Race to the finish; RCA's final gamble (CED Part 5)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ม.ค. 2020
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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;
• Movies on Vinyl - 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;
• The CED (RCA SelectaVi...
Would you like some other links? Great news! I have some!
Technology Connextras (the second channel that stuff goes on sometimes):
/ @technologyconnextras
Technology Connections on Twitter:
/ techconnectify
The TC Subreddit
/ technologyconnections
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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.
Along with the jacket you should consider a bow tie😁. Love the content thanks.
Hi
I don't know about "putting up with" it, I've really enjoyed it!
Do a video on CoronaVirus
Thank you
This series has lasted longer than the CED.
Hey! Bonus joke 😎!
too soon!
I look forward to part 6.
@@davidlevy706 : And that too is too soon!
Technically true!, I have never had a CED play right for more than 10 minutes!
*RCA gives Matsushita their demonstration model and design drawings*
Matsushita: Nice unit. Would be a shame if someone... pioneered it.
No, no, Pioneer was a _different_ Japanese electronics company. :)
When I see 'pioneered' in this context, russian verb 'спионерить' ('spionerit', 't' is palatalized here) comes in mind. It is derived from the words 'спиздить' ('spizdit', informal variant of 'to steal', 'пизда' means 'cunt') and 'пионер' ('pioneer' - member of the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization, virtually every soviet child aged 10-14). This verb is used as an euphemism when one can't say 'спиздить' (that is, in any situation when one can't say 'cunt').
Yea, yea, Brooks - we got the idea. Statements like this are where humor goes to die.
They would use certain "Technics" to make it work. ;-)
@@user-bh6ey1ke4n Things like this makes me happy that we have so many different languagues any thanks for sharing this and cheers from The Netherlands
Careful Technology Connections - last time someone spent so much time with the CED, they folded.
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.
🧢
Wow, I never knew Indeo started at RCA!
@@Jcreamy513why
@@amogusenjoyerhard to believe
that really was a lab!!!
"If you'd like to learn more about the VHD, I'll be making a 7-part trilogy about it shortly."
*finger crossed* 🤞
Douglas Adams would be proud.
Techmoan has stayed at 3 parts so far: his original VHD video, and the follow-ups on VHD in the UK and VHD in the US. Though I would not be surprised if he did a 4th, if he found something interesting enough to warrant it.
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!?”
“There was Beta in the back room” is an underrated line.
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!
The only RCA I knew is the record label for artists like 1D that's owned by Sony
It’s always interesting to me to hear about the history and sometimes downfall of huge companies. This has been fascinating
@@lzh4950Yeah. When GE bought RCA, they sold the label to Bertelsmann. They continued to run the label until 2004 when Bertelsmann and Sony combined their music divisions to create Sony BMG. Then Bertelsmann sold their stake to Sony in 2008, and Sony’s been running RCA as one of their 4 flagship labels (alongside Columbia, Epic, and Arista) ever since.
It's a deep dive that rivals James Cameron's own research expeditions
The history of the CED. A trilogy in 5 parts.
Douglas Adams used to refer to the "increasingly misnamed Hitchhiker's Guide Trilogy" which eventually went to at least 6 books.
The CED: A 5 year project in 15 years.
< George Lucas heavy breathing >
@@wompastompa3692 not gonna lie, the video series is fitting considering the subject matter
Not That You Asked I was going to say that, but I’m not surprised someone beat me to it!
"Part 5 of 3"
the Borg: "actually, let's not assimilate them."
Suddenly I'm picturing a species that is toxic to the collective. Like a poisoned fruit.
@@Innomen that would be a good twist in that new series that a streaming company is making
Give him big wig and a rubber forehead, then call him a Kazon!
@@Innomen That happened in voyager during the story line when seven of nine adopted the borg children. Not sure what episode/s that is though.
What is this, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy?
