He said he finally got in
touch with the person at the warhouse that had unpacked them when they 
arrived. This person made the decision that they were too old and 
nobody would be interested in them. So, he threw all 300 of them in the
dumpster. The manager asked if they could be retrieved, but the  garbage
had already been taken away. I find this  maddening. I used to get
upset with people that take advantage of  collectors interest in CED's
and drive up the price, but at least that keeps the  CED's in circulation.
I really don't know what the  solution to this is. While the gentleman
who donated them was no longer  interested in them, I think he would be
very disturbed to find that they had  been thrown out with the garbage.
I'm sure more CED's than we  would like to think end up in someone's trash.

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Date: Sun, 11 Jan 1998 17:27:49 -0700 (MST)
From: GLAHE FRED R
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 2

The January 1998 issue of ELECTRONICS NOW has a good article  by Sam
Goldwasser (sam@stdavids.picker.com) entitled "Finding Information."  It
describes how to get repair parts and information from many sources,
especially on the WWW.
Fred Glahe

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To: ceds@teleport.com
From: "Daniel P. Cayea"
Subject: CED Information Binder
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 98 16:39:29 PST

Telecom Technologies is offering to those who are interested an attractive
information binder on the CED Format.  The binder includes Frequently Asked
Questions, CED Titles, the National Capacitance Disc Library Collection Database,
and much, much more.

This colorful and informative binder is available to you for only $24.95
(includes shipping) and comes complete with free updates for one full year
and as an added bonus to your purchase Telecom will offer large discounts on
future binder purchases and binder upgrades.

*Coming Soon
CED Technical Reference Binder 3.1 Software Edition
The Crafted Technical Reference Binder available for IBM Compatible Computers.
This is currently in the beta stage, if you would like to beta test this software,
please write to us.

If you would like more information on this binder please write to
cayead@westelcom.com or write to:

Telecom Press
2841 First Street
Lyon Mountain, New York 12952

To Order: (Cash & Money Orders Accepted ONLY)
Telecom Press
CED Technical Reference
2870 First Street
Lyon Mountain, New York 12952

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To: ceds@teleport.com
From: "Daniel P. Cayea" 
Subject: Defective Player Search
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 98 16:45:28 PST

Telecom Technologies Incorporated is in search of defective or malfunctioning
players for use and repair in the National Capacitance Disc Library.  All
contributions will be duely noted and appreciated.  For more information or to
send donations the address is:

Telecom Technologies Incorporated
National Capacitance Disc Library
2841 First Street
Lyon Mountain, New York 12952

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To: ceds@teleport.com
From: "Daniel P. Cayea" 
Subject: CED Chat Room
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 98 16:49:47 PST

Dear CED Enthusiasts:

I would like to personally apologize for abandoning those who were in the CED
Chat Room on January 10 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm EST.  As you may or may not have
heard of the severe ice storm that has effected those of us in the northeast.
Such effects have been communications line and power failures.  This is the
primary reason in which I was not available.  I have scheduled a new time for
the discussion.  It has been scheduled for January 23 from 5:30 to 6:30 pm EST.
I hope to see you there and once again I apologize for any inconviences that
may have been caused.

Sincerely
Dan Cayea
Telecom Technologies

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To: ceds@teleport.com
From: "Daniel P. Cayea" 
Subject: The CED Future: 1998'
Date: Sun, 11 Jan 98 17:21:07 PST

The CED Future: 1998'

As stated in CED Digest, Volume 3, Edition Two, I noticed a dicussion about
the revivication of CED being dropped.  In no case has it been.  I have two
non rhetorical questions to ask all of you.

A.  Should we all contradict each other and have few resources?  or...

B.  Should we combing our resources and have much?

For the most part it has been said that the resurrection of this format would
not be financial feasible.  I would like to state once again (for those who
didn't plug one ear to get this) that it was never mentioned that this project
would be economically feasibile.  That is true that it is relatively expensive
to perform such a feat, this is true.

