The $580 Million Vinyl Movie Disaster (Selectavision)

[@rfrover]

I bought a CED player in June of 1981. At the time it was the only way to build a library of films for home viewing at anything resembling a reasonable cost. Most prerecorded VHS tapes were almost $100 in the early ‘80s. The discs were, generally, beautifully produced and worked quite well. Skipping was relatively rare. The discs that are found in thrift stores have been used and abused, accounting for many of the problems with skipping that collectors have problems with today. I still have a functioning machine and most of the discs, purchased over 40 years ago, play well. It’s an ingenious, fun and unfairly maligned format.

[@danieldaniels7571]

I have a substantial collection as well. Most of my discs play great, and my SGT-200 works like new with impressive quality sound. Amazing for a machine made in 1982.

[@mego73]

Many people, including me stored the discs stacked. A no no for this format.

[@danieldaniels7571]

@@mego73 yep. It’s always a gamble buying a disc because you have no way of knowing how its been stored, and most people don’t realize you can’t store them like that.

[@domfjbrown75]

​@@mego73same as with normal vinyl records then :)

[@andybearchan]

Laser Disk lasted into 2000 because the education market used it for intactive lessons.

[@Codexionyx101]

We love our Technology Connections over here. Awesome video.

[@Great-Documentaries]

Yes, and Tech Conn tells *this* story *much* better than this guy.

[@guyinmsp]

There’s no comparison. Technology Connections is better and far more entertaining.

[@RemoWilliams1227]

​@@guyinmsphis series on CRTs and analog television was enthralling to me.

[@n0vi]

@@Great-Documentaries Uhhh be nice to vsauce2 thanks

[@markrix]

Idk give me an isometric drawing and a list of dishwasher code paths and i dont really need tech ingredients. What ever happened to the good manuals of the day?

[@thedoctor3996]

It's sad that back then, corporations were interested in having consumers own their media, but now they don't want us to own anything at all.

[@archerelms]

Back then they made the mistake of thinking we wanted to own much more than we could, now they won't let us own what we want to.

[@vilefly]

Yep. No one actually even owns their cars......because they have catastrophic failure before they are paid for. But I'll make trouble....because I'm geared for it.....and I actually own my car.

[@bryanjk]

AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY

[@renakunisaki]

Back then, they didn't have the means to change the deal after the sale.

[@colindragan9352]

It wasn’t that simple. “Corporations” isn’t just one entity. The corporations that created home video were not the corporations actually making the content. THEY absolutely did not want people owning their media. When home video first started coming out, tv channels and movie studios were demanding the tech get banned. Disney and Universal studios even sued Sony to basically ban home video. It went all the way to the Supreme Court.

[@jasonblalock4429]

Seems like it would be worthwhile to rip the video from those mystery discs and stick it on the Internet Archive, just to preserve those early performances from Lea Thompson and Paul Gleason.

[@gojikranz]

They are both available on laserdisc for a slightly easier way to experience them though laserdisc players are getting harder to find too.

[@GeoffreyMorrison-xh2eo]

Why not?! People would be fascinated!

[@javierortiz82]

the original masters are probably rotten in some GE warehouse, it might be the best option we have.

[@ralphmerridew]

The mysteries were also released on laserdisc. Fel_Temp_Reparatio put one of the stories on youtube.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

The Mysterydiscs were actually made for the laserdisc format and adopted for CED a couple years later. The laserdiscs would be better archival quality.

[@video99couk]

While over in Germany, Grundig gambled almost everything on a long forgotten video cassette format called Super Video Cassette. Only one model of machine was ever made. Then they gambled what was left on another video cassette format in partnership with Philips, called V2000. Then Grundig was finished, just like RCA.

[@GeoffreyMorrison-xh2eo]

My father had a transistor radio, which included shortwave, from them. Thanks for relating that failed corporate story.

[@PS-hv7on]

It was a pity the V2000 failed. 8 hours of video recording on a single cassette was amazing....

[@MiklosKoncsek]

we had one of those machines. The amount of electronics/hardware inside them was astonishing.

[@matneu27]

All major German consumer electronics manufacturers faded away because the Japanese made it with the same quality, the newest technology and for an affordable price. What lasts where Stickers with Telefunken, Grundig, Saba, and so to place it on Chinese mass crap.

[@negirno]

As Techmoan put it, it was the third horse in a two-horse race.

[@Paul-uk5mx]

This was actually a wonderful format to own at the time.New discs ran $19 to $49.95 while VHS and Beta would drain you at $89 per title. Ironically,the discs picture quality vastly improved a year before its demise. I owned about 70 titles before I sold it in 1986

[@bacarandii]

That's another thing a lot of people don't remember: the $89 MSRP for movies on VHS. The so called "sell-through" market didn't develop until the '80s for popular titles like "Beverly Hills Cop" and "Top Gun" that sold for $25-$30.

[@squintsyadams8463]

Oh dip. Now that's a real Conn-extra.

[@ryanrobinson6447]

F yeah

[@thethirdrail8397]

@11:00 48 Hours became 48 Skips!

[@quantumleap359]

My brother in law was an engineer at RCA during the computer fiasco AND Selectavision TOTAL fiasco. At family gatherings, he would just shake his head at the total idiocy of RCA's leadership. He was a member of the computer tape drive engineering team, but (in his words) thankfully had no part of the videodisc. He heard about the concept early on, laughed out loud, said this HAD to be a joke. And that was in 1976!

[@hwertz10]

Yeah, my understanding is RCA management was just HOOKED on the idea of being able to use lightly modified production equipment for records to produce video discs; the cost to produce a disc was apparently QUITE low. But the R&D spent on the technology to get that much information on a disk, being read off by a *metal stylus* ? Yeah they spent way too much and way too long developing the tech; and my understanding is the delays in shipping were to try to work out the skipping issue (which, basically, they never did.)

[@Lurch-Bot]

Sounds like RCA mainly failed due to the lack of hiring enough forward thinking people. Otherwise, they could have got the product to market a lot sooner.

[@MyNameIsUnavailable]

😂

[@raymondramirez9177]

Although RCA failed here, its Japanese branch, Japan Victor Company (JVC) created the VHS standard which eventually beat the Sony standard and by 1980 everyone wanted a VHS recorder. The remains of RCA is now own by Thompson.