I joined RCA Labs in 1980 and I still work there, though it's SRI International now, which is headquartered in Menlo Park, CA. The Menlo office is considered to be the "basic research division that can't produce anything practical" and the Princeton office is, ironically, the division that can reduce research to practice.
Are you still working on updates to the CED system?
I think your wording is just a little unclear, but SRI International in Menlo Park actually has little/nothing to do with RCA. SRI (Stanford Research Institute) spawned out of Stanford University. *Much later* SRI International acquired RCA Laboratories in 1988, which was always located in Princeton, NJ. Thus, the former RCA Laboratories is just one part of SRI International which was a totally separate entity with its own history and only acquired them after RCA was broken up.
"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)
Hahaha, nice
...should *have been using...
If you told me aperture science's story was based on rca i would believe you. This whole story of rca selectavision wouldnt be out of place in the vault tapes
Who’s cave johnson,
@@electrictroy2010 character in portal 2. CEO of aperture science. He left tapes much like this throughout much of the older parts of the facility
It's amazing how well this being part 5 of 3 fits in with the actual development of CED
One of my uncle's had one of these when I was growing up. I remember we couldn't run through the house when he was watching it. The vibrations would make it skip. Lol
Haha thanks for sharing this, as a "young" person, 20 years young and studying Electrical Engineering I find older technology facinating to learn about, Engineers like me have access to so many usefull things now a days, things engineers 60 years ago couldn't dream of and sadly this means that sometimes(quite often) fellow engineers don't innovate as much, or at least don't use clever tricks to solve a problem and rather just slap a micro processor on it and brute force the issue, very much not impressed and it's not elegant at all!
Anyhow thanks for sharing that interesting story and Cheers from The Netherlands!
That’s odd. My unit played perfectly every time. No skipping unless I physically scratched the record.
One time I knocked the unit & it dropped half a foot. It stopped working. I looked at the needle, washed it with soapy water, and it played again. (Probably had a piece of record stuck to it. The water dislodged that plastic bit.)
@@electrictroy2010 Maybe his was worn a bit.
As an engineer myself, understanding flawed products and bad project management is essential. Thank you for your dedicated work.
From the closed captions, at the end: “disastrously smooth jazz” lol 😂
It'll always be SBNation, Jon Bois Jazz to me lol
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: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"
Love how there’s no replies here
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.
That’s odd. My unit played perfectly every time. No skipping unless I physically scratched the record.
@@electrictroy2010 Come on. Really? The only thing this format was known for was skipping!
CED is how i goot to see Airplane! Grease, many Bond films, Rocky, Planet Of The Apes and Race For Your Life, Charlie Brown! It was my grandparents who had it and we would fire that thing up into the 90s. my cousin shannon still has it and all the titles (including our grandfather's coveted Playboy CED lolololol)
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.
right i know about the vinyl plant and the bad taste left in olders peoples mouth about it, but this tells a lot of that story you never hear.
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"
I really must find that one and read it. I was unaware of its existence because it wasn't written by Douglas.
It'll be on this channel, but presented and written by The 8-Bit Guy and thus result in a striking change of style compared to the other videos.
@@BrendonGreenNZL It wasn't written by D.A., and it definitely shows in the style and attempt at a central plot, but it does try to be faithful to the spirit. If I saw it as a direct sequel to the series, I would feel rather disappointed; seeing it as a successful author's loving homage to a departed author, trying to tie up some of the loose ends he didn't get to finish on his own, it stands as a fun, weird story that I enjoyed. Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series is sold as young adult, but has a charm and weirdness that still make it fun to read. I think Eoin Colfer or Terry Pratchett are the only two authors I can imagine writing "And Another Thing". If you know any others I'd take suggestions, because I need them in my life. (maybe Neil Gaiman or Christopher Moore, but their weirdness is drawn from a different palate, and sadly we lost Piers Anthony long ago.)
@@soli-ethd @Technology Connections please, this must be done. It'd be a hilariously fitting end to the saga!
