[An electronic / choral rendition of Mussorgsky's
Pictures at an Exhibition] So. Itâs the mid 1960âs, everyoneâs got
a television, but nobodyâs got a way to choose what they wanna watch. Youâve got your network affiliates, a few
of those newfangled UHF stations... I hear 62's pretty good. But that's it. How boring. How limiting. How archaic. Now weâve got video tape recorders, but
those things use crazy technology thatâs super expensive. Weâll probably never get video tape technology
to the point that we could market it for the home. And besides, without some sort of... small case
which holds the tape in a convenient and easy-to-handle form factor, itâs not likely to go over
well with the layperson. Clearly tape isnât a good option. I know! Discs! Yes, it can be hard to believe for those who
remember transitioning from VHS to DVD, but if things went according to plan, us home
users would have had video discs long before we had video tape. RCA had begun research into a home videodisc
system in 1964, and a mere 17 years later, they came out with this. The Capacitance Electronic Disc system, or
CED, which they branded and marketed as the SelectaVision Videodisc System. This product was RCAâs ultimate folly. It arguably destroyed the company. After years of relentless research, they released
a product so incredibly limited and so hilariously flawed that itâs a miracle they even bothered
trying. Yet, they did. And they shouldnât have. Now, there are still some fans of this ill-fated
videodisc system, and Iâm sorry if I upset you when I say this, but it must be said. RCA was out of their minds here. In hindsight, this product was so incredibly
weird and dumb and doomed. But⌠the idea behind it is actually pretty
remarkable. Had it been released, say in 1975, it might
have achieved immense success. Our entire media landscape might be completely
different had RCA succeeded in getting this product to market just half a decade earlier. Thatâs because their ultimate goal was to
use the technology of the humble record player and turn it into a cheap, and easily mass-produced,
video format. Hiding inside this caddy is a black PVC disc,
not that different from the standard phonograph records of the day. This disc is read with a stylus, just like
a normal phonograph record, however itâs not vibration that itâs detecting. Iâll get to that a little later but this
is evidence that RCA did actually meet the goal they set out for themselves. It was just accomplished way too late, and
with way too many compromises. As usual, to understand this story, we need
to start in the past before the past this comes from. In the early days of radio and television,
RCA, thatâs the Radio Corporation of America, was among the most innovative companies. Their history dates back to 1899, when the
Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America was formed as a subsidiary of the British
Marconi Company. In these early days of radio, the technologies
which made radio possible were constantly evolving. Through World War I, radio was used almost
exclusively for wireless telegraphy, thatâs the classic dots and dashes that make up the
world famous, say it with me now, character encoding schemes of which
Morse code is one. Simple radio transmitters, called spark-gap
transmitters, were able to send radio pulses quite easily, however audio wasnât super
possible yet. Transmission of audio was relatively rare
and mainly experimental. It wouldnât really become, what you might
call, âa thingâ until after the war. Speaking of after the war, well, actually
before the war, in 1904, what rhymes galore! General Electric had been tasked with creating
a high frequency alternator, which was then designed by Ernst Alexanderson, and thus the
world of radio was introduced to another transmission technology, the Alexanderson Alternator. Compared with the earlier spark-gap transmitters,
it allowed for transmitting on very narrow frequency bands (reducing noise), and had
a lot of other neat advantages, too, but also some disadvantages, notably... they were
huge. But, anyway... In 1919, now weâre after the war again,
General Electric had installed one of these amazing Alexanderson Alternators for the US
Navy at the Marconi transmitter site in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The Marconi people were super impressed with
the thing, and they were all like âWeâd like to buy your alternator production division,
General Electricâ to which GE responded, âWell golly gee ainât that dandy, weâve
been looking to sell off our alternator production unit and you sound like the perfect entity
to make that purchaseâ to which the US Navy said âUh-ohâ. See, the Navy was getting all worried that
if American Marconi was able to buy the alternator production from GE, they (and thus their British
parent company) would have world domination in wireless communications. The Navy said, "we canât have that!" So, the Navy convinced GE to, rather than
sell their alternator production to American Marconi to just go ahead and buy American Marconi
and nip that little world domination problem in the bud. And so they did, turning American Marconi
into a subsidiary of General Electric, which would henceforth be called the Radio Corporation
