Retro Tech Tuesday: RCA Selectavision

At some point RCA knew they were beat, and videotape, not media on a non-burnable disc was the future. (come to think of it, they were just a few decades too early.) And so it was time to leave their CED tech behind (CED came on big discs but unlike a laserdisc, used a physical groove and needle for picture and sound) and they embraced tape. And how better to get people enticed than to throw in blank media. Hey when you realize the ability to record is the reason you lost a format war, it makes a lot of sense to include media, and make it cheaper than the other guys to get started. The most fascinating thing about this ad is the "almost $100" value of four blank video tapes. Imagine if blank media cost that much today. Heck, imagine if we still used blank media...

Retro Tech Tuesday: The CED Player

Don't you dare call it a laserdisc player!? No, this beauty, from my personal collection is the CED Player, or capacitance electronic disc. It was the brainchild of RCA (this player is by the folks formerly known as RadioShack) and it could've ruled the at-home movie-watching world if it wasn't for those VHS and Betamax brats. There were some limitations that kept CEDs from getting off the ground though, despite heavy investment by RCA.

First, as hard as it is to believe, unlike laserdiscs, CED players had physical needles that played grooves in a record, just like a phonograph. (it's a little more complicated than that. See the wiki page for more info.) Keeping the records as close to scratch-free as possible was key, hence the records are permanently placed inside thick plastic sleeves, and the whole thing gets inserted into the player, kind of like the early CD ROM trays.

Second, these things are heavy. Very heavy. A handful would probably weigh more than your whole DVD collection. You had to be careful not to stack them on top of each other, as the weight could warp the records at the bottom.

Third, the movie selection left something to be desired, although it appears every Charles Bronson movie ever made was available.

And of course, as Betamax and VHS entered the scene, there was the little fact that CED's were play-only devices. 

Still, the CED was the first way to experience Star Wars at home in stereo, and it serves today as an odd and finicky format. The video quality was similar to VHS, but it had something about it that just "felt" a little different, and for reasons I still can quite figure out, TRON on CED was a real headache inducer for me. It's hard to keep the machines humming along today. Mine, like several is the victim of a stretched/warped drive belt, so buyer beware. Oh, and I had to buy a special extra heavy duty shelving unit to store the CED's on after the closet shelf was dangerously close to breaking.

Come to think of it, it probably would've never worked as a mobile media solution either, seeing how a small child could probably stop breathing if just one or two discs fell on them.