Capacitance Electronic Disc
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 The Capacitance Electronic Disc (or CED) was a video playback system developed by RCA, in which video and audio could be played back on a TV using a special analog needle and high-density groove system similar to phonograph records.
First conceived in 1964, the CED system was widely seen as a technological success which was able to increase the density of a long playing record by two orders of magnitude.[2] Despite this achievement, the CED system fell victim to poor planning, conflicts within RCA, and technical difficulties that stalled production of the system for 17 years until 1981, by which time it was outmoded by the emerging Betamax and VHS videocassette formats. Sales for the system were nowhere near projected estimates, and by 1986, RCA had discontinued the project, losing an estimated $600 million in the process. The format was commonly known as "videodisc", leading to much confusion with Laserdisc format, which is mutually incompatible with this format. The name "SelectaVision" was RCA's brand name for the CED system. It was also used for some early RCA brand VCRs,[3] and other experimental projects at RCA.[4][5]
 
History
Beginnings and Release
RCA began videodisc research in 1964, in an attempt to produce a phonograph-like method of reproducing video. Research and development was slow in the early years, as the development team originally comprised only four men,[6] but by 1972, the CED team at RCA had produced a disc capable of holding ten minutes of color video (a portion of an episode of Get Smart).[7]
The first CED prototype discs were multi-layered, implementing a nickel substrate within the platter. However, premature failure of the multilayer discs, usually from separation of the layers and resulting in damage to the player if a disc in such condition was played, forced RCA to search for solutions to the problem or alternative materials for constructing the disc.[8] The final disc would be crafted using PVC blended with carbon to allow the disc to be conductive. To preserve stylus and groove life, a thin layer of silicone was applied to the disc as a lubricant. [9]
CED videodiscs were originally meant to be handled by hand, but during testing, it was shown that people were likely to accidentally touch the signal surface of the disc, causing signal degradation at the touched area. Thus, an idea was developed in which the disc would be stored and handled in a caddy from which the CED would be extracted by the player.
After seventeen years of research and development, the first CED player (model SFT100W) was released in March 1981. A catalog of approximately 50 titles was released at the same time.[11] Fifteen months later, RCA released the SGT200 and SGT250 players, both with stereo sound. Models with remote controls and random access hit the market in spring and fall, 1983, respectively.
Demise
Several problems doomed the new CED system almost from the start. From an early point in the development of the CED system, it was clear that VCRs and home videotape - with their longer storage capacity and recording capabilities - would pose a threat to the CED system.[12] However, development pushed ahead; to dispose of all the work done at RCA would have cost the company millions of dollars. Once finally released, sales for the new CED system were slow; RCA had expected to sell 200,000 players by the beginning of 1982, but only 100,000 had been sold, and throughout 1982 and '83, sales did not improve much.[2][13]
The long period of development - caused in part by political turmoil and a great deal of turnover in the high command of RCA - also contributed to the demise of the CED system. RCA had originally slated the videodisc system for a 1977 release. However, the discs were still not able to hold more than thirty minutes of video per side, and the nickel-like material used by RCA to make discs was not sturdy enough to put into manufacturing. Signal degradation was also an issue, as the handling of the discs was causing them to deteriorate more rapidly than expected, baffling engineers.
RCA had hoped that by 1981 CED players would be in close to 50% of American homes,[2] but the sales of players continued to drop. RCA attempted to cut the prices of CED players and offer special incentives to consumers, but sales did not recover, and by 1984, executives realized that the system would not be as successful as projected and cancelled production of CED players.[13] In a strange twist, sales of the videodiscs themselves were twice the projected rate, so RCA announced that videodiscs would be produced for at least another three years after the discontinuation of players. After this announcement, the sale of discs declined severely, causing RCA to abandon disc production after only two years.[15] The last titles released were The Jewel of the Nile by CBS/Fox Video,[16] and Memories of VideoDisc, a commemorative CED given to many RCA employees involved with the CED project,[17] both in 1986.
How CEDs work
CEDs are 30 cm (300 mm = 11.8 inch) conductive vinyl platters, with a spiral groove on both sides. To avoid metric names they are usually called "12 inch discs". The discs rotate at 450 rpm, and each revolution holds 4 frames of interlaced video. (For PAL the discs spin at 500 rpm and 3 frames per revolution). As these specifications imply, the system uses CAV (Constant Angular Velocity) rather than CLV (Constant Linear Velocity).
A keel-shaped needle with a titanium electrode layer rides in the groove with extremely light tracking force, and an electronic circuit is formed through the disc and stylus. The video and audio signals are stored on the Videodiscs in a composite analog signal which is encoded into vertical undulations in the bottom of the groove, somewhat like pits. These undulations have a shorter wavelength than the length of the stylus tip in the groove, and the stylus rides over them; the varying amount of air space between the stylus tip and the undulations in the groove under it directly controls the capacitance between the stylus and the conductive carbon-loaded PVC disc.
 
This varying capacitance in turn alters the frequency of a resonant circuit, producing an FM electrical signal which is then decoded into video and audio signals by the player's electronics.