[@lucasrem]

Laserdisc was better, even bigger in Japan VHS was crab, and only big in the US.

[@michaelturner4457]

It should be noted that it was the Japanese branch only until the 1930s, as part of the Victor Talking Machine Co. After WW2, Japan Victor Co was completely separate from RCA.

[@scottgfx]

@@michaelturner4457 Also, while RCA made broadcast videotape machines for professional use, all of their consumer videotape machines were either OEMed from Hitachi or Matsushita (Panasonic). The NBC network would by around 1985-86, have a very close relationship with Panasonic for providing professional videotape machines. (Panasonic M-II) RCA's last attempts to bring out professional videotape machines in the 1970s were not successful. Look up the RCA TR-600 and TR-800. On the other hand, they had tremendous success with the professional camera business. Their last big studio camera was the TK-47 in the early 1980s. Some of the RCA camera people migrated over to Sony.

[@JesterEric]

JVC has its own vinyl video disc system in Japan called VHD

[@peacearchwa5103]

@@michaelturner4457 Correct. At some point after WWII, Victor Company of Japan (JVC) entered into a business agreement with its onetime parent company Radio Corporation of America (RCA) to distribute (RCA) Victor recordings in Japan and some other Asian markets, and later to jointly develop and market some home entertainment technologies. JVC and RCA jointly developed and marketed an early-1970s surround sound (quadraphonic) vinyl LP playback system known as CD-4. Starting in 1977, JVC and RCA also jointly marketed the Video Home System (VHS) videotape format.

[@divergentthinkingproductions]

I can personally say at least in the Washington, DC area in the early 80s there was a window where the CED discs were rented out along with Beta and VHS. They sat in their own meager, LP size rack in the middle of the store, looked down upon by the shelves and shelves of pre-recorded tapes, forlorn and friendless, never to be wanted, never to be loved.

[@JeremyLevi]

Same goes for my hometown in Ontario, Canada. We had a high end A/V store that had a section in the back where they rented out Selectavision players and discs (at least as early as sometime in 1983). For a time this was the only way to rent movies in my small city as the first video tape rental store here wouldn't open until a couple of years later.

[@probably_afk]

When I was a young kid, our family rented both the discs and the player from a place in Muskegon, MI also. And they had hundreds of the things. It was the main business. There were no VHS tapes until a couple years later. My first viewing of films like Empire Strikes Back, the first few Rocky movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark etc were all on RCA VideoDisc (I didn't even know it was called "SelectaVision"). Eventually VHS took over the market and the first few times we rented a player and some movies, our reaction was "This is crap?!" The horizontal distortion lines from the tapes were never present on the discs and having to rewind was an annoyance.

[@MyNameIsUnavailable]

You just described me.

[@FuncleChuck]

Ok I’m confused is this a Technology Connections or a Vsauce video?

[@cheekibreeki904]

Yes

[@sHorTaDaM2]

Neither 😂

[@Schroefdoppie]

Sauce connections

[@error404m]

Vecnology Saucection

[@notthatyouasked6656]

TechmoanOlogySauce.

[@AdamsOlympia]

Fellow 80s kid whose dad also co-owned a VHS rental store, called "Movie Magic" ;) .. We were lucky to get out of the business just before Blockbuster ruined it for the mom and pops a couple years later. Spent many hours of my childhood watching all the classics in the employee lounge, circa 1983-1988, or bringing 8-10 movies home every other week. Plus the local dollar movie theater owner gave us free tickets in exchange for free movie rentals. Good times!

[@mojojojo6400]

Man you had it good. Seriously. No sarcasm. I know those memories must be there forever.

[@Lurch-Bot]

Spent my High School years in the UK, where, although they did have Blockbuster, there weren't enough to put the mom and pop stores out of business. During the summers, I would go and rent cheap older films by the basket full.

[@fictionalmediabully9830]

If you thought the CED was a failure in North America, you haven't seen the United Kingdom. It was released over here in 1983 and was on the market for only SIX MONTHS! In total, we only got 272 titles released on it. One of which, funnily enough, is a '70s sex comedy.

[@Sashazur]

I worked at RCA after Selectavision was cancelled. Lots of people there said that it would have been a huge success if RCA had allowed porn videos.

[@JordanDilla]

@@Sashazur​​⁠ Yeah Porn, the true driver of industries since the invention of the printing press.

[@notthatyouasked6656]

Yes, and there were a bunch of discs issued in the UK that weren't issued in the US. Of course , you can't just pop a UK disc into a US player...

[@jimbotron70]

"Only" 272 titles a failure? 😅

[@lasskinn474]

272 doesn't seem really that bad, as far as failed formats go.

[@argentlupin]

Loved this video I am also an 80's kid and missed this. Absolutely amazing video and product review very informative and entertaining. Love the Tech Connect cameo.

[@TommyCrosby]

You can't do a video about obscure media format without seeing Technology Connections or Techmoan popping up nowadays. Good testament of their knowledge. 👍

[@pegcity4eva]

I was thinking of the Techmoan video review he did of this.

[@JoeyLanclos]

They are amongst the Greats. Add Franlab, Shango 66, KILOKATT7 , Brraindead3xl and more. I need to acknowledge all of you. Need to compose comprehensive list of everyone who has helped educate and enlighten me.

[@JoeyLanclos]

Braindead3xl damn typos

[@KRAFTWERK2K6]

naaah they are just some of the few ones actually able to pay the scalper prices for vintage tech to make videos about it xD

[@haweater1555]

The first home video format with licensed Hollywood film releases was the Cartrivision system in 1972. Rented movies came on tapes that could not be rewound by home machines - only the dealer's in the first "Pay-per-View" system. The manufacturer went bust the next year, making this format innovative and pioneering failure. Later come other cassette formats with very limited market penetration: Phillips "VCR" [stacked reel], Panasonic/Quasar "VX" format, and Sanyo "V-Cord" tape systemn to further confuse the mid-70s early adopters. VHS, Betamax, V2000, and CVC were just more subsequent efforts to try again and again.