Canis Cerulean I originally read it as a direct sequel, and was definitely disappointed. It holds up better as an homage. (I do think I would have liked it more if Pratchett had written it, but it didn’t help that I started with unrealistic expectations.)
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.
kinda feels like innovation loss happens as a company gets too big and complacent with its bigness. for example I doubt the HP of today could revive PARC.
really interesting, thanks
I get why NBC stations had to buy equipment from RCA, it was their parent company after all.
Interesting. I worked in broadcast tv in Scotland in the 80s and 90s. When I started virtually all the machines were quad - mostly Ampex but we had a couple of RCA TR70s which were ancient even then. The most spectacularly bonkers was the Ampex ACR25 - robotic kart player which used vacuums, aircraft wire, solenoids and rows of light bulbs for the tape servos. I still have a cartridge on my desk as a (rather ugly) souvenir.
Feels like too many scientists and not enough engineers. Brilliant ideas that crash&burn on stupid fundamentals.
My Dad had one of these (and several milk crates full of the discs) which we never watched because we had a VCR and no one wanted to get up and flip the discs. I loved the cover art on the cartridges though, and would flip through them and sketch the designs for afternoons sometimes. I watched the whole series, you really made this entertaining and interesting. Thanks!
For real, watching someone pick up giant discs that glimmer in the light is just pure candy for my eyes.
I could've sworn you told us in Part 1 that the original intent was to use conventional record pressing to be able to produce cheap video disks. WTF, RCA?
That was my remembrance as well...
Exactly. I was facepalming hard when seeing how much they swayed from their original goal, and noticed how their production issues were resolved.
@@pokehybridtrainer RCA - "We want a simple cost effective video format we can bring to the masses that uses existing technology"
Also RCA - "Ok ok ok GUYS, lets use laser to cut the vinyl to precise measurements and if its off by a nanometer just throw it away"
@@bobhope1160 : And _that_ is why Research & Development should never be in the same room! Or sometimes hallway! Or sometimes wing! Or sometimes building! Or sometimes freaking state!
Jared Maddox I’m pretty sure this entire debacle is a strong argument for what happens if you _don’t_ keep a close eye on what the folks in R&D are up to.
This CED series has certainly been a trip! At this point I'm curious to know what other optical media formats I have no idea about...
good idea ... this was so well done
If you haven't already, Check his LaserDisc Series, CD Series, or analog sound (records) series
@@etekweb Fair point, miswording on my part.
Depending on your age, books might qualify.
Take a spin through the Techmoan channel catalog
After watching this series, I'm looking forward to your 10 part series on the demise of Radio Shack.
Ha ha, another great story. Tandy Corporation.
Now it's my life's mission to find the one CED porno that got printed due to a clerical error.
And, did you find it?
FYI asking for a friend
A friend is asking, any updates?
In the UK, we got Confessions of a Window Cleaner, which is a sex comedy.
"The only way we'd have gotten THAT kind of 'disc pics' would be if third party manufacturers appeared." Ha! Disc pics, good one.
That may be one of the best puns ever
Disc pics was an earlier name for the project. It's mentioned in an earlier part of this series.
@@bjfincher773 : I vaguely recall that being a _separate_ branch within the larger Selectavision project.
Disck picss. Interessting lissp.
@@absalomdraconis Ah, yes, I remember now. It was the one with actual microfiche-style tiny images on a disk projected in rapid sequence, haha!
This has been one of the most fun series and well worth every minute. Thank you for all the hard work and we look forward to future content after you take some well-deserved time off if you wish. :-)
funny seeing you here
Ditto
@@cdmonmcginn7561 I show up in many unexpected places :)
DeviantOllam long as it’s not my house
Hey cool to see you here! Love your talks!