of America. So. Thatâs how RCA became a thing. RCA grew and grew and grew, breaking into
the consumer radio space, and eventually the whole "RCA is owned by GE and theyâre getting
kinda monopolistic" thing meant that RCA was forced by the US Justice Department to break
off into its own company in 1932. But still. They were huge, and they knew how to make
cool sh**. RCA had touched nearly every major technological
advancement of the early twentieth century. They had purchased the Victor company, which
not only granted them use of Nipper and the classic âHis Masterâs Voiceâ tagline,
but also Victorâs record label and phonograph production. RCA had developed Photophone, a sound-on-film
system for motion pictures. They were instrumental in the proliferation
of television, and pretty much invented color television. In fact, they werenât just RCA. They were ANNOUNCER:
R C A The most trusted name in television! So. This was a massive and well-respected company, with nearly limitless resources, talented engineers, and with a long track record of successful innovation. And yet, somehow... This happened. The RCA Videodisc is simultaneously a technical
marvel and a technical monstrosity. Getting a phonograph record to produce video
signals that a TV could display was a rather lofty goal. Allow me to explain why. This phonograph record contains a very long
spiral groove with walls that move up and down and all around, and when you put it on
a turntable, then put a stylus inside the groove, and give the record a good spin, those
wibbly wobbly grooves will make the stylus go all wibbly wobbly, too. And thanks to the phonograph's cartridge, those wibbly wobbly wibble wobbles turn into electrical signals. We can then make those signals stronger through
amplification, pump them through loudspeakers, and listen to the music contained on the disc. But, well this disc doesnât need to produce
very high frequency signals. The range of human hearing tops out at around
20 kilohertz, so we donât need to make this record too precisely. If we want to make a disc capable of higher
frequencies, we need to do one of two things; either make the groove walls contain really
tightly spaced wobbles, or speed up the rotation of the disc. Ideally, weâd do both. OK, so how much more bandwidth do we need? If normal disc can go up to 20 kilohertz, uh, whatâs a TV signal? Oh, just about 5 megahertz. Alright, so we need to fit 250 times as much
information onto one of these discs. that sounds⌠difficult. And it was. Remember, research started in 1964, but the
product didnât get released until 1981. When it finally did make it to market, up
to 60 minutes of video (later pushed to 63) were held on each side of the disc, and although
bandwidth was reduced to 3 megahertz to make things a little easier, this still meant that
about 450 times as much information was held on a 60 minute CED than on a 20 minute vinyl record. Now, you might be wondering, why on Earth
was RCA so determined to make video work on vinyl? Simple. Ease of manufacture. Vinyl records are stamped from metal masters,
and can be pumped out quickly and cheaply. If RCA could figure out how to use the dead
simple, and decades-perfected technology of the phonograph to produce a videodisc, they
would have had a miraculous product on their hands. RCA envisioned a relatively cheap device,
not that far off from a normal record player, that youâd simply put your new video discs in,
and be delighted as your living room became a place to watch television on your own terms. The discs themselves wouldnât be very expensive
to make, as theyâd just be a more perfected vinyl record. So movie and television studios should be happy
to jump on board, as discs could be sold for little more than the cost of a record album,
while still making significant profit. The premise seems less bonkers when you remember
that in 1964, videotape was well over a decade away from entering the home market in meaningful
volumes. Delicate mechanisms, expensive electronics,
and open-reels of wide, heavy tape made it seem very unlikely that videotape would end
up in the home any time soon. And even if that somehow happened, the tapes
themselves would be very expensive, not only because the tape is expensive to manufacture,
but because mass-producing pre-recorded tapes would require dozens or even hundreds of tape
recorders to make duplicate recordings in real-time. So it wouldnât be a great way to sell pre-recorded
content. Nobody would buy such an expensive tape, and
no movie studio will settle for the razor-thin margins. And so, in the frame of 1964, the RCA Videodisc
actually seems like a great idea. Use the same equipment and technology thatâs
used to mass-produce records for the music industry, and replicate that model for things
like movies, television shows, and perhaps one day, whole new categories of content. Except, the development process dragged on
for far too long. By 1972, they had only managed to fit 10 minutes
of video on one side of a disc. Whatâs more, they discovered that simple
vinyl discs wouldnât work. The technology they had developed required
that the discs be conductive. The first prototype discs were metallized, with a styrene