[@glennjames7107]

Wow, I'd never heard of that. Only the rental stores could rewind the tape, it's no small miracle that they didn't figure out a way to do that with VHS cassettes. As a matter of fact it seems like I remember that you had a tab or button that had to be depressed on VHS cassettes to wind them by hand. I'm assuming it was designed like that in order to prevent the tape from unwinding, and making a mess during transit.

[@Lurch-Bot]

Actually, it was possible to buy Hollywood films on 16mm format even before this. They were very expensive though.

[@AlekAuto]

08:01 - It's literally a Honda. It makes horrific banging noises that make you think it's dead, and the solution is to adjust a tiny, difficult to reach screw, then it'll work fine.

[@javierortiz82]

Of all the honda bikes I've had, I've never experienced such a thing, I just sell them to get a bigger honda and ride it for four years or more. Those things are undestructible.

[@AlekAuto]

@@javierortiz82 Oh yeah no, Honda bikes are a totally different beast. Their inline 4 engines are the ones that're notorious for this sorta stuff. The amount of times H and K series engines sound like they have lifter tick or even a knock and a valve lash adjustment+oil change solve the problem is crazy.

[@glennjames7107]

It used to be that if you wanted anything with an engine, that was almost indestructible, and would crank, first try, every time, you bought a Honda. This went for everything from their small (Briggs&Stratton type) engines, to motorbikes, all the way to their cars. You literally could not go wrong with a Honda product in the 80'S.

[@AlekAuto]

@@glennjames7107 Pretty sure that's still true of Honda as long as you get a manual. What I was referring to was the fact that everything on Honda engines is manually adjusted, and the adjustment screws aren't always easy to get to. So, for example, valves being out of lash can sound like lifter tick and make the uninitiated worry, but after doing the adjustment, the engine'll run much better. I'm more of a Toyota person, myself. They found a great middle ground between reliably simple mechanisms and systems that don't require manual adjustment.

[@Triggernlfrl]

@@AlekAuto Both has now learned to make crapy engines to...

[@PatLund]

Technology Communications!? The crossover of the century.

[@enochpeter]

I was amazed that so many people bought them. I saw demo machines in electronic stores. The disk image would to deteriorate very quickly. So every store where I saw one running had played the same disk over and over until the picture looked like a damages VHS tape. They also made strange mechanical noises, got jammed and eventually just sat there unplugged. It was obvious how delicate and wonky the thing was. I saw a Laserdisc demo in the mid-‘70s and was blown away. It was revolutionary. The Selectavision was bewildering.

[@TheCreth808]

The father of a friend of mine used to work for RCA and still had one of the players and the entire catalogue of movies in their basement. Logan's Run was great to watch this way.

[@Here_is_Waldo]

Get someone to copy them and upload them to the internet before any unique videos or games are lost forever.

[@Sashazur]

The design aesthetic of the video player fits perfectly with the look of everything in that movie! And if they never invented Selectavision in real life, it would fit perfectly in that movie as a futuristic entertainment technology.

[@michaelturner2806]

15:50 "But it didn't work! The splitter had five inputs and only one output." Then that's not a splitter. Do you also pick up spoons and say "This fork is defective, it has no tines!"?

[@n1xp1n]

This video is just WOW. Technology breakdown, live demo, business model decomposition - everything is top notch. I can't thank you enough.

[@jameslocke1416]

My family had the lower end model with the manually operated lever to load/unload the disc, while my aunt & uncle bought the fully automatic version which had motors that did all the work. Both machines needed their stylus replaced fairly regularly, but never actually broke. We did have a video store nearby in Tustin, CA which had a section with discs for rent, but just a small selection (usually new releases),. They were just a mom & pop shop, though, and didn’t advertise much. They had a mailing list for the regulars, and would send out single sheets folded into thirds, stapled shut, with a small version of the poster of their latest offering and a list of other videodiscs for rent. When the machines went OOP and you couldn’t buy replacement stylus cartridges, they just became doorstops, sadly

[@danieldaniels7571]

Replacement stilli are still available today.

[@DelinquentSquirrel]

A couple of things that lay-people sometimes don't realise about early video discs (including Laserdisc): Laserdiscs were NOT digital video. Many people assume that because the physical media is constructed in a very similar way to a CD that it must be 'digital'. It isn't. The disc uses PWM encoding to store an analogue video signal, equivalent to 480i or 576i for NTSC or PAL discs. Some of the later discs supported PCM digital audio, but this wasn't part of the standard. There is also some confusion between CDV (CD Video) and VCD (Video CD). CDV is a 5" disc with 20 minutes of Red Book audio in the centre (same as a 3" mini CD), plus 5 minutes of Laserdisc format video at the outside edge. The format was intended for CD singles, you'd get 3 completely standard audio tracks just like a CD single, but pop the disc into a laserdisc player and you'd get the music video. VCD was a CD-ROM disc containing an hour of compressed MPEG1 video and stereo audio, and was the first 'true' digital video disc format. The quality was... not great. It wasn't until DVD came along that we finally got broadcast quality video (at least for standard def) and near-CD quality audio, with a playing time long enough to store an entire movie without having to flip the disc over or change the disc. This was the real reason that disc-based video formats never caught on; nobody other than absolute hardcore videophiles wanted to get up a third of the way through the film to flip the disc over then again two thirds through to put the second disc in. DVD solved this problem, which is why it became a huge success. The jump in video quality between VHS and DVD was massive. DVD to Blu-Ray is more of a progressive improvement. ObTopic: I do love watching these videos about old obsolete or failed formats. I often wish I had the space to set up some sort of working museum of this kit. It's so much cooler than pressing a couple of buttons on the remote and watching any film you want in seconds, although not as convenient of course!

[@DelinquentSquirrel]

And as if by magic, this video from Techmoan came up in my recommendations: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bKaVm2SHbdp2nbM A comprehensive explanation of CD Video.

[@lasskinn474]

vcd quality isn't that bad if it's a proper master and watched on a tv. often it's not, since most vcd's anyone would come across were basically vhs pirate transfers. anyway, would you be surprised to learn that during covid at least still you could buy VCD movies in thailand, official licensed releases sold in 7/11 no less?