Part 6: Q and A about the CED and why does RCA sounds, looks, and operated like aperture science?
this was a triumph
RCA sounds, looks, and operated like aperture science?(2)
a lot of companies followed this path to their demise. that's why they portrayed it as such for aperture science, it is a parody of how all tech firms kill themselves. think about it this way, you misstated yourself; why would aperture science be like RCA, since RCA actually came first.
16:35
The CED is on 69 and the VCR is on 4:20.
I see what you did there and i can hear you giggle doing it.
So this is basically RCA's Death: The Film.
The Motion Picture
But is it available on CED?
Winston Deleon I think there was a memories of the CED video released on CED
The entire series is around 100 minutes. Someone should collab with him to make a cut removing the individual video outros and recaps and adding some interviews with period RCA staff and turn it into a 2-hour documentary on the fall of RCA.
I never thought I wanted a 5 part series of an obscure forgotten video format, but yet here I am.
i like the emphasis on having a shared goal; if people work together, they can optimize something sub-par so hard that it becomes par
I just sat and watched all 5 episodes... and they were great !! at around the 27 min mark, you talk about how the lab was a hindrance to actual product production. You are 100% correct. When I was a happy Scientist out of collage, (Physics and Bio) I went to work in an R&D team... but I chose to be on the product development side. You see, my Physics degree was "Instrumentation" and not "Theoretical". So yes, I was the "Hands on" guy in the lab. I worked on several experimental projects, but I always came back to (more or less) doing backwards engineering, and fixing the issues with the OEM product. A PERFECT example of this was... I was working on a microfine carrier system from a company named Tori. (Jap) But our conventional test equipment wouldn't work to test triboelectric charging. After digging around, I found Eastman Kodak was also working on a system, but they dropped it for a more conventional system. After talking to their team... I found out they worked on a test rig, but never solved a drifting charge issue. (pure research got the instrument to the 80% mark, and they had no interest in working out the bugs.... sound familiar?) Because of that, they came to visit, and actually gave me their prototype rig, and research papers. It took me about a week to solve their issue. We kept tight lipped, and I was able to develop my own system (Carrier and Toner) for the Tori engine.. and it was widely used by Toyota, and several high profile companies. Keep up the good work, and I hope you read messages from old vids. FYI... since COVID hit... I now fix retro game systems, and just stay home. LOL.
"RCA stands for "REALLY CRAPPY APPLIANCE!"
I don't remember where I first heard that but it was a VERY long time ago. I definitely remember that whoever said it was screaming it in rage, lol!
Crank Yankers
About 17 years ago I had an RCA alarm clock. You'd think clocks are pretty simple, but this one would gain about 15 minutes overnight.
In general, I agree with that sentiment. But it needs to be said; my RCA 56 inch TV has outlasted a Samsung, Sony, and Panasonic TV which all were located in the living room while the RCA is in the garage.
@@Gamebreakerprods that one is just a Chinese import with a rca sticker slapped on to it
I also bought a super cheap secondhand microwave recently and it works super well. I attribute it mostly to chance, but nonetheless. To allude to Gabe’s account, “even a broken clock is right twice a day”.
I have fond memories of my RCA SJT-400 and we had a pretty solid collection. I eventually went on to LaserDisc, but for many years CED was how I watched pre-recorded movies. I also imported some JVC CED anime titles from Japan (like "Outlanders").
Outlanders?
The SJT-400 was the best player that RCA released with the SGT-250 being the next best. So with that player and new discs you would have had the best CED experience.
I don't remember hearing JP CEDs exist, unless you're talking about the similar VHD...
"Disastrously smooth jazz" is my new band name.
I lived in Findlay, Ohio in the early 80s, and there were A LOT of people I knew with CEDs (at least 10 families). Now that I know RCA was the producer of CEDs, it explains why I knew so many people with one. RCA had a factory in Findlay that employed a great number of my friends' parents. I have a feeling these were either given out or sold to those families.
8:57 This is why I watch documentaries on TH-cam instead of TV.