top coat, and a lubricant coating on top of that. Now RCA wasnât dumb, and they realized 10
minutes was dumb. So, they kept on trucking, continuing to pour
resources into the project. One of the things they soon discovered was
that the discs were extremely fragile. If youâre trying to pack a few dozen grooves
into the space of what used to be just one, the discs could easily be destroyed from normal handling. Up until this point, RCA imagined the discs
would be naked, just like normal phonograph records. Finally realizing that, well, this is silly, RCA
designed these not-at-all clunky caddies to hold the discs nice and safely. We wouldnât want humans touching them. Still, the system needed a lot more work. The prototype discs, being multi-layered and
metallized, didnât exactly follow the âmake movies as quickly and cheaply as vinylâ
premise they had been getting at. They did eventually discover that using PVC
impregnated with conductive carbon particles would work well enough, and so they did get back to that
goal eventually, but it took a while. As we know. By the time 1981 rolled around, RCA had âperfectedâ
the system. 60 minutes per side, safe protective caddies,
a totally sleek-looking player, and a catalog of movies ready to go at launch. The players were pretty cheap to make, so
RCA was able to sell them for about $500 (thatâs roughly equivalent to $1,500
today). That sounds steep, but videocassette recorders
cost about double that when the CED was launched. Wait. Wait. You mean, videotape made it into the home
before the CED was launched? Yes. It did! And you know who had a big part in making
that happen? Why, a little company called RCA. Remember how I said RCA wasnât dumb? Well, they saw the rise of the videocassette
recorder happening, and quickly jumped in. They didnât manufacture any VCRs themselves,
instead choosing to outsource that task to companies like Matushita and Hitachi, but
RCAâs presence in the VCR market was a huge deal. RCA backed the VHS format created by JVC,
rather than going with the slightly older Betamax format from Sony. And, it was RCA who pushed the development
of the long-play recording mode, enabling VHS machines to record 4 hours on one tape,
and finally capture an entire football game. This was all happening in the late 1970âs,
in fact RCAâs very first VCR (which was the first to support 4 hour recording) hit the scene in 1977. Oh, and you know what RCA decided to call
their line of VCRs? SelectaVision. What!? Yeah, this was weird. RCA decided to use the name they were planning
to call their new videodisc system for their imported line of VCRs. Now, I suppose this wasnât a huge deal,
but it is still strange. In fact, it looks like RCA just stole
all the planned marketing material for the CED and slapped it onto their VCRs. ANNOUNCER:
Let RCA turn your television into SelectaVision! This seemed even weirder when you remember
that in the early days of the VCR, pre-recorded content wasnât really a thing yet. For the most part, VCRs were used to record
live TV to be watched later, a process known as time-shifting. In that context, SelectaVision doesnât even
really make that much sense. Youâre not selecting something to watch. Youâre planning to record something, and
will watch it later. Remember, these devices are called VCRs, which
stands for video cassette recorder, not video cassette player. And it's not a "VHS player" Stop calling it that. RCA was either really forward thinking and
thought that pre-recorded tapes would eventually become a big deal, but of course that would
fly in the face of their continuing efforts to produce the Videodisc system, or else they
were just really lazy and figured, sure, weâll use that name we planned to use for this entirely
different product weâre still working on for some reason. Just to muddy the waters a bit, SelectaVision
was actually first coined for an earlier abandoned project of RCAâs, the HoloTape player, however
even though that was tape-based, it wasnât capable of recording. This story, for such a simple product, is
maddeningly complicated and bizarre. Had the CED existed in a vacuum, it would
have made sense. But in a world where the VCR existed, a world
where the VCR was actively being marketed by RCA, its existence is jus... it, it's⌠WHY? Why bother continuing this project? What problem could the videodisc possibly
solve when RCAâs own VCRs had been on the market for four years? Well⌠maybe, cost. Alright. After talking about this for close to 15 minutes,
weâre finally gonna explore this player a little more. The genius of RCAâs machine is that, compared
to a VCR, itâs incredibly simple. Just a turntable, a pickup mechanism containing
the stylus, and then the electronics needed to decode the signals on the disc. To play a disc, the caddy is inserted all
the way into the player, which unlocks and grabs hold of the spine, and thus when the
caddy is removed, the disc is left inside. The main control lever is mechanically linked
to the turntable, and moving it from the load/unload position into the play position lifts the
turntable, which in turn lifts the disc up towards the stylus. It also closes a shutter to prevent you from