[@DelinquentSquirrel]

@@lasskinn474 I've seen properly mastered VCD transfers. Whilst marginally better than VHS they still weren't great. VCD had a resolution of 320x240 for NTSC or 320x288 for PAL. So whilst the horizontal resolution was slightly better than standard VHS (which was equivalent to around between 220 and 270 pixels depending on how good your VCR was), the vertical resolution of VCD was half that of VHS. Granted, VCD didn't suffer from the chroma noise that plagued VHS, but it was still the poor relation of Laserdisc, which had an equivalent resolution of around 400x480 (NTSC) or 400x576 (PAL). Basically VCD was a proof of concept, and a stopgap until DVD came along and changed everything overnight.

[@CraiginOhioUSA]

@@DelinquentSquirrel LaserDisc was originally called DiscoVision. I have a few. The original jacket design showed the movie art partially hidden behind a graphic that looked like unzipped jeans. No kidding.

[@NatePrawdzik]

Liked. *Sent from my RCA Selectavision.*

[@MyNameIsUnavailable]

😂

[@rvfiasco]

Lol

[@struckfire3337]

I sold a PALLET of these DISCS ,700 of them ..about 15 years ago ,for less than $100 … they weighed a ton. Hence the pallet ..Got it out of a storage unit couldn’t sell them for nothing. I tried hard and finally I just got rid of them for next to nothing. Should’ve held onto them.

[@c.jishnu378]

You sound like that one bit coin guy who threw his harddisk worth billions away to the trash.

[@struckfire3337]

@@c.jishnu378 pathetic

[@petergibson2318]

@@c.jishnu378 The guy tried to "GoFundMe" for a few million dollars to get all the trash in the landfill dug up again?

[@AdamsOlympia]

We bought an RCA VD player and a couple crates of movies at a garage sale back in the 90s.. It was worth having for the period, considering VHS wasn't really any better quality .. It just took up a lot of space, so we got rid of it a few years later and probably broke even. I have fond memories of it as a teen, considering it was my first soft prn collection with titles like "Emily" ;)

[@lasskinn474]

the trick to useless crap making money is waiting for long enough for it to become quirky. applies even to big iron mini computers.

[@KennethScharf]

I owned a second generation RCA CED player. The disks took about twice as much space to store as a laser disk (thicker jacket). Video quality was better than VHS or BETA, but not as good as LD. However, RCA kept the cost of software below that of LD, that, and greater availability of the players and disks (LD machines and software were initially only sold in speciality high end stores, while the CED machines found shelf space in most department stores). Yeah, I knew there was a risk in buying the machine (that it would be abandoned), but at a cost of less than a VCR for the machine, and less than VHS for software, I got to enjoy a reasonable sized collection. CED disks would eventually wear out, it was believed that LDs would last forever, but that turned out to be false (laser rot?). The stylus actually didn't touch the surface of the disk, it floated above it on a cushion of air in the same way that the head of a hard disk does. However, unlike the hard disk, the player isn't sealed against dust, so there will be microscopic wear of the disk and stylus over time. The RCA CED system wasn't the only one developed, but was the only one for sale in the US. Two similar systems came out in Japan. I would later replace the CED player with a SONY LD combo machine (it would play, CDs, DVDs, Video CDs, as well as LDs. It also had a large frame buffer that allowed freeze framing in both CAV and CLV modes, along with a puck wheel to select single frames. There were some LD players that could play both sides of a disk without flipping it, and maybe even a dual tray player that held 2 disks at once. For a brief period, the price of LD software was dropped to capture market share (about the time that SONY entered the market with the machine).

[@Lurch-Bot]

My rich uncle had a two tray model that could read both sides (putting 4 lasers in a device in the mid '80s wasn't cheap, lol). He projected movies onto a wall that had been specially painted to function as well as a screen. It was about 9 or 10 ft diagonal in 4:3 aspect ratio. But it could also do widescreen without borders. I also played video games on this setup. It wasn't as awesome as it sounds and Mario was like 3 feet tall. Mainly was just a way to get a sore neck.

[@digitalblunt]

@@Lurch-Bot That's awesome, haha. My family only had a single-tray single-laser player on a 27" TV.

[@MrMegaManFan]

You found the way to get me to watch - you had Alec on! Fun fact - my local library used to rent this player out for a few days at a time. I watched Tron on it over, and over, and over, and over...

[@zeldajunkielol2]

I have a whole two crates full of CED movies and I've never watched a single one of them because it's nearly impossible to find a working machine for a decent price.

[@notthatyouasked6656]

Fortunately, basic repairs are fairly easy for most of the (US) machines. It's usually a matter of replacing a belt or a minor realignment of something. Instructions for the usual repairs - and even some unusual ones - are on KZbin.

[@DanielMussen-ob7uo]

Star Wars 1977 and Star Wars 1980 and Star Wars 1983 and Star Wars 1999 and Star Wars 2002 and Star Wars 2005

[@DanielMussen-ob7uo]

Star Wars 2010 and Star Wars 2015 and Star Wars 2020 and Star Wars The Television Series Universe 01|01|1950 - 31|12|2050

[@Scotter1971]

I often find selectavision discs at my local half price books stores for about $5.00. the large size is great for cover art display.

[@mego73]

CEDs had some rocking cover art.

[@opraiderman904]

Murder Anyone sounds like the name of a soon to be banned steam game

[@markstirton]

This is all very familiar, only with less tweed...

[@youdontknowme5969]

...and brown 😉

[@Studeb]

I had no idea what these were when I bought three of the discs on Ebay for about ten quid in total in the early 2000s, Taxi Driver, Poltergeist and The Exorcist. I just loved the way they look, so I had them framed behind glass, Taxi Driver in the middle. Love the knowledge here.

[@feller6766]

12:00 Ah yes, 1980s YTP

[@lilricky2515]

I find it strange a gen X'er never heard about laserdisc.

[@RocKnight11]

I'm a late GenXer, and I only remember hearing about LaserDisc around the time DVDs came out. I'm not even sure if I ever saw one in real life. I think I remember seeing LaserDisc being sold at record stores, but I always thought they were just vinyl records of the movie's soundtrack.

