CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 43

CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 43 • 10/24/1998
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 08:29:15 -0500
From: "Rex Burks" 
To: Tom Howe <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Re: CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 42

ALCHUS wrote:

>I think that if RCA called each owner of a CED player up and said
that they
would trade a DVD machine for our CED machine and replace each title
with a
new DVD disc for no cost - there would be no need for this CED site.>>>

Unbelievable!

This is by FAR the most ridiculous thing I have heard all morning! Now,
I am new to this CED thing, so I'll admit that I might not be in touch
with the motivations of all of the other subscribers, BUT... I guess I
just assumed that our collective interest in CED went beyond our desire
for a way to watch movies at home!

SelectaVision appeals to me in MANY ways, none of which has anything to
do with my perception that DVD is somehow more desirable.  In fact, I
owned my DVD player (Pioneer DVL-700) BEFORE I ever found a CED player,
about six months ago.  I have been a record collector for most of my
life, and was on cloud nine excitement when I stumbled upon Tom's
WebSite, and learned of this amazing needle-in-the-groove video format. 
I spent the next two months aggressively searching for a player.  I had
to have one!

Anyway, my point is, CED is an AMAZING collectable as these things go. I
never have anyone in my home anymore without giving the full
demonstration, and no one is ever disappointed. In a world dominated by
Optical Discs and Magnetic Tapes, I find CED to be a refreshing and
unique technology that is simply oozing with the marvelous kind of retro
appeal that is the absolute earmark of the FINEST collectibles.

I am sorry for you that you have missed this point entirely, because it
might have brought you a lot of joy! 

Happy collecting to CED people everywhere (And a special thanks to Tom
for all he has dome for this marvelous hobby!)

Your Friend,

	-Rex Burks
	 Dallas, Texas

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sun, 18 Oct 1998 13:19:41 -0500 (EST)
From: kate jenkins 
To: CED Magic List <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: more warnings...

I'm glad someone posted the "warnings" in the last issue. I've been 
meaning to address this subject for a while now - especially after 
someone posted that he "paid $100 for a player on Ebay" that didn't work.

For those on this list who don't actually own a player and who are looking 
for the "holy grail of lost technology" it's important to understand that 
few of the remaining CED players out there still work. It's been my 
experience that nearly 100% of the ones you find do not work. No 
exaggeration. I recently took out a classified in a state-wide classified 
trader paper "looking for CED players." I got several calls (about 6,) I 
asked all of them "does it work at all?" And of course the response was 
always something like "I don't know, I haven't used it in 10 years - it's 
out in my garage now." I would always ask them to test it out and call me 
back if they could get a disc to load, even 1 out of every 20 tries... ( 
I didn't want to drive out to their house to pay for another broken 
machine...) Same situation with mailordering. People have sworn to me 
that the machine works and somehow when it arrives, it's not in even a 
semblance of working order.

Anyway
---LET'S TALK ABOUT E-BAY---

If an ad says "AS IS" it means *broken.*
Often people will say (with CEDs and 8tracks,) Yes, it works but I don't 
have any CEDs (or 8tracks) to test it with... This translates, "I am 
fully aware that this machine doesn't work. I am hinting to you very 
subtly that it doesn't work."

As a summary and as stated in an earlier post - use extreme caution...

---AN INTERESTING SIDENOTE--- (for those of you still reading...)

I live in Bloomington, Indiana - the town where most of your CED players 
were manufactured so many years ago. The Thompson plant is just 8 blocks 
away from my house and I can take 10 steps from my porch and actually see 
it!!! I think of you guys everytime I take a gander at it!  

Anyway, I got a bit of a chuckle reading over the CED digest archives
from last year when there was much talk of recovering the old 
manufacturing equipment from the original factory. The plant is now 
closed, decrepit-looking, with broken glass windows. I thought to myself, 
I know the CEOs at RCA couldn't possibly give a shit about whatever 
became of this technology which didn't net them enough profits to 
continue with. (They closed the plant last year, turning hundreds of 
Bloomington residents out of their jobs to move most of their Bloomington 
and Indianapolis manufacturing to Mexico. It's a pretty big issue here in 
my town - or at least it was...)

Anyway folks, thanks for listening to my ramble. I agree that the CED 
site is a great resource. I applaud Tom for taking so much time to 
provide such extensive info. I trashed my last working player in 1992 and 
I wish I knew then what I know now...

Rock on friends, Kate.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: WDE704CINN
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 1998 22:11:40 EDT
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: RCA Video Disc

I have a RCA Model #100W video disc player and (25) disc's. Would you be
interested in purchasing same or could you refer me to another source.
This was purchased when they first came out so it is quite old, but still
functions.
Thank you.

                            W.David Estilow
                            704 Heritage Rd.
                            Cinnaminson,NJ  08077
                            (609) 829-0450

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 13:47:59 -0700
From: Tom Howe
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: RE: Realistic 16-301 Player

>please add us to the ced mailing list, we are looking for parts for our
>realistic brand ced player

Hello:

Your Realistic player is actually manufactured by Hitachi, and is electrically
and mechanically identical to the Hitachi VIP1000 player. The Sears 934.54780150
is also a clone of this player. You can determine these equivalents by looking
at the CED player reference guide at:



http://www.cedmagic.com/museum/ced-player-guide/

As for parts, Hitachi has nothing available, even though they were the
manufacturer. The last time I checked, Radio Shack still had about 20 parts
available, one of which was the stylus cartridge. You should be able to get a
list of parts by walking into any Radio Shack and requesting they access "Tandy
Retail Services Faxback" using the model number 16-301 or possibly 160-0301,
which is how it was listed on the form they printed out for me.
Sears is probably the best source for parts, but it would require using the
Sears service manual to cross reference the part numbers. The Sears manual is
available from Howard Sams Co. at:

http://www.hwsams.com

You didn't mention what parts you need, but the most likely ones are the stylus
cartridge or drive belts. In particular, any Hitachi player that still has the
original loading and arm drive belts probably needs replacements. These belts
can be purchased via the CED Player Belt Replacement Guide at:



http://www.cedmagic.com/tech-info/belt-replacement-guide/

--Tom Howe

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 1998 14:31:03 -0700
From: Tom Howe
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: RE: CD-ROM Status

Hello All:

This is a general report on the status of the RCA VideoDisc collector's guide
CD-ROM, which structurally will be similar to the CED Magic site, but will
include about 600 MB of additional data comprised of high-res photos of all the
caddies listed in the CED Title Database. A more detailed description is
available at:



http://www.cedmagic.com/home/cd-rom-survey.html

I'm shooting right now to have the CD-ROM pressed and available in Jan. 1999,
which will avoid having it complicate my 1998 taxes. There has been sufficient
interest to justify having an actual disc pressing rather than a bunch of
recordable CD-ROM's, so I'm now working on getting a disc image ready for glass
mastering.

The CD-ROM will be "web enabled" meaning there will absolute links to pages on
the internet in addition to the relative links pointing to files on the CD-ROM
itself. The absolute links will be red in color, so users will know not to click
on them unless they have an active internet connection. One of the absolute
links will go to a page at CED Magic that will be an ongoing list of new items
added to the site since the publication of the CD-ROM.

--Tom Howe
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