inserting the caddy while itâs playing. The motor driving the turntable could be a
cheap, single-speed AC motor since the discs spin at a constant speed of 450 RPM, which
is tied to the frame rate of television sets, which is itself tied to the line frequency
of 60 hz. You can easily hear the distinctive 60 hz
humming of a plain âol motor. [a clunk-like sound] [humming] [some resonance as the motor reaches speed] [and other various mechanical noises, with a distinct one right... about.... here] In PAL countries (yes, RCA did briefly market
this system overseas) the turntable spun at 375 RPM, which is tied to the frame rate and
line frequency of 50 hz. Each rotation of the disc held 4 complete
frames of video, or eight fields, and since a television will automatically synchronize
itself with the vertical blanking intervals encoded on the disc, a simple AC motor would
work fine. You can see the 8 blanking intervals on a
CED pretty clearly with the right light, just like you can see them on a CAV Laserdisc. However, a Laserdisc only holds one frame
of video per rotation, so you only see two blanking intervals. And now letâs talk about that stylus. The very tiny, user-replaceable diamond stylus
is there only to provide physical tracking on the disc. The player doesnât sense vibration in the
stylus, nor does the stylus actually have anything to do with the signal being read. Instead, bonded to the stylus is a titanium
electrode which senses changes in capacitance brought about by the depth of the groove. Ah, finally the answer as to why itâs called
the Capacitance Electronic Disc. And also the answer to why the disc needed
to be conductive. The disc, being a conductor, and the titanium
electrode, also being a conductor, form a capacitor. The actual video and audio signals are created
by teeny tiny little undulations on the disc, which move the surface of the disc closer
to and farther away from the electrode as it spins, thus varying the value of the capacitor
formed by the stylus and disc. The circuitry in the player is essentially
measuring the capacitance value, and as it changes, it can convert that change into a
change in signal amplitude. And thus, we can recreate a video signal. For those paying careful attention, youâll
have noticed that the player measures change in a capacitor. Now, when something is said to be in a state
of ongoing change, it is sometimes said to be in flux. Therefore, this disc, when being read by the
player, becomes part of a flux capacitor. Now you know. Also, Back to the Future was in fact released
on CED, though if we jump ahead that far weâll be spoiling the end. Fun fact! The first shipment of DeLoreans left Belfast
just two days before the CED system was officially released on March 22nd, 1981. The player was able to control where the stylus
landed on the disc with an electromagnet, as well as by moving the carriage that contains
the stylus. Ordinarily the carriage would just move in
steps as the stylus followed the disc (and the disc contained some basic digital signaling
to tell the player where it was), but when using the picture search function, the player
could bump the stylus forwards and backwards with the electromagnet for finer control. This was also used to get the player out of
a locked groove situation, as it could determine it was stuck thanks to the position signals that weren't advancing, and kick the stylus forward a couple of grooves to get unstuck. And getting stuck was, unfortunately, not
uncommon. ⍠⍠[ suddenly no more ⍠] While the caddies did a fairly good job at
keeping the discs clean, they werenât perfect. And in fact, the caddies themselves could destroy the discs if they werenât stored right. See, this system wasnât just late, it was
awfully flawed. But before we get into that, letâs finish
this video up by talking a little bit about the discs themselves. RCAâs VideoDiscs were sold for between $15
and about $30, although the vast majority were priced at $20 and up, and some special
box sets shot way past $30. Now thatâs not⌠terribly expensive, even
for 1981 dollars. In 1981 vinyl LPs were starting to push into
the $10 territory for high-profile releases, so you could say SelectaVision discs cost
about the same as 2 new record albums. And, really, thatâs pretty great when you
consider that youâre getting a 90 minute (or so) movie for the same cost as at best an hour
of music. When new, these discs had about the same image
quality as a VHS tape, though some claimed it was a little better. And honestly, the quality of the image coming
from these discs is perfectly fine. The only problem isâŚ
this can happen. [ unintelligible audio as the disc skips uncontrollably ] How common was this when the system was new? Itâs hard to say. The caddy design was fairly good and would
keep dust from getting in there, so perhaps these discs all worked great in 1981. For now, letâs just assume they did. Since the discs only held 60 minutes per side,
at some point youâre gonna have to flip that disc over. And, thatâs a somewhat strange task with
this player. You take your empty caddy, stick it all the
way in, pull it back out, now flip it over, shove it back in all the way again, and pull it
out again. Thatâs⌠a little more cumbersome than