I propose this, and it has been stated time again that we attempt resurrent
the media as in the films on CED instead of players in which to view them.
RCA (before corporate buyout) actually had more revenues in production of
media for CED players than the players themselves.

Just a thought...

(URC)1998 Telecom Technologies

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Date: Mon, 12 Jan 1998 14:48:53 -0800 (PST)
From: Jesse Skeen 
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 2

The Ebay note reminds me of a good question to ask everyone- what is THE 
absolute RAREST CED ever made that was intended for sale (meaning this 
doesn't include the promo-only discs). I know that Beatles and Elvis 
related stuff is getting to be a bitch with all the "collector" people 
swarming around them; I was lucky enough to get Let It Be and a few Elvis 
movies for normal prices, I've paid a $10 premium price however for GI 
Blues and the 1968 Comeback Special, as well as Muhammad Ali's Greatest 
Fights, and at an antique mall the New York Yankees Miracle Year. But 
keep in mind, the most notorious event on the 8-track front was the sale 
of "Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols" for $100, making it 
the Holy Grail of 8-tracks for those of us who go looking for such junk.
I had to cough up $20 for Hard Day's Night  at a flea market, 
just because I didn't even know it existed on CED, and 
it was on MPI Video which I never knew put out any CEDs. Did MPI put out 
any others? They've held the rights to the classic movie "Faces of Death" 
so it'd be cool to have that on CED (and as many of you may know, 
although it's supposed to be a documentary featuring actual death 
footage, most of it is actually just special effects; the narrator claims 
to be a doctor but it was found out he was just some actor.)
Finally, a question I've asked before but haven't gotten an answer to so 
I'll see if there's anyone new who knows: What was the COMPLETE list of 
all the titles available at the March 1981 product launch; in other words 
if I bought a player the first day it came out and I also bought EVERY 
available disc, what would I have ended up with? I'd like to know this so 
I can group them in a special section on my shelf. As has been mentioned 
before, the very FIRST title to come off the production line was "Race 
For Your Life, Charlie Brown" (which was why I bugged my parents to get a 
videodisc player back then so I could have my own copy of it!) and the 
very LAST apparently was "Jewel of the Nile," although someone else told 
me it was 2 titles released the same day that were the very last, 
Youngblood and another movie I forget at at the moment. I've also been 
told that "Flashdance" was the first CED to have closed captioning, and 
considering the skipping problem it's often quite fun to try to read 
captions on CEDs because the captions go nuts when it skips. Thank god 
for built-in decoders, I can just imagine someone with their CED player 
and new copy of Flashdance running through one of those humongous 
TeleCaption decoders you had to get to see them. I'm not hard of hearing, 
but I enjoy this technology for some strange reason. It's the most fun 
when songs are playing because they print the lyrics, and sometimes get 
them wrong since I guess they didn't have any actual scripts to work 
with. (At the very end of most movies there's credits for what company 
did the captions along with a copyright indicating what year they were 
done and a warning about public performance of captions without 
permission.)

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From: ESmith1711
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 1998 14:44:04 EST
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: looking for the following CED'S

i am looking for the following movies, have not got any to trade butwill buy
for them.
1. return of the jedi
2. a view to a kill
3.making of michael jacksons thriller
4.diamonds are forever
5.tron
6.on her majestys secret service

also looking for a later series player (200 or above). will buy  any of the
following mentioned above.
Gene (esmith1711@aol.com)

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Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 11:43:15 -0800
From: Tom Howe
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: Interactive VideoDiscs

Hello All:

Some of you have queried me about interactive CED's. The current featured CED is
"A Walk Through the Universe," the first interactive CED title. This feature
deals with interactive discs in general and also provides tables of released and
unreleased titles.

--Tom
http://www.cedmagic.com

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From: "Bud Klass"
To: <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: CED'S For Sale!
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 1998 16:38:04 -0500

I have a number of CED's for sale. Prices are $2.50 for single discs and $3
for double discs plus shipping.  Or i would sell them all at $2 apiece plus
shipping. Please email me for the list.

Thanks,Bud

BudKlass@sprynet.com
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