Ced

The 1970s, the RCA Company developed a special disk media format called SelectaVision. This medium employed something called the Capacitance Electronic Disc (CED) to play videos. The CED disc measured about 12 inches in diameter and played 60 minutes of video per side. The CED occupied a niche--somewhere in between a phonograph record and a laserdisc.

The first CED discs went to market in 1981, but the line proved unpopular for a variety of reasons, and CEDs were discontinued in 1984. Part of the problem with the CED was its delicacy. In order to preserve the grooves and valleys necessary for signal transmittance, owners had to keep their CEDs in specialized cotton-padded cases.

In addition, since CEDs could only hold 60 minutes worth of video per side, viewers had to turn over their discs in the middle of their movies. Movies which ran over two hours required two separate CEDs and at least two disc changes. Moreover, although RCA promised that SelectaVision CED discs could withstand up to 500 separate plays, consumers discovered that CEDs wore out much faster than that.

Small particulate grains caught in the grooves, styluses degraded, and owner wear and tear damaged CED discs all too easily. Even the CED players themselves tended to break down at the slightest provocation. All that said, despite the SelectaVision's short life and its technical problems, many collectors around the world still love the CED format, and there are numerous online CED collection societies.