Race to the finish; RCA's final gamble (CED Part 5)

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The end is near. The death knell approaches. What will become of RCA’s invention? And is this really the end? Would you like fries with that?

Here’s Techmoan’s video on the VHD;

And here’s a link to the playlist that this video is in, ya know, in case you to spend a feature length film’s worth of time learning about RCA’s folly;

Would you like some other links? Great news! I have some!

Technology Connextras (the second channel that stuff goes on sometimes):
Technology Connections on Twitter:
The TC Subreddit

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[TechnologyConnections]

Hello! I'd like to thank you all for coming on this bizarre journey with me. Telling the story of the CED has been a lot of fun, but it also required a lot more... storytelling than I typically do. However, once I found Margaret B. W. Graham's book on the subject, well first of all the story is frankly bonkers and quite enjoyable, but also I felt the real nuts and bolts of the story deserved to see the light of day.
Not a lot of info is online beyond "what is this product?" and "It failed because VCRs". And without the context that Graham provides, the entire idea seems outlandishly foolish. In the end we know it was, but I think there are a lot of truly valuable lessons to learn from this ordeal.
Thanks for putting up with this project, and as I said at the end - if there's anything you'd like to know that I didn't cover in these video please ask! I may make a follow-up video down the road.

[TomTomEntertainment]

This series has lasted longer than the CED.

[StoneyK]

*RCA gives Matsushita their demonstration model and design drawings*

Matsushita: Nice unit. Would be a shame if someone... pioneered it.

[damandbass]

Careful Technology Connections - last time someone spent so much time with the CED, they folded.

[Sashazur]

I went to work straight out of college as a software developer at RCA labs, right after they killed off CED. I worked in the same group that had been developing interactive video apps for CED (which never saw the light of day either). To keep interactive video alive (and keep our jobs) they decided to switch to CDs - which at the time didn’t do video. RCA was in a race with Phillips and MIT to get digital video to play from CD and RCA were the first to publicly demonstrate it actually working. RCA’s technology included a custom chipset to do advanced (for the time) video-quality graphics. RCA hoped to eventually introduce a home computer with TV-like video (which would have been amazing back in the mid 80s), but except for some niche commercial products (like bar trivia machines in the UK) RCA’s CD video and chips never went anywhere. When GE broke up RCA the technology was sold to Intel and most of us ended up working there. Intel shared the technology with Microsoft and by then it was called Indeo - one of the early bits of software which allowed a normal PC to record and play back video. The algorithms and chips that RCA developed to enable video from CD were the ancestors of the core tech in DVD, HDTV, and Blu-Ray.

[Magnavox-]

As completely bonkers and messy the circumstance was for CED, I still find the idea of “Video on a vinyl record” to be mind-blowing and I’m glad it came out if for no other reason than to make me go “woah, that’s actually doable!?”

[MisterNohbdy]

"If you'd like to learn more about the VHD, I'll be making a 7-part trilogy about it shortly."

[ChaosXLR]

The history of the CED. A trilogy in 5 parts.

[yoshipilot]

“There was Beta in the back room” is an underrated line.

[sirselfdestruct]

This series has been entirely amazing. You've essentially made a feature length documentary about the history of the CED and the downfall of RCA. Absolutely well done!

[abdulmasaiev]

It's amazing how well this being part 5 of 3 fits in with the actual development of CED

[otakuribo]

"Part 5 of 3"
the Borg: "actually, let's not assimilate them."

[mjdRx]

From the closed captions, at the end: “disastrously smooth jazz” lol 😂

[Neojhun]

"Cave Johnson
here, the boys in The Lab have been working on this Record Vision thing. (what is it called again). Ahh Selectavision, it's taken us a decade but I think they've cracked it. We should of been using same old record player press all along. (fire the guys who did not try that earlier). This should be a sales smash hit."




(muttering to assistant)

[snowcat]

As an engineer myself, understanding flawed products and bad project management is essential. Thank you for your dedicated work.

[andrewchapman]

TC writing part 2: "This is going well, I should be able to talk about everything I just thought about in part 3 and be done."


TC writing part 5:

[Wowbagger]

Part 5 of 3 in the increasingly inaccurately named CED trilogy

This should be mostly harmless.

Waiting for the 6th video to begin with the phrase "And another thing"

[ralphgould]

I worked in TV starting in 1966. RCA seemed to have its heyday in the 30's and 40's. When Ampex came out with the audio tape recorder, RCA spent years trying to build a competing unit without success. When Ampex built a 2 inch video recorder, RCA tried again to build a competing unit. By the late 60's they had some video recorders that were only OK. If you were an NBC affiliate, you were forced to buy RCA video equipment. When solid state ENG cameras were introduced, RCA came out with a unit using a spinning disc in front of the sensor as a kind of shutter. Philip's was using that technique in there studio cameras. The problem was the disc had to spin at a high rpm synchronous with electronic circuits in the camera. This resulted in a higher load on the batteries than Sony or Panasonic. They didn't sell many, and GE bought RCA and closed its broadcast division. The last 10 years, RCA was using third party companies to build audio consoles, audio tape recorders, and 1 inch video tape machines. One station I worked at bought their last series of TV transmitter. RCA used 120 volt logic in their control circuits for years. The competition used 24 volt control circuits for safety reasons since the early 1960's. In that last transmitter series, RCA attempted to use TTL 5 volt logic for control circuits. It didn't dawn on them connectors would need to be gold or some other highly conductive metal do to the TTL currents being a few milliamps.
As you said RCA seemed to have a lot of issues, especially when there was competition from small companies that could turn around r&d much faster. Grass Valley was a good example, they took the video switcher market away from both GE and RCA by the early 1970's. GE sold their TV studio and transmitter division to Harris/ Gates in 1974 because they couldn't compete with Harris.

[classiccomputing]

As someone whose parents owned one of these "RCA Disc" players, I have to say I loved this series. I still watch several movies which we owned on this format and expect it to skip or change sides at certain points in the movie. The history of how this product came to be is fascinating.

[Connie.T.]

So THAT'S why we used to have a stadium called the RCA Dome lol

This series has actually helped me learn a lot about my city, Indianapolis. Nowadays, our older political figures (who would've been entering the workforce during these events) portray it as a pragmatic and productive city, and the state gov's slogan is "A State that Works." It's really not though lol, but this is a story appropriate for sparking a citywide mythology.