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>A lot depends upon the mastering. Of all the ones I had the could
>look about the same as VHS if the original U-Matic master used
>for tape duping was used. And one or two really looked quite good.
>The first Star Wars on CED was one of the best.
That's probably because CEDs use source video recorded on 1 inch reel-to-reel
video tape and is recorded to the copper mother at half realtime speed.
>It was only this past year that one of my favorites I had on CED
>finally made it to DVD. That was only about a 15 year wait. It
>was never on LD.
If you're thinking about Star Wars, then I must question that particular
contention.
If not, then what movie was released on CED which never saw a LaserDisc
release? (And, I know that there are flicks on CED that never saw release on
LD.)
>I have news for you. They skipped from the very first. I got one
>of the first CEDs - and there were all sorts of problems - and
>after 6 weeks I took it back to the dealer. RCA had told the
>dealer to try cleaning the disk surface as there may have been too
>much lubricant.
Discs are given a silicone coating after cleaning if the pressed disc passes
inspection. There are times where conditioning plays would be required for the
stylus to literally cut through the lubrication. This problem was coined as
"video virus."
But because of the nature of the format, a lot of things will cause skipping
and carrier distress. The mention of the dust problem is not inaccurate and it
does happen, but it's because the dust manages to bond with the lubricant
coating.
>Later I got one of the 400 series with the servo platters instead
>of the belts and other refinements - the player made a huge
>difference
A.K.A. the SJT and SKT series of players. The 400 is the highest end. The SJT
and SKT players employed a brushless motor direct drive turntable that was
regulated by quartz servo. The 400 models also had a stylus sweeper built into
the pickup arm which activated during carrier distress and pause. The 300
model also had this. The 090, 100, and 200 models did not but still had the
brushless servo direct drive turntables. There was even an SKT-425 planned
that would cosmetically complement RCA's Dimensia home A/V system, but they
were never made. Tom Howe of CEDMagic.com owns one, but it was a prototype.
http
/www.cedmagic.com/home/tom-dimensia.html
The SFT and SGT lines used belts, including the turntable where rotation was
regulated by the powerline frequency as opposed to a quartz oscillator.
>If RCA had not decided to emulate servos mechanicallyh
>with their method of the parallel pickup arm, and had
>done something intelligent like JVC did with the VHD and used an
>electronic embedded servo track the format might have survived
First off, a CED player knew when to advance the pickup arm not because of
mechanical actuation, but because the increasing field numbers encoded in the
video vertical blanking would tell the DAXI processor in the player to advance
the pickup arm. Thus, the advancement was not only electronic, but it was
computerized. Think of DAXI (Digital AuXilliary Information) as CED's Philips
code on LaserVision in the same video space.
VHD had several advantages over CED. One advantage was that a VHD disc was
grooveless and the stylus was flat-tipped. CED discs have grooves with a stylus
that was keel-shaped. A flat-tipped stylus would spread the tracking force
over a wider area, reducing wear on the stylus and disc. The grooveless disc
also had pilot tracks adjacent to the main signal track which would prevent an
additional wearout factor that would otherwise be caused by a grooved disc.
Offtopic, interestingly enough, JVC even planned VHD to be an audio format by
implementing PCM support to it. However, the introduction of the Compact Disc
in 1982 changed that tune quickly. (No pun intended.)
But, even if CED had these benefits, it still likely would not have survived
because of the VCR.
CED died mainly because it reached the market in 1981. (It would have been
worse for VHD in the States as a release year of 1984 was all that was possible
at that time, which prompted JVC to abandon the USA market before it ever
started there.) By that time, the VCR had too much of a hold on the market.
Furthermore, video rental outlets were in full swing by that time and allowed
people to rent titles instead of buy. The videodisc business was reliant on
people buying titles with the advantage that it was cheaper to buy videodiscs
than pre-recorded video cassettes. That particular point was publicized by
both MCA DiscoVision and RCA for their respective formats at launch.
Well, it's even cheaper to rent video cassettes than buying content on either
format. Plus, you had the added benefit to record programming, either from the
air or from a VCR-to-VCR dupe.
RCA could have released CED in 1977, but that would have been disastrous. CED
was being developed with multi-layer metalized discs which were prone to
developing problems that lead to delamination which could also damage the
player stylus if a bad disc was ever played.
>Anything that is mechanical that is from a flea market will
>probably be about the same
Tell me about it. A lot of flea market electronics I see require rebuilds to
account for the deplorable conditions that they are stored in if they aren't
too far gone to begin with. Although, there were times I got lucky when I
snagged a Technics SL-7 turntable for $10, which I thoroughly rebuilt and
cleaned up. I also snagged a used but mint STR-DA4ES for $300, which is a deal
that's definitely hard to beat.
>And for the very first machines they were often more trouble than
>they were worth when new.
Almost always true. The first Betamax decks were quite bulky and had their
quirks as did some of the first VHS machines (belt drive head drums, anyone?).
The first consumer LaserDisc player, the Magnavox VH-8000, was an unreliable
piece of junk (although the very first production LD players, the industrial
Universal Pioneer PR-7820, were reliable as hell and tough as nails). The
first CD player, the Sony CDP-101, had a phase-shift on one audio channel
because one D/A converter was shared for two channels with no delay on one to
keep the audio lined up.
Even the first DVD players had quirks, except for the Sony models, particularly
the DVP-S7000. - Reinhart
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