CED test market?

Just thought I'd share an interesting story with all of you. When CED
started to make it's minor splash back in the early 80's, they seemed to be
super popular in our town. I think this was sort of a rarity if I
understand correctly that CED was a shortlived medium not aimed at the
general consumer. A lot of people had players and one of our video stores
stocked a full (I mean FULL) selection of titles. It would be interesting
to see if my town was a test market and whether or not RCA decided to push
the technology in certain place, or whether, for one reason or another, it
was just really popular with my locality. Does anyone else remember a full
service rental shop for CED disks? I had friends who used to deliver papers
and they would report some folks who had hundreds of CED disks stacked in
their livingroom. Weird eh? Especially since my town had less than 150,000
people at the time. I suppose it might have had something to do with the
retail outlets that were carrying the disks at the time.

Mook23

On Sat, 23 Apr 2005 13:40:44 -0500, "Mook23" <no_one@no_where.com>
wrote:

>Just thought I'd share an interesting story with all of you. When CED
>started to make it's minor splash back in the early 80's, they seemed to be
>super popular in our town. I think this was sort of a rarity if I
>understand correctly that CED was a shortlived medium not aimed at the
>general consumer. A lot of people had players and one of our video stores
>stocked a full (I mean FULL) selection of titles. It would be interesting
>to see if my town was a test market and whether or not RCA decided to push
>the technology in certain place, or whether, for one reason or another, it
>was just really popular with my locality. Does anyone else remember a full
>service rental shop for CED disks? I had friends who used to deliver papers
>and they would report some folks who had hundreds of CED disks stacked in
>their livingroom. Weird eh? Especially since my town had less than 150,000
>people at the time. I suppose it might have had something to do with the
>retail outlets that were carrying the disks at the time.

I live in a town of less than 2,500 and we had a video store loaded to
the teeth with 'em, as well as a player and a few discs of our own.
Still see 'em fairly often at flea markets and the like too. First
I've ever heard anything about them being particularly rare or
anything.

-lugnut

lugnut

In article <yEwae.6367$>, Mook23
<no_one@no_where.com> wrote:

>Just thought I'd share an interesting story with all of you.
>When CED started to make it's minor splash back in the early
>80's, they seemed to be super popular in our town. I think this
>was sort of a rarity if I understand correctly that CED was a
>shortlived medium not aimed at the general consumer. A lot of
>people had players and one of our video stores stocked a full
>(I mean FULL) selection of titles. It would be interesting to
>see if my town was a test market and whether or not RCA decided
>to push the technology in certain place, or whether, for one
>reason or another, it was just really popular with my locality.
>Does anyone else remember a full service rental shop for CED
>disks? I had friends who used to deliver papers and they would
>report some folks who had hundreds of CED disks stacked in
>their livingroom. Weird eh? Especially since my town had less
>than 150,000 people at the time. I suppose it might have had
>something to do with the retail outlets that were carrying the
>disks at the time.

And where was 'our town'.

In Orlando there was one store that I think had evey copy issued -
though they never rented any.



--
Bill Vermillion - bv @ wjv . com

Bill Vermillion

Ah, the age of the independent video store. My hometown, (about 39,000
people at that time), had a large and very popular video store, locally
owned. My dad was thinking about getting into home video, so we went
and rented various machines to try them out. At the time, the store
was dominated by Beta, with about 60% of it's selection. 30% or so
with VHS, and 10% CED. CED had it's own room, and there were seemingly
hundreds of titles. I remember very clearly telling my dad to get a
Beta deck, because all the movies I wanted to see were on Beta, but he
told me that VHS was going to take over, and so it did. We did rent a
CED, and I watched Star Trek The Motion Picture several times. I
remember sticking the plastic sleeve in and having it suck out the
disk. I don't belive we were any kind of test market.

Other things I remember about the dark age of home video: having all
the actual tapes behind the counter and having to ask for them, either
off a printed list at the counter, or bringing the box up there from
the racks. Netflix is so much damn better, as is DVD. Someday I'll
tell this story to my kids, and they won't even believe me.

-beaumon

lorincantrell@yahoo.com

I think this was sort of a rarity if I
> understand correctly that CED was a shortlived medium not aimed at the
> general consumer. A lot of people had players and one of our video stores
> stocked a full (I mean FULL) selection of titles.

