RCA Videodisc Demo- Bring The Magic Home

This is from the first in-store demo disc for the RCA SelectaVision CED VideoDisc player, which went on the market in March 1981. The disc repeats this segment several times over. During the "Lady Sings the Blues" clip you can see the CED format's trademark skipping- almost every disc does this. The second half of this clip shows the first player in action. The later players had motorized disc loading.
I've had this posted on some of the better video sites but decided to post it here too. Most of the movie clips are copyrighted by Paramount Pictures, who I thank in advance for not pulling this. Paramount was one of the biggest supporters of the format from the get-go, strangely when DVD came out they waited more than a year to put out anything on that format.

[@DarrinBentley]

I had one of these when I was 13! I was a video snob and this destroyed VHS resolution wise. Then, Laserdisc started catching on and being a superior format, quickly surpassed the CED. I remember when they were dumping titles for $3 each, I bought about 200 of them! The CED holds a special place in my heart.

[@DrLove0378]

I also own that particular player, the SFT-100-W. It's pretty cool. I experience the skipping, too -- as intelligent as the sleeve design was, dust seems to get in there anyway. Since there's about 9,541 grooves per inch, the skipping effect is more pronounced than a regular phono record. Playing over that section a few times usually helps dislodge the dust, though. What amazes me, though, is how the player *still works* 26 years later...

[@Watcher3223]

_"as intelligent as the sleeve design was, dust seems to get in there anyway"_ The disc sleeve was less about preventing dust and more about keeping people from handling the disc itself. During prototype testing of discs without sleeves, the disc itself was to be handled by the user. However, it was found that, no matter how the disc was designed to be easy to handle without touching the signal surface, someone always seemed to manage to touch it anyway, leading to signal degradation at the point where the touch occurred.

[@Techraingeek]

♪ Bring The Magic Home With RCA! ♪

[@LubbockBabesFan]

🙌🏻🙌🏻🙌🏻

[@lovemylogics]

@Watcher3223 The stylus doesn't even have to be physically touching the disc for the electrode to pick up capacitance variations. In fact (and amazingly) towards the end, RCA was working on a pick-up method that kept the stylus a few microns above the disc, eliminating all physical contact, and thus wear, of the CED disc. At the same time JVC was working on a consumer version of laser playback for their VHD discs. They all wanted to get rid of the stylus for so-called "high-end" players.

[@MrJthomas70]

flashbacks of walking into Hecht's Company television center and seeing this play in rotation on the demo television.

[@themoviedealers]

I like that they were calling it "a record."

[@mspysu79]

Well technically it is, A CED is a videodisc with grooves and played with a stylus.

[@scotthayes4135]

It works just like a record.

[@TheGlitchyMario]

It was

[@sazanlip]

Just like a vinyl and pre-recorded CDs/DVDs/Blu-Rays, these were stamped out at the factory, so calling these "records" makes perfect sense.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

The problem was this WASN'T a solid product. I'll certainly give the players some credit for still working after more than 25 years without any major maintenance, but skipping was unavoidable on it. This never should have been put on the market until they could fix that problem once and for all, though by 1981 they were already several years later than they had wanted. I cherish my collection greatly but this deserves its place in history as the 8-track of video.

[@RkivUnderground]

Lady Sings the Blues. Looks sweet!

[@OfficialSoundtracker]

at 0:42, it says "uninterrupted" but thats bull. didnt you have to flip the disc over at the end of side 1???

[@wilkes85]

Holy crap!!! i never even imagined that anything like that would exist!!! That's awesome!!! I want one!! too bad they went obsolete so quickly.

[@scotthayes4135]

I remember where these were popular, now they're just as old school as 8 track tapes.

[@eljheids1115]

CEDs are now in the Philippines! Dyna Products, Inc. is the CED manufacturer in the Philippines, known as RCA in the Philippines!

[@TheMediaHoarder]

Snow White never came out on this format, in fact it never came out on any video format until 1993. There were just a handful of boxed CED sets- the miniseries Jesus of Nazareth on 4 discs in a box, and a couple operas- the interactive games that came later came in thin boxes with instruction cards too.

