October 2003 http://www.molehillgroup.com/author.htm Michael Miller is a writer, consultant, musician, and the President/Founder of the Molehill Group. As the best-selling author of more than fifty non-fiction books (and numerous magazine articles), Mr. Miller writes about a variety of topics, ranging from computers to consumer electronics to music. From his first book (Ventura Publisher Techniques and Applications, published in 1988) to his latest title (Absolute Beginner's Guide to eBay), he has established a reputation for practical advice, technical accuracy, and an unerring empathy for the needs of his readers. As a consultant, Mr. Miller provides strategic advice and business plans to a variety of traditional and Internet-related businesses. His marketing and high-tech experience has proven extremely valuable to businesses entering the online market space, and his combination of broad-based business and writing skills enable him to create persuasive business and strategic plans for his clients.  As a musician, Mr. Miller has been playing drums since he was in grade school, and he attended the prestigious Jazz Studies Program at the Indiana University School of Music. A former percussion instructor and working drummer, his drumming background includes stints with a variety of bands representing a plethora of styles, from big band to bebop, to avant-garde jazz, to Dixieland, to rock, to country, to soul--in addition to classical symphonic and marching band drumming. He currently plays Drum Workshop drums with a mix of Sabian and Zildjian cymbals. Michael Miller received a Marketing degree from Indiana University in 1980. After graduation, he worked for seven years in his family's retail business, then spent twelve years in various positions at Macmillan Publishing. In his last position as Vice President of Business Strategy, he helped guide the strategic direction for the world's largest reference publisher and influence the shape of today's computer book publishing market. Mr. Miller formed the Molehill Group in January 1999, and currently splits his time between authoring and consulting projects. From: Michael Miller (mlmiller@phcp.win.net) Subject: RCA VIDEODISCS View: Complete Thread (5 articles) Original FormatNewsgroups: alt.video.laserdisc Date: 1994-04-16 21:17:45 PST Bob Niland wrote: >CED was marketed between 1978 and 1984, and was an incompatible videodisc >format that competed with LaserDisc (LD, the Philips/MCA system then called >LaserVision or LV). A few test PAL CEDs were also made (bizarrely, AFTER >CED was cancelled in the US), but the only major CED market was North >America. Actually, some PAL discs were mastered simultaneously with NTSC discs. I recall seeing an ABBA In Concert disc for the European market only--RCA didn't have North American rights. >Although Japan uses NTSC, they adopted a grooveless capacitance >system called VHD (reportedly declining but still in use). CED >was tested there, but never established a foothold. I don't think VHD ever established a foothold in Japan, either. I saw demos of VHD players from both JVC (the originator of the format) and Mitsubishi back in the early 1980s (including some of Kate Bush's first videos!), and it showed a slightly better picture and sound than CED, but not quite up to LD levels. >CED titles sold for $5 to $10 less than LDs, and both disc formats have >always been priced substantially less than tape. There were 4 or 5 player >brands, including Radio Shack. (Curiously, the Radio Shack laserdisc player >introduced in early 1991 has a catalog number which is the old CED player >number plus one.) There were actually only three manufacturers of CED players. RCA manufactured players for itself; Hitachi manufactured players for itself and Radio Shack; and Sanyo manufactured players for itself. The first RCA player had an SRP of $499, and was released with about 20 titles (mainly movies, but also some TV shows, like Star Trek) available (out of a promised 50 in the catalog). Over the years RCA expanded their model line to include stereo and remote control players, as well as lower priced players (including a bare-bones model for $99, which sold like hotcakes!). For awhile the Hitachi players were a little more technologically advanced than the RCA (first to include remote control, automatic loading, etc.), but RCA caught up quick and actually made a more reliable model line. The Sanyo machines were cheap and unreliable, and had problems playing moderately bad discs. >Early discs were reportedly unfilled vinyl substrate, with an >inconel-on-copper data layer and an oiled styrene surface. Problems with >delamination led to the use of solid conductive vinyl. > >Open question: Did any metallized discs reach market? These early discs (according to a 1976 issue of Playboy--the one with the Jimmy Carter interview!) were experimental only, and did not include the caddy mechanism. This prototype didn't make it to market, since RCA discovered that handling the discs gunked up the grooves and made the discs unplayable. This led the RCA engineers to device the protective caddy mechanism; somewhere in there the disc makeup changed, as well. >To put it more crudely, unlike an LP, the CED groove does not "wiggle". The >bottom of the groove follows the pits, but the pickup stylus contact area is >longer than several pits, and rides on the "lands" between the pits. It >does not track the pits or otherwise vibrate. This should minimize wear, >but I would still expect the stylus to be polished down over time. Early >stylus assemblies were user- replaceable, and reportedly had a 400 hour >life. The stylus replacement business was a big moneymaker for CED dealers! Early stylii would need to be replaced once a year or so, and cost around $60-$70US. Fortunately (for the consumer!), stylii were user-replaceable (at least on the RCA-manufactured machines); a little door on the top of the player would pop off and the stylus could be replaced by hand. Later RCA stylus designs tended to last a little longer; I assume they changed to a more resilant material. >I would also expect groove ridge damage from fast-fwd/rev, >still-frame and other operations that require skipping tracks, >since the pickup is not raised during these operations. I would >further expect self-skipping problems in the face of debris in the >groove and general surface damage. And you would be right. The biggest problem with CED players was skipping, caused either by gunk--including fingerprints, dust, etc.--in the grooves (or on the stylus) or by worn-out grooves, or by worn-out stylii. Using the "still-frame" feature would wear out the groove (and the stylus) over time. Dirt, however, was the biggest problem. RCA even went so far as to introduce a self-cleaning stylus in later models--essentially, the stylus was picked up off the groove and physically moved over a cleaning pad! >Warps and rotational eccentricities can result in data rate errors large >enough to cause incorrect color decoding. Time-base-correction (TBC) on CED >is accomplished by changing the length of the pickup arm. On LD, time-base >is handled by swinging mirrors, optical delay lines or more recently, with >digital TBCs. Warpage was another big problem, especially for dealers who rented the discs. Customers tended to leave the discs in their cars during hot summertime days, which would warp the discs and make them either partially or wholly unplayable. We had to charge quite a few customers for damaged discs due to this problem! >CED is reported to get only 250 lines of horizontal resolution, compared to >the 425 claimed for LD. Although the VHS-like color-under scheme has well >less than full NTSC chroma resolution, CED transfers were generally of >higher quality than VHS from that period. RCA was one of the earliest users >of flying spot cinetele scanners, and used films negatives where possible. >CED owners confirm that quality (on "good" discs) was somewhere between >early-80s VHS and Beta. Actually, CED had a resolution closer to 300 lines (claimed by RCA, and verified in several video magazine tests). The result, whowever, was as described: the picture was clearly superior to VHS (and Beta!), but not as sharp as laser. It's also true that RCA had a pretty good mastering department, and generally used superior source material to what was being put on tape at the time. >Although intended for pressing on ordinary LP-style equipment, CEDs required >clean-room conditions. Reportedly, only RCA and CBS ever made them. RCA's disc manufacturing facilities in Indianapolis were quite technologically advanced for the time. As stated, lots of clean-room type stuff, white "nuclear scientist" type outfits, and very stringent quality-control. A few years into the CED period CBS opened a CED manufacturing plant in Georgia. Up till that time, RCA manufactured discs for all studios (and distributed for most). As the format gained popularity, several studios (including what was then CBS/Fox Home Video) decided to distribute their own discs through their own home video distribution networks. CBS went the extra step (with corresponding high investment) and started to press their own discs. CBS also manufactured discs for some other studios, although RCA retained the majority of the pressing business. In general, RCA-manufactured discs were of higher quality (at least in terms of major defects) than CBS-manufactured discs. This is probably explained by the longer learning curve at the RCA plant. >CED has stereo analog sound with CX noise reduction. CED did not last long >enough to benefit from digital sound (added to LD around 1985). Audio on >CED, as on LD analog, is two FM subcarriers. CED deviates them by 75 KHz >(vs 100 for LD). CED defines them FM-multiplex broadcast-style, as stereo >L+R and L-R. On LD they are discrete L and R. Not all CED players had >stereo outputs (all LD players do). It should be noted that one of the key selling points of CED at the time was stereo sound. (Actually, stereo was introduced on the second-generation models; it wasn't available at product launch.) At the time neither VHS or Beta offered stereo playback. To demonstrate this new feature, RCA actually started selling a compact audio system (to be hooked up directly to the CED player), and provided a fairly deluxe in-store display for their stereo players. >So why did CED fail? > > * It didn't have enough market share to keep the attention of the > bottom-line obsessed revolving-door