[@SobriquetS]

Same here. I was born mid 79, so very late gen Xer, and I remember VHS the most. I hadn't heard of laserdisc until dvds started coming out, and people harkened them to smaller laserdiscs.

[@C4rnif3X]

Im 1986, and had rich neighbors that had a massive entertainment setup with laserdisk.. But never really thought they were anything special.

[@SmokyPondFarm]

That was an extremely well done and very comprehensive review and synopsis of the RCA Selectavision CED system. Bravo! In my opinion the interactive DisneyDisc of Mystery and Magic was easier to play than the 3 you reviewed. Of course, like all of the interactive CED's the play was basically just one or two sessions and done. BTW, I have the "Thanks for the Memories..." disc, catalog no. 62786 that was produced for RCA employees when the Rockville Road CED pressing plant ceased regular operations on June 27, 1986. I have way more discs than I'd care to admit to, but I haven't powered up my SKT-400 in over 15 years.

[@danieldaniels7571]

Wow… That player is my holy grail. I rarely go more than a month without using my SGT-200. There’s a short video on my channel of me playing a segment of a Charlie Daniels concert on it.

[@paulwarner5395]

Thanx for the history lesson. I remember back in 1963 in my physics class suggesting that it was possible to record video on to a disk like a LP and was nearly bood out of the class. Boy were they wrong. Selectavision proves I was right years before it happened.

[@MyNameIsUnavailable]

You selected the right vision

[@jpreale]

Worth it all for the Lea Thompson footage. What a beauty!

[@StoneyRerootkit]

❤Lea T... What a Babe😊👅 Howard The Duck😮🎉🦆What a Great Movie📀🎥📈 And Such a Great Bit of IP for Marvel Comics💵🔥🎇

[@LordHasenpfeffer]

You got that right! Somehow she always seems to be so overlooked... but those who know... know!

[@Rakadis]

Love the presentation. Please keep making these!

[@kumohara_319]

my family still has ours in storage. not sure if the player works any longer but we have BOXES of movies and specials that were released on Selectavision

[@Quietruck]

If you don't plan on resurrecting your player and watching the movies you have , maybe you'd be willing to sell what you have. If so I'd be willing to buy.

[@danieldaniels7571]

As long as the needle is in good shape, usually all it takes to revive a player is new belts, cleaning, and lube.

[@Hk7762Tube]

This is a goldmine, Lightning Fast -VCR- repair boys should get on this gig.

[@Mix1mum]

I saw the title and was like...meh, then it autoplayed on my feed amd the thumbnail flashed to Kevin Immediate click. And, as always, it was awesome. Give this man a raise!

[@RyanAumiller]

ya know.... there are still CED collectors and enthusiasts out there that were actually around during the SelectaVision heyday and input from ANY one of them would have been nice for this video. (e.g. your comment at 19:49 in the video... I could already tell LONG before you made that statement that you weren't around for it or even had previous exposure to it) These days, the discs go for INSANE money between collectors and replacement stylus assemblies (the actual fix for skipping) are still available. The format is not "dead" just yet.

[@tim3172]

"I could tell you weren't around for it." Congrats(?) on determining he's not at least the what 48? Years old he'd need to be to have been around for it? Why would we want the biased opinion of an "enthusiast" of something that is, objectively, a terrible product? "the discs go for INSANE money"

[@RyanAumiller]

​@@tim3172 Well, for starters it didn't touch on ANY of the technical superiorities it possessed or any of the science behind how it actually worked because that right there is the most interesting part of this technology. VHS didn't win out the "format wars" because of superior audio/video quality, in fact it was the worst quality one out of all the formats available in the 80s. The biggest problem with the CED format was it needed to be handled with some care and handled more often than ALL the others. half a million units would never have sold if it was objectively garbage to begin with. You're forgetting the perspective of "wait, this thing can let me choose exactly what I watch whenever I want instead of just 20-30 cable channels to choose from?" Compared to the tape formats, this was the best picture and sound money could buy for home use at the time. You just had to maintain the equipment and store the media properly. Most people didn't do that. I can attest to that just from the amount of Dog/Cat hair and cigarette tar I've cleaned out of both players and videodisc carts over the years and yes you can clean the discs but it's solvent + compressed air only and if you haven't built a cleaning fixture out of a gutted player, don't even try. Never wipe it in any way with anything. I grew up reading the PopSci magazine this channel is named after (and Popular Mechanics too) and I guess the use of some primary source material and hard technical facts in direct comparison to other available formats at the time instead of the deep dive into the business end of it was an overexpectation on my part? My bad for expecting something more like a Popular Science article and not some clickbaity story that made a sharp turn away from science/technology into a corporate exposé while never addressing the fact that a technologically superior playback/distribution format lost out because of laziness, no ability to record and of course expense.

[@danieldaniels7571]

Most discs are worth very little. Good working players on the other hand can fetch a pretty good price. But my RCA SGT-200 won’t be for sale until after I die.

[@mojojojo6400]

There's always a snobby know it all Simpsons comic book store guy gatekeeper in every KZbin comment section

[@RyanAumiller]

@@mojojojo6400 I'm a gatekeeper because I called out Popular SCIENCE for skipping the SCIENCE behind CED Technology and how much of it evolved into the LaserDisc and instead presenting us with mostly fluff discourse on marketing? How about you stop simping for a century old media outlet that's clearly lost their way?

[@pootca]

Was never expecting this collaboration

[@Cybermtl666]

I can tell you're a man of taste by the Space Cop film showed in the opening

[@TubbyJ420]

I clapped! I clapped when i saw it!

[@liberatumplox625]

Space Cop, as in RLM?

[@I_am_Mister_Y]

*I KNOW WHAT THAT IS!*

[@daveruthmusic]

I just picked up a Zenith player this week. It's a ton of fun despite its flaws.

[@ledgema7686]

I remember back in the day of Selectavision that there were places where you could rent the player and the CEDs.

[@danieldaniels7571]

There were. As a kid my parents rented that, and I dubbed them to VHS. It worked really well, much better than dubbing from another VHS tape.