[@skystarless]

Ah, that skipping brings back memories. Haha! My dad bought one of these players sometime in '83 or '84, and we used it until the early 90s. He got rid of it a few years ago because he said it was "broken"-- I bet anything that it just needed a new belt or stylus. Sigh.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

@boface31 That's the needle skipping on the disc! Just about every disc does this during playback at one point or another- discs that had never been played were usually worse on their first play. Though I don't recall angry riots resulting from this, it's probably the biggest reason it didn't last on the market too long!

[@themovietheatre]

This was running all the time in Eaton's and Simpsons in Downtown Montréal. They were very poor seller in Montreal since they lacked French tracks unlike DVD's of today.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

You had to flip over laserdiscs on most players too- auto-reverse players didn't come along til about 1988, though if CED had lasted til then they probably would've had them too. When DVD was being developed Blockbuster wanted them to come in caddies to prevent damage, but the companies said no. I've checked out DVDs from the library and Redbox, some have gone through unspeakable abuse.

[@drbpony]

If you've ever taken one of these machines apart, you'll notice a bar with a rubber tip that lifts up the disc when it is ejected. Over time, the rubber could wear out, crumble, or go missing and there would be nothing but a piece of metal scratching the disc, which is probably why so many of them skip. If you take a disc out of the sleeve, you can see the vertical markings from that bar lifting the disc up. Oh, and if you get a fingerprint on the disc, kiss that video segment goodbye.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

The bar this poster is talking about is on the last-generation players, with motorized loading. The earlier ones like the player shown here raise the turntable up and down.

[@DiabloXL69]

2:58 how do they get slimline tv screen in 1980

[@VideyoJunkei]

Pause blanks the screen-notice that is NOT shown! later players could pause with 3 frames playing over and over-a strobe or stutter pause. I disconnected the anti-skip as a test on my player, and it does get 'stuck' looping a few frames very fast!

[@Alpha8713]

Wow--it has a pause feature. On every player, no less!

[@kargaroc386]

a CED was basically a flux capacitor.

[@WOSArchives]

At the time VHS and Betamax were already on the market. That and other problems killed the format.

[@DrLove0378]

I just bought one of these demo discs on eBay! ;)

[@pbjracing14yearsago49]

Nice! I bought "the bird man of alcatraz" from a thrift store the other day

[@RobbieStrike]

lol that clip must of been from a ced disk it skips at about 1:47 in

[@DiabloXL69]

3:26 He is playing the ‘Bring the magic home’ song on his banjo

[@michaelcarterclassic]

My disc for the rca videodisc player starts to prepeat playback many times and won't go to the end of every side of on disc dose it mean it's the end of the side of disc or it won't show the end of side sign at end of video disc side

[@lovemylogics]

@eyeh8nbc You are right, there was no future in the CED format and RCA knew it. Unlike LD, the CED format was at its technological limits with no possibility of improving picture quality, adding digital sound, etc, improvements that LD (and tape formats) did with ease. JVC added digital sound to VHD, extended chroma/luma resolution, added 3D and PC control, etc... all things CED could never do because of the 450 RPM speed that caused limited available disc bandwidth.

[@Satlam]

@ConfusedSponge That would probably ruin the disc, if you got it out of the caddy. The groove is supposedly 1/37th the width of a normal record groove, so it would skip right over. Furthermore, even if you did have a needle that small, the signal on a CED was read in a different manner, and would likely not sound like much at all on a record player.

[@wswfootball19]

i don't know what side 1 is for and where the fbi warnings and previews and hv logos

[@meowza3k]

is this a laserdisc? what were the magnetic discs called? they were like a giant floppy disk with a sliding cover that would reveal the disc.

[@TheVideoLover3]

The CED discs were played with a stylus, not a laser.

[@AlextheMLAATRfan]

They could’ve done this to LaserDiscs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays as well

[@CassetteMaster]

AWESOME!

[@lovemylogics]

@eyeh8nbc RCA was getting the skipping problem under control and the SJT and SKT series of players, especially the interactive player, rarely skipped on discs that weren't otherwise defective. RCA had a number of new circuits in the works that could sense instantly a forward or back skip and get the stylus back on track before the disc had even made a complete rotation - usually within 2 fields.

[@yrly59e]

My friend bought one at a thrift the other day. I tried to tell him, it looks like badly recorded VHS. Laserdisc picture quality at the time wasn't much better though, it didn't start to get better until the late 80s.