just flipping an LP over. Or a Laserdisc. Ahhh yeah.... What about that other videodisc format? Well, it certainly didnât help RCAâs mission,
here. But, it might not have mattered much at all. Early laserdiscs typically werenât mastered
all that well, and comparing the quality between a CED and a Laserdisc from the early â80s
reveals, theyâre actually not that far off. However, itâs possible that had RCA decided
to take one of the innovations of Laserdisc and adapt it for the CED, it might not have
failed quite as hard as it did. Or perhaps at all. In the next video, weâll take a closer look
at where the CED was in the marketplace, how it managed to justify its existence in a sea
of VCRs and Laserdiscs, and why given what we know about how its short life panned out,
it might have radically changed how we consumed media throughout the 1980âs and into today,
especially if it had been released in the mid â70s. Thanks for watching! I know this story meandered around a lot,
but I promise everything you learned here will make the next video make a little more
sense. And it will also make the CED make even less
sense. As always, Iâd like to thank the fine folks
supporting this channel through Patreon. Viewers like you make this channel possible,
and I really appreciate your support. If youâd like to join these people in supporting
the channel with a pledge of your own, please check out my Patreon page. Thanks for your consideration, and Iâll
see you next time. ⍠capacitavely smooth jazz ⍠Somehow⌠[sounds of discs clattering together] No⌠So, thatâs how RCA became a thing. R⌠[clears throat] So? So. So? So. Why on Earth was RCA so determined to make
video work on vinyl? Simple. [smirks] Or donât fall down, that works too... ...hundreds of tape duplicators to make duplicate
recording in real t⌠augh, no no no, I scr aarr arr... that was
tape recorders! Duplicators is a term that youâd probably
get the context of, but no. In PAL [coughs] And It was, remember res⌠no. no no no. no no no no no.
It's kind of sad that RCA died the way it did. The CED/Selectavision is such a horrible piece of tech.
Nipper deserves better.
Oh no...
No, Alec, don't do this!
Ahhh, it burns!
What is the classical piece at the beginning of the video? I can't place it and it's driving me nuts.
A thrift store here in NJ is trying to sell some CEDs for $9.99 each. They don't even sell for that much on eBay!
Love the UHF reference!
Oh man, this video was immensely satisfying. The technology that makes CED work is downright miraculous, but yet it's still so far behind everything else it's incredible it ever made it to market. Between CED and the Dimensia TV system, it seems RCA was just brimming with terri-bad ideas. It's almost like they wanted to go under... hmm...
Gotta say, if you ever find one, the powered-loading players are a lot of fun. Usually need a fresh belt on the drive motor after all these years, but that's about it. Brilliantly engineered pieces of machinery- sadly for a format that was totally doomed. Great video, rock on!
We had these when I was in either elementary or middle school. I distinctly remember having to flip the disc over using that double insertion of the carrier. I would often help out because I was a big nerd, and because the teacher couldn't figure out the complicated A/V equipment.
They would wheel that top heavy A/V cart with the huge CRT TV from the library every Friday. Probably was Friday afternoons so the teacher could
get drunk at lunchOOPSnot have to do anything important that daysorry, I meant have a good behavior reward for us.We also had the failed Laser Disc and I absolutely loved the DisoVision name and graphic. Maybe just to hedge their bets, we also had that huge top loading VCR at one point.
I hated lots of things about school, but the A/V equipment was so fun.
I love when this guy takes on old, frankly stupid media formats - him and Techmoan.
I love those videos for both dunking on the past and because I just love physical media, even the stupid ones.
I was so geeked about this series when I first saw it. It was actually my first home video experience as a kid. The first episodes of Star Trek I ever saw were on CED (a double-feature disc featuring The Trouble With Tribbles on one side and The Tholian Web on the other). When my parents got it, VCRs were still very expensive so this was the cheapest alternative for them. After a few years though, a lot of our discs would fail and finally the machine broke down altogether. Fixing it was prohibitively expensive, so we made due with renting a VCR and some movies every so often before my parents finally broke down and bought a machine in the late 80s.
What got me is that nobody else I've met in real life seems to know what these are or have even heard of them. Once I went to an antique store once and saw a bunch of CEDs. I asked the shopkeeper about it and she told me they were Laserdiscs. She seemed pretty adamant about it for some reason so I didn't push the issue. But other than that, I've literally met nobody who remembers these. At least not in real life. If I hadn't stumbled across them in that antique shop a few years ago, I probably would have started thinking I imagined them before this video came out.