The capacitive stylus pickup system which gives the CED its name can be contrasted with the technology of the conventional phonograph. Whereas the phonograph stylus physically vibrates with the variations in the record groove, and those vibrations are converted by a mechanical transducer (the phono pickup) to an electrical signal, the CED stylus normally does not vibrate and moves only to track the CED groove (and the disc surface--out-of-plane), while the signal from the stylus is natively obtained an electrical signal. This more sophisticated system, combined with a high revolution rate, is necessary to enable the encoding of video signals with bandwidth of a few megahertz, compared to a maximum of 20 kilohertz for an audio-only signal--a difference of two orders of magnitude. Also, while the undulations in the bottom of the groove may be likened to pits, it is important to note that the spacing of vertical wave crests and troughs in a CED groove is continuously variable, as the CED is an analog medium. Usually, the term "pits," when used in the context of information media, refers to features with sharply defined edges and discrete lengths and depths, such as the pits on digital optical media such as CDs and DVDs.
In order to maintain an extremely light tracking force, the stylus arm is surrounded by coils which sense deflection, and a circuit in the player responds to the signals from these coils by moving the stylus head carriage in steps as the groove pulls the stylus across the disc. Other coils are used to deflect the stylus, to finely adjust tracking. This system is very similar to--yet predates--the one used in Compact Disc players to follow the spiral optical track, where typically a servo motor moves the optical pickup in steps for coarse tracking and a set of coils tilts the laser lens for fine tracking, both guided by an optical sensing device which is the analogue of CED stylus deflection sensing coils. For the CED player, this tracking arrangement has the additional benefit that the stylus drag angle remains uniformly tangent to the groove, unlike the case for a phonograph tone arm in which the stylus drag angle and consequently the stylus side force varies with the tone arm angle, which in turn depends on the radial position on the record of the stylus. Whereas for a phonograph, where the stylus has a pinpoint tip, linear tracking is merely ideal to reduce wear of records and styli and to maximize tracking stability, for a CED player linear tracking is a necessity for the keel-shaped stylus, which must always stay tangent to the groove. Furthermore, the achievement of an extremely light tracking force on the CED stylus enables the use of a fine groove pitch (i.e. fine spacing of adjacent revolutions of the spiral,) necessary to provide a long playing time at the required high rotational speed, while also limiting the rate of disc and stylus wear.
The disc is stored inside a caddy, from which the player extracts it when it is loaded. The disc itself is surrounded by a "spine", a plastic ring (actually square on the outside edge) with a thick, straight rim-like edge, which extends outside of, and latches into, the caddy. When a person inserts a caddy containing a disc into the player, the player captures the spine, and both the disc and the spine are left in the player as the person pulls the caddy out. The inner edges of the opening of the caddy have felt strips designed to catch any dust or other debris that could be on the disc as it is extracted. Once the caddy has been withdrawn by the person, the player lowers the disc onto the turntable (which is actually just a hub); the spine is also lowered with it. To start playing the disc, the player spins it up and moves the stylus onto the disc surface.
When Stop is pressed, the stylus is lifted from the disc and returned to its parking location, and the disc and spine are lifted up again to align with the caddy slot. When ready, the slot is unlocked, and the caddy can be inserted and withdrawn by a person, now with the disc back inside.
Advantages of CEDs
CED players, from an early point in their life, appealed to a lower-income market than VHS, Betamax, and Laserdisc. The video quality (approx 3 MHz of luma bandwidth for CED [18]) was comparable to a VHS-SP or Betamax-II video, but sub-par compared to Laserdisc (about 5 MHz of luma bandwidth). CED players became very popular among middle- and lower-income families, especially after RCA dramatically slashed the prices of unsold CED players.[15]
Like VCRs, CED videodisc players had features like rapid forward/reverse and visual search forward/reverse. They also had a pause feature, though it blanked the screen rather than displaying a still image; many players featured a 'page mode' during which the current block of four successive frames would be repeatedly displayed.
Since CEDs were a disc-based system, they did not require rewinding. Early discs were generally monaural but later discs included stereo sound. Other discs could be switched between two separate mono audio tracks, providing features such as bilingual audio capability.
Each side of a CED disc could be split into up to 63 "chapters", or bands. Two late RCA players (the SJT400 and SKT400) could access these bands in any given order. Novelty discs and CED-based games were produced whereby accessing the chapters in a specified order would string together a different story each time. However, only a few were produced before the halt of CED player manufacturing.[19]
Disadvantages of CEDs
In comparison to VCR and laserdisc technology, CEDs suffered from the fact that they were a phonograph-like contact media. RCA estimated that the number of times a CED could be played back, under ideal conditions, was 500.[20] By comparison, a clean, laser rot-free laserdisc could be played an unlimited number of times. A VHS tape could be played a "reasonable"[citation needed] number of times in 20-25 years. Since the system used a stylus to read the discs, it was necessary to regularly change the stylus in the player to avoid damage to the videodiscs.
Worn and damaged discs also caused problems for consumers. When a disc began to wear, video and audio quality would severely decline, and the disc would begin to skip more.[20] Several discs suffered from a condition called "video virus", where a CED would skip a great deal due to dust particles stuck in the grooves of the disc. However, playing the disc several times would generally solve this problem.[21]
Unlike VHS, CEDs required a disc flip at some point during the course of the film, because only sixty minutes of video could be stored per side. If a feature ran over two hours, it was necessary to insert another disc. This problem was not unique to CEDs, as Laserdiscs presented the same difficulty, and some longer features (such as The Ten Commandments (1956)) still required more than one tape or disc in the VHS and LaserDisc formats.
Less significant disadvantages include lack of support for freeze-frame during pause since CEDs scanned four frames in one rotation versus one frame per rotation on CAV LaserDisc nor was computer technology advanced enough for framebuffers at the time. However, a 'page mode' was available on many players that would allow for those four frames to be repeated in an endless loop.[22]
CEDs were also larger than VHS tapes, thicker than laserdiscs and considerably heavier due to the plastic caddies