CED was nationally distributed by RCA beginning in 1981, but was a
commercial failure. It was a mass-market item from the start, backed by a
decent advertising campaign ("Bring the Magic Home"). Players/discs were
available from merchandisers such as Woolco, Sears, and J. C. Penneys.
Besides RCA, CED players were also manufactured/distributed by Hitachi and
Toshiba, each with its own unique design.

In this part of Virginia, I frequented at least three rental shops that
offered CED as rentals...a monumentally horrible idea, because the discs
were so prone to skipping caused at least partly by dust/dirt...and the
protective plastic caddies couldn't keep the discs totally clean.

CED died a well-deserved death...I still have a functioning player and
roughly 20 discs, but it was a terrible introduction to home video

Bill

In article <rLFae.33631$Zr.22548@lakeread08>, "Bill" <> wrote:

> CED was nationally distributed by RCA beginning in 1981, but was a
> commercial failure. It was a mass-market item from the start, backed by a
> decent advertising campaign ("Bring the Magic Home"). Players/discs were
> available from merchandisers such as Woolco, Sears, and J. C. Penneys.
> Besides RCA, CED players were also manufactured/distributed by Hitachi and
> Toshiba, each with its own unique design.
>
> In this part of Virginia, I frequented at least three rental shops that
> offered CED as rentals...a monumentally horrible idea, because the discs
> were so prone to skipping caused at least partly by dust/dirt...and the
> protective plastic caddies couldn't keep the discs totally clean.

At least they had protective shells. Laser Discs didn't even have that
and to make matters worse, they had awful analog error correction(not
even half as good as the advanced digital error correction on DVDs).
They were just really bad for rental purposes, assuming you could even
find video stores that rented LDs...
--
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we.
They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people,
and neither do we." - George Dumbya Bush

Black Locust

What part of Virginia did you see them?
I live in Southern VA and my dad and I would drive to Danville VA to rent
about 5-8 titles per week and return them each weekend.

I think I remember it just because my dad and I had fun trying to find
titles that we would both enjoy. Seems that they had almost every title
you could think of at the time.

Thanks!
Jeffman

Jeffman316

"Jeffman316" <> wrote in message
news:Xns96428EFEF6792slapnutsrulehotmailc@216.196. 97.142...
> What part of Virginia did you see them?
> I live in Southern VA and my dad and I would drive to Danville VA to rent
> about 5-8 titles per week and return them each weekend.
>
> I think I remember it just because my dad and I had fun trying to find
> titles that we would both enjoy. Seems that they had almost every title
> you could think of at the time.
>
> Thanks!
> Jeffman

I lived (and still do) in the Newport New/Hampton/Virginia Beach area.
Several stores in this area tried CED rentals, including Lee Hall TV and
Appliances in Hampton, and Video Unlimited in the Grafton/Yorktown area.

I gave up on trying to rent CEDs after only two or three attempts, because
of chronic skipping/stylus clogging issues. I remember trying in vain to
view a rented CED copy of "Smokey and the Bandit, Part 2." Every 5-6 minutes
the onscreen image would break up totally, necessitating stopping the disc
and removing/reinserting it, which would automatically clean the stylus tip.
I did find that rapid scanning an entire disc before playing would minimize
skipping/clogging, but it was still so much of a hassle.

Titles that I purchased new fared much better as a whole than rentals, and I
still keep my humble little RCA CED player on display in the den, with all
of my other newer components.

Bill

On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 16:44:36 -0400, Bill <> wrote:
>I gave up on trying to rent CEDs after only two or three attempts, because
>of chronic skipping/stylus clogging issues. I remember trying in vain to
>view a rented CED copy of "Smokey and the Bandit, Part 2." Every 5-6 minutes

Most people wouldn't admit to wanting to see that movie.

TCS

"TCS" <The-Central-> wrote in message
news:slrnd6o2d0.bsu.The-Central-...
> On Sun, 24 Apr 2005 16:44:36 -0400, Bill <> wrote:
>>I gave up on trying to rent CEDs after only two or three attempts, because
>>of chronic skipping/stylus clogging issues. I remember trying in vain to
>>view a rented CED copy of "Smokey and the Bandit, Part 2." Every 5-6
>>minutes
>
> Most people wouldn't admit to wanting to see that movie.
>

It's far from an Oscar winner, and pales in comparison to the original, but
I'd rather sit through multiple screenings of that film than view a single
screening of most so-called "entertainment" that Hollywood churns out these
days.

Bill