management at RCA. > > * Couldn't record, but cost as much as a VCR, and VCR prices were dropping > rapidly in the '80s. > > * Failed to enter Japanese market at all (LD has significant market share > there, which helped keep LD alive here). > > * Sensitivity to contamination. Skipping was perceived to be a serious > problem. Also a perception of wear, even though RCA claimed 2000 plays > per platter. Several respondents reported a claim of only 100 plays. > > * Did not have a dedicated vendor like Pioneer to keep format alive. RCA > was just beginning its final descent into self destruction and eventual > buyout. There was no stable, committed management present to run a > videodisc crusade. > > * No niche: CED was not sufficiently superior to tape (esp. Beta, which > was its early competitor), and was clearly inferior to LD. > > * CED did not appeal to "early adopter" videophiles, whose snap opinion > was that laser was cool, but stylus-in-groove was technologically > primitive. They used the perjorative name "needle vision" when > discussing CED. > > * The public was confused by two "disc" formats (when I demonstrate LD in > my home, many people ask "Can you still get discs?") They only remember > that "video disc died in 1983". > > * Open systems: RCA tried to get a lock on the CED market. Early players > were expensive and only available at RCA dealers. All good points. Perhaps the biggest, however, was lack of critical mass. Since RCA was the primary provider of both hardware and software, it just didn't get the exposure that VHS did (due to its suppport by dozens of manufacturers). The snubbing by videophiles and the trade press didn't help, either. But it finally didn't fly because it couldn't get up enough speed. (And remember, RCA needed mass-market type sales--fast--to justify their investment, unlike Pioneer which was satisfied with lower sales and a slower build.) Another factor is that RCA simply wasn't making money on it. They were losing money on the players to build a bigger base for disc sales. (Like giving away the razors to sell the blades.) Unfortunately, disc sales per customer were lower than RCA projected (RCA was hoping for something like 20 discs/customer/year, and reality was something closer to 10 discs/customer/year), so RCA never really brought in the revenue they needed to support their investment. They either had to change their model or close it down--and after a management changed installed a known nonsupporter of the format, they chose the latter. My experience with CED discs was as a retailer. My store (G&M Video, in Speedway Indiana) was one of the largest retailers of CED discs in the country. (We even had a thriving mail order business for CED discs, which benefited from the poor distribution of CED in some parts of the country.) We stocked every CED title ever made, and offered discs for both sale and rental. Our store also serviced the players, so I have some experience with the quality of the machines as well. One thing that helped us was that we were located about two miles from RCA's disc pressing plant. We got a lot of business from RCA employees, who for some reason couldn't buy (and certainly couldn't rent!) discs direct from the factory. Through some of our RCA-employee customers we also got advance information on what was due to be pressed (which is where my info on the PAL-format ABBA disc came from). When RCA got the player price down to $99, we sold a lot of machines. (Over 100 in one week during one particularly well-advertised sale, if I recall.) In general, customers liked the machines, and tended to put up with the random skipping. The audience tended to be middle or lower class; CED never did attract an upscale videophile consumer. The main attraction was price--cheap movies on a cheap machine. Quality wasn't much of an issue with the core market. Unlike the LD market, we tended to have a heavier rental business than sale business. However, we did move thousands of discs each month--mainly to customers who also rented. When we received real hit movies--like the initial release of Star Wars--we would order and sell hundreds of copies a month. While most customers would buy a disc a month or so, we did have a core group of customers who purchased almost everything that was released. It was a good business. While it lasted. When RCA ceased player manufacturing, they promised to support the installed base for three years. Well, it didn't last quite that long. The customers saw they were being abandoned and flocked in droves to buy VHS machines. As the disc business started to dry up, both RCA and CBS scaled back and finally ceased pressing of new discs. We changed our business over to VHS tapes--which was mainly rental, not sale--and I moved on to another career (publishing computer books, if anyone cares). The funny thing is, RCA sold more players and discs in a single year than Pioneer did in the first 10 years of LD, yet CED was perceived as a failure. Perhaps if RCA had recruited more supporters--and worked out some of the technical glitches--then things might have been different. As is, CED remains an asterisk in the video history books. ** Mike Miller ** Associate Publisher ** Que, part of Macmillan Publishing