[@25Wineman]

Ah Yes the RCA saga Technology Connections

[@gleb.salmanov]

Gonna say, so far The Format Wars have way better sequels than SW

[@millenialfalcon8243]

This should be part of a series called "Un-Popular Science" ;)

[@eblackadder3]

Actually, several smaller independent video rental stores did rent CED video discs. I bought an RCA player in 1981 and a stereo unit in 1984 after they were discontinued and sold very cheap. While I did buy around 15 or 20 discs during the few years I had the players, I rented the majority of the movies I watched on it.

[@BradiKal61]

The 1980s VHS home video explosion made any new format looks promising. A random access video format, (similar to how music CDs were more convenient than cassette tapes) was the holy grail for video. Laserdiscs had a brief but impressive run, offering a better image than videotape, and unlimited views (plus freeze farming on higher end models) and that random access. I still have my Pioneer laserdisc player and 200 discs, and I need to see if I can get it to work better with a belt replacement.

[@danieldaniels7571]

LaserDiscs lasted over twenty years.

[@davidholder1192]

When I was a graduate student at UNT in Denton, we had a 'media' cart leftover from some research in the 80's that had a computer, laserdisc player, and touch screen monitor. It was part of some research on building interactive video learning systems. This research was canceled because of the prevalence of the Internet as it evolved into interactive websites.

[@IssanCaliRefugee]

My jr high got that in the early 90's. It was a Pioneer LD player, connected to a Mac via a serial cable, then the Mac software would call up clips on the LD. Clicking through some wildlife safari would bring up clips of zebras of giraffes. Basically, what a multimedia CD-ROM would do about 5 years later, as the Mac couldn't do the video on its own yet. Man. RCA was about 20 years too early, as far as the "video teacher" went.

[@joshuajgrillot]

My Aunt had one of these back in the 80s, I remember it well. You had to insert it twice, front for the beginning of the movie and then at some point You needed to insert it on the other side for the rest of the movie. She had a ton of movies for it as well, Good times.

[@mego73]

Brings back so many memories. CED disc was the only thing this high school student lover of movies could afford. 48Hrs was one of my often played titles. I had a pretty good size collection. By the way, you could get a freeze frame "page" by pressing the visual fast forward and reverse together. It would freeze and repeat 4 frames from one groove of the disc. Also, 2 mom and pop video stores in the area did rent CED discs.

[@davidfriedman627]

Two interesting side notes. First, the musical group DEVO decided to create films for their music because they believed that a market would exist for them on VideoDiscs. Two, RKO Pictures was a not very successful RCA subsidiary.

[@porkins74]

I'll never forget the day my dad surprised my brother and I as we walked into the house after our day at school with the CED of Star Wars. He timed it so as soon as the door shut and we were all inside, the next thing that happened was hearing the Main Title blaring from the living room. Also, the discs that had the dark blue cases indicated that they were in Stereo.

[@increiblepelotudo]

You're just too young to have enjoyed the short lived magic that was the CED disc player. My family went all in, and it looked amazing. Can't lie. My brother still has the entire collection in his house. We had the audio out to our stereo system and it sounded just so immense. It was a moment in time

[@SlowPCGaming1]

I'm pretty sure that TechMoan has addressed these machines on his KZbin channel. Complexity of use is still a common thing among the development of new technologies. It would have taken time to make revisions until a standard could be reached that the public could use with as little difficulty as possible. It isn't like they had several decades to develop something better before...um well. On your closing remarks, I do own my own media library of CDs and DVDs. I sometimes use streaming services to see if something is worth buying on disc. But in general, I don't have the money to waste on rentals aka streaming services. When they have free trials, I sign up for those. Then cancel before the rental fees kick in.

[@superpowerfulmagnets]

Space Cop most definitely is not a movie

[@KHR0M3K0R4N]

I CLAPPED! I CLAPPED WHEN I SAW IT!

[@BrickTamlandOfficial]

i thought "im staying in tonight" meant they werent gonna pull out.

[@alman54]

I have a videodisc player and a number of discs. I've sold players before including the type that you have that automatically removes the disc from the caddy. The first viewing on a videodisc can and will look all choppy and jittery since the disc has dust on it from storage. But if you let the stylus play all the way through the side, the picture will be clearer on the next viewings because the dirt in the grooves has been cleaned away. Great stuff! Love me some videodiscs.

[@LeftyPem]

Before we got our first VCR in the mid 80s, we rented a CED player and a few movies from a local department store several times. Good times, even when the movies skipped like crazy.

[@Miodowy]

You left out one of the most important points why the VCR was winner and such a great success - because this device was created not to own or rent movies on cassettes, but to record TV programs when you are not at home. VCR - Video Cassette Recorder - even its purpose is included in the name. Not the player.

[@Sashazur]

I worked at RCA just after Selectavision was cancelled. The unofficial wisdom about why it was killed by VHS is because RCA wouldn’t allow porn discs to be made.

[@Miodowy]

@@Sashazur They say the same about Betamax, but in both cases it's urban legend. It's just that other formats were better suited to the market.

[@SilverFoxGaming-jc5vn]

My family invested heavily into this technology. We all loved the system. Granted it wasn’t perfect but it did offer a variety of content. There were some titles on CED that were more complete than their VHS cousins. To correct your statement, the disk in the caddy is the same size as a laserdisc.

[@noahkirkpatrick8912]

The adjusters on the bottom. It sounds like an apple product.

[@LordHasenpfeffer]

I absolutely remember reading and hearing about this format when I was 17 and 18 years old in 1983 / 1984... and I was very excited about it at the time. I thought it was one of the coolest things ever... but then as soon as it seemed about to break out... it vanished. 4+ years later, the LaserDisc was available and - being optical and "stylus-free", I realized it had to be the superior format... but I was never happy about never even having an opportunity to experiences the *analog* video disc format of my teenage dreams. :-) This is without question the best demonstrative review of the RCA Selectavision format I have ever seen. Thanks! I've wondered for the past 40 years what it was like and now I know. And I never knew about the games option. Lea Thompson is one of my favorite 80s actresses so to see her appearance here was, too, a completely unexpected surprise. Thanks for this.

[@njott1021]

Well thank you CEDs for ruining RCA and allowing me to get a full surround sound set up from eBay for $60

[@Lurch-Bot]

Lol, I still use a 2001 vintage RCA enthusiast grade powered sub.

