Watch movies on vinyl albums with RCA Videodisc.

[Werewolf]

Anyone have a Videodisc player back in the day? My family only had VCRs but I've always been fascinated by the concept of playing a movie from a vinyl album. From what I understand they are brilliantly low tech and were cheaper to produce than VCRs and tapes and had a video quality slightly above VHS and Beta but below Laserdisc.

[Blue Meanie]

Never had one back in the day. I knew of them. Had the Pioneer Laserdisc starting in 1986/87. I have a RCA Videodisc player now...just have to get it tweeked. I think what I like more about the Disc is the art that is on the disc capsules/cartridge. In some cases a lot better than the VHS/Beta counterpart. If I'm not mistaken, and I could be very well mistaken, the videodisc of Let It Be and some of the other Music discs are the only way you can get said titles in true stereo.

[cjefferys]

We had one of these CED players, it was terrible tech actually. The system used an actual needle touching the disc and they were very sensitive. Even though the discs came in a caddy, rental discs were easily scratched, and half the discs we rented skipped all over the place. After a couple months, my dad smartly traded ours in for a VCR. The format failed mainly due to not having recording capability, and all the software was licensed through RCA, so no porn titles available. These two things were huge reasons for the early success of VCRs.

[Fitski]

My folks rented one for the weekend for my birthday in 1982 or 1983 I remember having to flip the discs over halfway through a movie. I seen American Werewolf in London as a 7 years old, that muppet show scene has messed me up to this day.

[Earth 2 Chris]

I had no idea these existed until I was in my late teens (early 90s) and found discs for Superman:The Movie and Star Trek: TMP at a flea market. I thought they were albums at first! At a quarter a piece, I bought them for novelty's sake, and still have them.

Chris

[drquest]

Yup we had one, had several movies, and a few places locally would rent them too. Never had much of a problem with it.

[cjefferys]

I do remember that CED was the first format on which I first saw Logan's Run. I think my dad and I ended up renting almost every disc in the local rental store before he finally upgraded to VHS.

[JWLJN]

Although an '80s kid, I didn't encounter these until 2010. I picked up the Pro Wrestling Illustrated Lords of the Ring videodisc for about five bucks at a toy show. What made it perfect was that the following week I was headed to a convention featuring Roddy Piper, Greg Valentine, and the same dog collars from their famous dog collar match pictured on the cover. I had it signed by them as well as by the host of the video, Bill Apter, who flipped when he saw it.

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-J\/\/

[Actorman]

Anyone have a Videodisc player back in the day? My family only had VCRs but I've always been fascinated by the concept of playing a movie from a vinyl album. From what I understand they are brilliantly low tech and were cheaper to produce than VCRs and tapes and had a video quality slightly above VHS and Beta but below Laserdisc.

I'm confused. I thought Videodiscs and Laserdiscs were just two names for the same thing. Essentially the 12" precursor to the DVD.

[Mikey]

I had one back in the day.

Bought it when VCR's were new and expensive.

a few of the titles I had .....

Star Trek TV series (2 episodes on a disc)

Let It Be

The Complete Beatles

Fiddler on the Roof

Tron

Alien

can't remember any more but I had about 30 in all

my biggest gripe was having to flip the disc over during half the movie

[cockyhoskins]

Laserdiscs were read optically with a laser. Videodiscs were read with a needle, like a record.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capacitance_Electronic_Disc

[cjefferys]

I'm confused. I thought Videodiscs and Laserdiscs were just two names for the same thing. Essentially the 12" precursor to the DVD.

Nope, they were completely different formats, the only thing in common is that they were both 12" discs. Laserdiscs (developed by Pioneer and Phillips) were the precursors to DVDs, as they were read by a laser too. CEDs (Capacitance Electronic Discs) aka videodiscs, were a different format, developed by RCA, and involved a needle physically touching the discs (which were encased in plastic caddies, because otherwise dust accumulating on the discs would cause them to skip). RCA lost over a half billion dollars on this failed format, ouch!

[dee T.]

We had a videodisc player. I remember when we first bought one, then buying loads of movies for it. We constantly wore out Raiders of the lost ark watching it so much. My god, those movies would skip. Until we just had throw them out. My dad stll has that same player to this day.

[Marvelmania]

I've never seen an actual player but come across the discs all the time at yard sales. Some for a couple of dollars then some people think they're so rare so they ask a small fortune for them.

[MysteryWho]

I read somewhere, it might have been wikipedia, that the time between their initial creation and their introduction to the market was held up significantly.
By the time they finally turned up VHS/Beta was already around and it was better. Boy do I feel funny saying that considering how crummy those tapes
seem now. Part of the problem though is that VHS is almost always pan and scan, because people couldn't get their heads around the black bars.
Now widescreen is de rigueur.