Movies on vinyl!

[RayB]

I never heard of these things before! Very neat. It is movies on vinyl!

http://www.thearcadeboneyard.com/RCACedMovies.html

[protokatie]

Friend of mine had one. Very annoying. The video was not very stable at all. But yes, it is a "record player" that reproduces video. The major problmes with it manifest themselves from the high spin rate and very very narrow track width (both of which are needed to get the bandwidth to support video and for a somewhat decent length for each side to play)
The angry video game nerd did a review of this format (as well as many other old formats) awhile back but he never got into any technical details. Neat yes, but a trivial technology.

[MaineEvent]

Wow, I've never seen anything like that! Very retro...I'd love to get in my Delorean and pick one up in 1983.
But really, I'd love a CED player just to see first hand what it's like. Any good titles released on CED?

[danny_galaga]

I read about CED a little while back. RCA spents decades working on it, dragging their feet all the way. So no surprise it was totally redundant by the time it went to market! But for techno geeks like us, the whole idea is freaking awesome!

[Mikezilla]

Kind of off topic, well, totally off topic... Laserdiscs suck. I dropped Terminator 2 taking it out of the player and it shattered like glass when I was a kid. My dad almost beat me cause the thing cost 50 bucks. Stupid lame formats. We had 3 laserdisc movies...T2, Robocop(my personal favorite) and Total Recall.

Just some random facts for ya. 

[cgrisamore]

The RCA system was not the same as the Pioneer laserdisc (which I still own and have 120+ movies in that format).  RCA system actually used a stylus and the discs wore out after repeated plays much like a vinyl record.  It was cheaper than laserdisc but was so markedly inferior that it didn't really make much of an impact in the marketplace.  Don't remember it lasting very long...

[boykster]

We had one of those RCA video disc players when I was a kid.  It was definitely a niche technology.  The discs looked like thick records (when you took them out of their sleeves), and as others have mentioned, it used a stylus to read the grooves.  You'd have to flip the disc 1/2 way through the movie if it was more than ~60minutes (don't remember exact capacity).  You also had to remove and clean the stylus every so often to get dust and lint off of it.  The 'sealed' caddies for discs + the dust filters on teh players just weren't that effective.

It was pretty cool at the time though!

[DaveMMR]

Kind of off topic, well, totally off topic... Laserdiscs suck. I dropped Terminator 2 taking it out of the player and it shattered like glass when I was a kid. My dad almost beat me cause the thing cost 50 bucks. Stupid lame formats. We had 3 laserdisc movies...T2, Robocop(my personal favorite) and Total Recall.

Just some random facts for ya.  

Little of that was fact, just that you dropped a laserdisc and you're blaming the whole format for your negative childhood experience.     But I happen to still like Laserdiscs even in the age of DVD considering there's still a good amount of material (deleted scenes and entire movies) that haven't made the jump to DVD.   Though it's more of a curiosity I keep around now rather than for home theater watching.

Anyway, the DVD and CEDs are two different beasts.  The CED was pretty cool (or awkward) in that you slid in the entire case, pulled it out and it plays.... somewhat poorly depending on how many times the disc was played.   I always liked the little "space-age" RCA jingle that played (it's on YouTube for the curious) and the general idea of it.  They're still floating around so I may pick one up if I ever see it (though it almost certainly will be in disrepair).  

[bishmasterb]

Here's a vid of my CED player playing ESB. Video quality is on par with VHS I suppose.

[Kevin Mullins]

This reminded me..... I have a stack of these in storage, must go find a player one of these days. Wanna watch me some Close Encounters. 

[MaineEvent]

I am still researching these online and getting more and more into them....Definitely a new thing to keep an eye out for at second hand stores and stuff, what do you think the chances of finding a functional player are?
Would love to have some classics I grew up with like Teen Wolf and Ghostbusters on CED.
Thanks for the post RayB!

[NiN^_^NiN]

i saw this online a few months ago and fell in love with it sure it's old tech but thats why it's awesome.

The quality isn't bad depending on the player there was a website that explained all the diff models and how the rca came out in stereo etc it's an interesting machine and bit of tech.

There are some good youtube clips of the system and the demo disc that was used for instore/home use

[Hoopz]

We had a video disc player in the early 80s and it was awesome.  I remember going to a store called "Video Concepts" in a local mall and renting discs.  I started with Escape from Alcatraz, but quickly found Goldfinger and other Bond movies.  I had Lord of the Rings, but it ended after the battle of Helm's Deep.  It always pissed me off that I didn't have Return of the King.

We also did have Tron on video disc.  It had a little glitch in the disc as it paused for 3 or 4 seconds in the same spot every time.  It was when Flynn diverted the energy on the solar sailor so they could avoid Sark.

 

[Barry Barcrest]

I had Lord of the Rings, but it ended after the battle of Helm's Deep.  It always pissed me off that I didn't have Return of the King.

Ah the Animated LOTR, watching that you can see how the movie was a direct lift from it with the same dialogue and camera angles.

I had one of these players, the remote was corded to the machine but at the time it was pretty futuristic. Mel Brooks History of the world part 1 being the most watched film I had for it. Seemed like there was quite a bit of cheesy soft core porn availble for the system too. I do remeber sometimes it would start skipping but a thump on the top of the unit normally sorted it, that or removing the stylus section and blowing the dust off.

[boykster]

Being the youngest I always got 'thump duty' when it would skip.  I remember we had Marx Bros - A Night at the Opera and a bunch of Star Trek episodes that we watched ALL the time...Also, History of the World Part I was a regular.  At one point, there were 2-3 local video shops that rented the discs, but when they started selling off their inventory to make room for more VHS and laserdiscs we bought up a bunch.  I have no clue what happened to all that old stuff.

[Mikezilla]

I think its awesome how you have to insert the whole thing, then it take the case out. I would buy it just so I could do that! 

[ChadTower]

When I was a kid at the big computer flea market in Dallas, some dude tried to hustle one of these players with a ton of movies on me.  Told the gathering crowd that suckers didn't know you could crack the cases open and put a laser disc inside.

I used to see these things at flea markets every time I went for years.  There would always be 3-4 vendors with the same group of movies.  The Star Wars trilogy, Gone with the Wind, Casablanca.  Never did see a working CED player.

[MaineEvent]

I found a guy who sells NOS RCA CED players for $185-$225...but that seems a little much for just the novelty factor. Plus I would still need to find the movies somewhere...I'll jump all over it if I ever find one at Salvation Army though.
There are even case mods for clear viewing windows haha