[@bobstevenson3130]

One small thing, JVC didn't "allow" adult content to be released on VHS. The reason adult content was available on VHS but not CED was because the CED was created to sell prerecorded content while the VHS was only created to record live TV, so RCA had an interest in controlling the media available for the CED but JVC didn't have any interest because that was never the intention.

[@HaakonAnderson]

If it would have made it market in 69 it would have been revolutionary

[@LordHasenpfeffer]

OMG... That would have been insane! Getting to watch "Woodstock" and "Let It Be" at home! Woohooooo!!!

[@Lurch-Bot]

RCA was a decade late and $580M short.

[@stellamcwick8455]

I know of at least one dealer that did in fact rent out selectavision disks. It was the only way he could sell the machines because no one wanted to buy the movies. The rational was it was better to be stuck with just a machine rather than a machine and a bunch of movies tied to a dead format. The dealer told my dad that the main reasoning he was given by customers was that they had been sold on the 8-track cassette and when it petered out, they were stuck with hardware and a collection of content that once the player died, they had to find another player in a market that wasn’t making new ones, in order to play their cassettes.

[@Lurch-Bot]

Fast forward to 2024 and you can buy a new manufacture 8 track player, lol. But I don't see anyone making new Selectavision players.

[@pancudowny]

Found a CED Videodisc title from Playboy--one of several released... so there goes the "no porn" argument.

[@danieldaniels7571]

I have three of them.

[@TheMediaHoarder]

The Playboy stuff was softcore, and was distributed by Fox back then. The hardcore stuff (with actual sex) wouldn’t be touched by any big companies. Closest that ever got to mainstream was Image Entertainment which started out releasing porn on laserdisc before branching out into more conventional stuff.

[@danieldaniels7571]

@@TheMediaHoarder that doesn’t make it not porn

[@istankimjong-unbutcantstan3398]

Maybe they were bootlegs......

[@Lurch-Bot]

@@danieldaniels7571 Yeah, I defy you to watch one and get turned on. Certainly wouldn't do it for me as a middle aged adult. I used to watch content like that on USA Up All Night when I was in grade school.

[@SuperTrainStationH]

Being in my later middle thirties, I'm probably among the younger people around to have grown up with this in their house WITHOUT the context of it being "vintage tech", it's just what we had in the house because my grandma had a huge library of disks. This is how I watched Indiana Jones and Star Wars as a kid.

[@tonberryhunter]

Good piece but your over the top frantic intensity kind of tires me. I feel like I'm getting yelled at not educated. All the zoom cuts dont help either.

[@alygan00]

God my humor is so broken, the part at 12:00 felt like one of those ytp's and I couldn't stop laughing at how surreal it looked.

[@visibletoallusersonyoutube096]

How are we 58 mins in and this vid had less than 500 views!? If factual: this was really good!

[@istankimjong-unbutcantstan3398]

How can we be 58 minutes into a 28+ minute video?

[@visibletoallusersonyoutube096]

@@istankimjong-unbutcantstan3398 58 mins since upload.

[@walmartsuxhard]

Amazing work from an outstanding channel.

[@FerintoshFarmsPhotography]

They wouldn't have been able to rent them anyways since they degraded so quickly.

[@GeoffreyMorrison-xh2eo]

That's a really keen point: Needles are only good for seamstresses, diabetics, and hospitals....

[@renakunisaki]

And porcupines.

[@LordHasenpfeffer]

@@renakunisaki And junkies. No wait... Needles are actually bad for junkies. Nevermind.

[@istankimjong-unbutcantstan3398]

@@GeoffreyMorrison-xh2eo and vinyl records.

[@paullebon323]

None of this is true. We had VCRs in the 1970s. People had projectors years before that.

[@der.Schtefan]

America. Where "5/64th" is a logical unit of measurement

[@haweater1555]

In my late father's tool box were wrenches in sizes of 19/32" and 25/32".

[@tim3172]

Wait until someone attempts (and likely fails) to explain to you how binary works.

[@SeekingTheLoveThatGodMeans7648]

@@tim3172 Yep, those old power of two fractions.

[@istankimjong-unbutcantstan3398]

In America we _don't_ do metric!

[@istankimjong-unbutcantstan3398]

@@tim3172 Metric is for "suckers and losers", hee hee.

[@bb-gc2tx]

20:21 is that steve guttenberg as the cop 3 years before he starred in police academy?

[@spyczech]

How is this like netflix in 1984? Not like it was delivered. Clickbait thumbnail and what a youtuber voice intro too

[@ajworden]

My father was an RCA dealer and I was 10 when these came out. I begged him to get us one, but he refused. He told me they were a pain in the a** to operate and maintain and that they would disappear quickly. Funny enough, my older cousin bought one from him and I remember going over to his house and watching the Poseidon Adventure. The disc was only a few weeks old and it was already skipping. I walked home thinking “damn, Dad was right”😂😂😂

[@Conrad500]

I was like, "ooh, laser disc video" but... WHAT?!

[@istankimjong-unbutcantstan3398]

I was thinking it was a literal vinyl record but that somehow generated video. I have heard of laser disks that still had grooves but it was merely so the laser could travel on it like a train on a track.

[@nutzeeer]

i swear these old obscure video formats just spawn out of nowhere

[@judenihal]

Calling this "Netflix" is just stupid. Not everyone was born after 2010, because 2009 feels like yesterday when Netflix was unwatchable due to its vast amount of pixelated content, something which DVDs never had.

[@Jasontyo]

Back in about 2010 I stumbled upon a garage sale with a few dozen CEDs, many of which were horror movies. I will never forgive myself for not taking them all. All I wanted was a Friday the 13th CED.

[@JackLalane-yt4iu]

The agitated voice every 3 sentences isnt the most annoying sound to everyone else here?

