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Forgotten VideoDiscs make a comeback with collectors
by MICHAEL CITROME
For two decades we've put up with fuzzy, blurry VHS tape. It seems like a case of mass amnesia eliminated memories of an early-'80s video miracle from our minds: a system that put movies on 12" vinyl LPs, with a sharper image than VHS and stereo sound--not to mention cheaper than the monolithic VCRs of that period--and it vanished into dust.
When RCA debuted their SelectaVision VideoDisc system 20 years ago, they were the top dogs in the entertainment biz. From the recording industry to television manufacturing, RCA was running every hustle, until a spate of mid-'80s corporate raiding split the corporation into bite-sized chunks and sold them off to the highest bidder. RCA's dissolution left SelectaVision orphaned and discontinued.
Examined closely, a SelectaVision player looks like an artefact from Afrika Bambataa's spaceship. The record is hidden inside a plastic caddy the size and shape of an LP sleeve. Slip it into the player's aperture and it disappears inside, then the caddy is ejected. Hit play and it's needle to the groove and show time.
Introduced amid much hype in 1981, the system used technology that was revolutionary at the time, a system called CED (Capacitance Electronic Disc). In layman's terms, CED works like an LP, but rather than picking up the vibrations in the groove, the stylus registers changes in current in the electrically charged disc, and the player's hardware decodes this signal into audio and video. Each disc could hold 60 minutes of video per side.
Even today, there's a wealth of SelectaVision discs that have never been reissued. From pop music to kids' cartoons, some discs have become quite rare, trading for big bucks on auction sites like eBay. Fan sites like CED Magic (www.cedmagic.com) have even more info, like sources for repair parts and lists of released discs.
Superior sound and image
The players sold for about $500 (U.S.) at launch, a little less than a VCR, but prices quickly came down after sales fell short of the 200,000 units RCA expected to sell by 1982. By that time VCRs were so well established that consumers didn't know what to do with this odd system that wouldn't let them record. By 1984, when the players were discontinued, prices had dropped to less than $150. Even though SelectaVision had stereo sound and superior image quality, it faded quietly into the night.
It's taken until today for some of SelectaVision's greatest features, like multiple soundtracks and random access to any point on the disc, to catch on. These were both major selling points of DVD when it first appeared.
What's most puzzling is that despite the late-'90s vinyl revival, SelectaVision has barely gotten a mention. The final triumph in the story of grooved media that began with Edison's nursery-rhyme experiments in the 19th century, SelectaVision represents a link with our technological past that wasn't lost on people like science-fiction writer Bruce Sterling. His Dead Media Manifesto (griffin.multimedia.edu/ ~deadmedia) keeps the flame burning for SelectaVision and obsolete media technology like it.
The question now is, will vinyl junkies be able to resist the hipster appeal of movies on wax or, 20 years after its introduction, will SelectaVision simply fade to black?
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