[@Jal8919536]

I love the period music, especially the part at 5:15.

[@nomadcowatbk]

Paramount was big Circuit City divx support supporter

[@elineff5941]

Thank God Technology Has Changed

[@luisreyes1963]

+Eli Neff Pity the movies haven't gotten better.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

Yeah, but they meant no commercials.

[@chameleonday]

Ironic that the demo disc skips at 1:45!

[@MrROTD]

why didnt this catch on? too expensive? it seems pretty frikken cool for back than

[@PixarMan2001]

A better competing product existed 3 years before that. It was called LaserDisc.

[@Jal8919536]

Is there a 'stop' button so you can stop anytime?

[@pbjracing14yearsago49]

I think there was a pause button

[@WOSArchives]

Nice find. My Goodwill does not have that stuff.

[@eljheids1115]

DYNA VIDEODISCS Copyright 1986 Dyna Products, Inc. "DYNA," "CED," "SelectaVision," the CED logo and devices are trademarks of Dyna Products, Inc. Philippines

[@jesuszamora6949]

+Joshua Sarmiento I imagine RCA dumped the tech after discontinuing it in 1986. Wonder how long Dyna put out discs after that, or if it ever became a hit in the Phillipines.

[@eljheids1115]

DYNA RECORDS PHILIPPINES, THE LEADER IN MUSIC AND CED VIDEODISC ENTERTAINMENT!!!

[@jugglingembalmer]

Why?? Just flat out why? You couldn't record on them and you had to flip them over midway through the film. Why?

[@drews1998]

i THOUGHT CED IIS THE FORMAT THAT WASN'T SUPPOSED TO SKIP

[@randykoger27]

Drew Nachreiner that was never a promise by RCA or any individual. No idea where you got that notion.

[@kawininja81]

oh yeah, the poor man's vcr (minus the recording)

[@eljheids1115]

4:27 - WALT DISNEY'S "20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA" FEBRUARY 1988 DYNA MONO CED

[@Dr_Xyzt]

I must have the Godfather on this. "is that a DVD?" Uh, no!

[@gregory06]

1:08 HUMAN DANCE IN World of warcraft

[@kargaroc386]

this comment section has both the crazies and the normal folks

[@lovemylogics]

@germ317 Send me a message if you're still on KZbin - I'd love to talk to you about your fathers work on the CED VideoDisc format.

[@DiabloXL69]

1:47 Glitching was obviously a low point in CED. So why the f**k did RCA keep it in their 6 minute “masterpiece”

[@DrLove0378]

H W I’m sure that wouldn’t have happened with a brand-new demo disc back in 1981... until they got played to death in a retail setting, anyway. The disc was decades old by the time this video was captured from it.

[@DiabloXL69]

Jason Lovelady thanks. BTW the video was made in 1980

[@OfficialSoundtracker]

Oh... It was a good invention, though.

[@cobolsaurus]

they used a stylus ----- no laser

[@Chub4ChubsRule]

I had one of these machines for a while and the bitch skipped like hell!

[@mgabrysSF]

Nah - the crap they put over the Rolling Stones to make them sound like " the musikadorkus generic blandage band" is far superior.

[@harrysboy]

Funny to see what was considered a great film back in the early 80's, take casablanca and the godfather out of this ad and your felt with a lot of dated films

[@ANATOLIACHTZEIN]

It was and still is just blurry videotaped analog signal encoded onto a disc - PHYSICALLY (lol) - not digitally & they SKIP LIKE HELL unmercifully from the lowest device to the most expensive ones. UGGGH I wish I had never bought one.

[@WeRateU]

Corporate America is getting greedier and produces really bad quality. General Electric for example is really taking advantage of their customers. Recently, I sold homes in a tract of 280 homes and appliances were by GE. Every home owner had problems with one or more of their home appliance. The warranties had ran out in some cases and problems kept repeating. So GE was making money from their customers over and over on new appliances. GE's customer service is one of the worst as well.

[@DiabloXL69]

bruh RCA is better than GE

[@mgabrysSF]

God that public-domain music thrown over the movies makes me want to projectile vomit. The rolling stones was particularly horrible.