[@automatedelectronics6062]

Huh?????????? The introduction by RCA of the CED video disc was brilliant. If you were around in the 80's, you would know that VHS and Betamax videotape players were in the stratosphere, pricewise, and the video tapes(pre-recorded movies) were also very expensive, costing sometimes over $100. for a 2 hr. movie. Ask your father about that. Because of the high prices, stores like your father's were necessary. If he got in early enough, he probably not only rented movies but the machines to play them on. Along came the RCA CED players. Right off the bat, the CED players were less than half the price of a VCR. Prices of VCR's began to drop because there was a new kid on the block. Prices of the RCA CED players began to drop, also, always being about half the price of the cheapest VCR. Oh, and how about the media? The pre-recorded VCR tapes were still unaffordable for most. There were the CED discs which for a 2 hr. movie were only $20. or less. People could finally afford to build up a video collection. While VCR pre-recorded tapes were still unaffordable to buy, for most, people continued to rent them, spending $5. to $10. for one day. The CED video discs rented for $1. to $2. While there were very few choices for VCR's, RCA licensed their CED tech and soon there were multiple brands to choose from. In the meantime, the VCR format war was raging. It was Betamax or VHS and they weren't compatible with each other. Sony was protective of their Betamax tech and wouldn't license it to other manufacturers, but when they finally did, it was too late. RCA(JVC) licensed their VHS tech and the format quickly became dominant. I need to add that Pioneer had introduced the laser disc. These were not digital originally but played the "record" with a laser. The discs were a little less than pre-recorded VCR tapes, but still pricey. The laser discs did well in commercial use, like the arcade video game machines. So, as VHS became the dominant tape format, prices for machines and tapes plunged, wiping out the video disc market. The main advantage of the VCR was the "R", which meant they could RECORD. Initially only one program was recordable at a time, but you could watch one program while recording another. You didn't have to miss a program. Besides, you could fast-forward through the commercials. The DVD walked over all other formats because of higher quality AND, most importantly, prices for the media. Machines were up there in price, but most also played CD's. Remember the machines which had both a VCR and a DVD player built in? Prices of DVD/Blu-ray players have plummeted, but with DVR's, online recording and so many on demand cable channels, you don't have to deal with a physical media anymore. Streaming has replaced it all.

[@cprm]

This is fucking pathetic. Popular Science used to be the leading edge of consumer information about upcoming tech. Now they are making videos about retro-tech that was covered years ago by youtubers with better and more genuine personalities. Maybe Techmoan or Technology Connections will do a deep dive int the Rise and Fall or Popular Science, but that would also cut into another youtubers schtick.

[@sithlordbilly4206]

My family still has that video disk player. As well as some of the movies. I actually have a couple movies myself of them.

[@antiWhiteism777]

@popularscience --- RCA should have used laser stylus like ELP. And a better caddy, also an automatic caddy flipper.

[@danielmarek4609]

I just found your channel, and this is my second video to watch. Very informative and entertaining. Will have to go through all the videos you've produced so far as well as watch those yet to come.

[@kelli217]

That bit about RCA pulling out of the computer industry... before they did that and while they _were_ in the industry, they were one of the originators of barcode technology.

[@rvolkanurcanli7840]

Can anyone tell the name of the music starting from 24:52

[@blampfno]

There's one thing I miss about the fixed broadcast schedule prior to the rise of home recorded media; The fact that you had to be in a place with a tv, at the right time, and anyone who wanted to see it had to as well. It was a pretty reliable anchor for next-day socializing. I knew some folks who would alter their shifts at work so they could go watch their favorite show. There's one thing I don't really miss about the fixed broadcast schedule prior to the rise of home recorded media; The fact that you had to be in a place with a tv, at the right time, and anyone who wanted to see it had to as well. It was a pretty reliable way to lose track of your favorite show if you had a flexible work schedule. I knew some folks who would alter their shifts at work so they could go watch their favorite show.

[@johnwalko1483]

A vey well put together documentary on the history of the RCA Video Disc Player and Disc. Very informative. Thanks.

[@gosimons]

what software do you use for capturing when you do google searches and zoom into pages on adverts

[@raphdroidt692]

Your way of presenting is very entertaining. Loved it

[@emitindustries8304]

Around 2007, I had an RCA branded digital audio recorder. I used it to download music from my Serius XM radio. The unit worked great for 5 months. The only control on it was a tiny joystick, which did all the functions. The joystick started getting loose, then took more poking and wiggling, then very hard pressing. Finally, it broke off, and I had to use a paper clip jammed in the hole to operate it. That worked for 2 months. Then nothing, and I finally tossed it, happy to see it go. Why did they make a device with a weak piece of plastic, poorly attached to the electronics, responsible for ALL the operations? That's the $580 million question.

[@TheSportCompact]

Um, this video format did not take down RCA. What was the downfall of it and companies like Zenith is they did not adapt to the market or innovate in regards to their products. They kept selling wooden console televisions that were made to be pieces of furniture when the market had moved on to ones that sat on or in furniture. From there, CED was actually a successful format for the time, especially outside the United States. I love it when youngins who weren't alive when something took place talking like an expert who was there.

[@tooleyheadbang4239]

The market had moved on to cheap shit. Give me a Stromberg Carlson any day.

[@TheSportCompact]

@@tooleyheadbang4239 It hadn't moved onto cheap stuff at that point. Televisions were not cheap even after the market moved from wooden console ones to ones that sat on or in furniture. Even up to the transition to HD, you were still paying a good amount of money for a tube television. There were cheaper units but they were still $300-$400 before accounting for inflation. Roughly double that for today's dollars. You also had technologies like video cassette recorders in multiple formats, laserdisc, CED, etc, stereo broadcasts, Dolby ProLogic, etc, enter the scene leading to home theater becoming a thing. These things and others actually led to continuous improvements and innovations with tube televisions that helped to keep their prices up too. Things like Sony Trinitron and other manufacturers competing tube technologies to improve picture quality cave about. With Trinitron, you were paying thousands of dollars for like a 19" diagonal television for example. Once HD televisions with cheap LCD panels became a thing, that's when our going for the cheap stuff accelerated. Netbooks for example helped to accelerate the proliferation of cheap laptops because they created a price point consumers expected combined with their expectations of capabilities. You also have to consider things like the cost of production and new technologies coming about to decrease costs too. There is a lot more to us buying cheap sh*t than it actually being just that. I mean, is take the computer I built for roughly $2500 a year and a half ago over over costing the same amount 10 years ago, 20, etc, because your getting fat more for less money especially when you take into account inflation. Don't get me wrong though, we do tend to gravitate towards cheaper things.