I never knew someone was this obsessed with CED, not even Techmoan would make that much videos on CED! The history in making the CED was longer than CED’s life on the market!
Ironically Techmoan would do the same for VHD... except it was just one part at first then extended to 2 more.
My family had a CED player... it was actually pretty awesome :D Not having to rewind cartoons was pretty cool ngl
The RCA story reminds me of the history of General Electric. Read the article about the fall of GE in the Wall Street journal published a couple of years back. Many parallels.
Yep, many sad stories of how once great companies made royal mistakes. GE seems to be recovering with an emphasis on what they do best and shedding all the stuff they should have never got into.
Your new channel name “Technology Columbo”
“Just one more thing”.
What a fabulous series, if only the format itself had had a similar following, who knows, in the back room, there may have been such titles as, ”The first 12 inches of John Holmes”, or “CEDouble D”
_Columbo_ with a 'u'.
_Columbo,_ and the Granada Television Sherlock Holmes series, are well loved.
Or "Technology Adventures".
"One more thing..."
"UNCLE!"
@Nigel Cam That's not true at all, considering many American companies did end up being market leaders at various times. The kairetsu networks in Japan which is the interlink between companies and various distributors with profit, resource, and supply sharing is *monstrously inefficient.* Japanese industrial policy is a mess and that mess is largely why China was able to take over Japan's place in manufacturing. The cheaper labor barely plays a role. China like the US can be far more cutthroat, because they don't have Japan's network of mutually linked parties with vested interests. So manufacturers can drop suppliers for cheaper ones in China, which is something Japanese companies cannot do. The industrial policy in Japan with the entrenched kairetsu networks has killed companies and very nearly killed Nissan. Japan's protectionist market is far more a hindrance than a benefit in both domestic and international business concerns.
@Nigel Cam Also before you cite governmental policy. Which wasn't the case even in Japan... It's not about governmental interference, this is pure market forces. The kairetsu networks gave Japan a competitive advantage before China's markets opened. Due mostly to the fact that American companies were stagnating and pushing proprietary bullshit at the time. When China's market really opened globally, having no way to enforce proprietary patent, trademark, and copyright standards in China, that destroyed Japan's advantage. If US companies had been more willing to work on unified platforms, rather than trying to push proprietary standards? Also if US companies had been more serious about quality control? Japan never would have had the ability to be at all dominate in global market. So it was nothing to do with governmental domestic industrial policy, but everything to do with bad business decisions by US companies.
If you enjoy this style of video you should check out lgr's techtales. Scratches a similar itch.
Thematic that the CED overview stretched past is intended 3 video run.
Still a bit short of the subject material's ratio though...
*HEY, SOMEONE GO GET A STICK! WE NEED HIM TO DRAG OUT THE SERIES MORE!*
A quick mention: RCA still exists (Well, in Sony) today as RCA Records, and is actually doing quite well off. Recently it has released multiple Number #1 Songs by a number of artists and even returned to the 80's RCA Logo!
Wow, approximately an hour and a half of CED information, and I enjoyed every minute of it! When I was a child, I remember seeing the RCA disc of “Saturday Night Fever” and wanted a player very badly. I didn’t get one, but I did end up getting my first Sony Laserdisc player, which I enjoyed a few years, before DVD changed everything for the better. As a tech geek, your videos have been a blessing for me during this horrible Covid lockdown, and I thank you! Watching these videos has made me sentimental for the good ol days. 🙂
"Part 5 of this 3-part series" - ah, I see you ascribe to the Douglas Adams' system of counting
Episode 12.
And/or King Arthur from Holy Grail.
darthclaytor what is the average velocity of an unladen swallow?
@@computerboy2k African or European?
These CED videos are probably the most thoroughly researched tech videos I've ever seen. Phenomenal stuff.
19:00 - "disc picks" - LOL, nicely played
8:58 could be my favorite moment in this channel's history.
"We want part 6"
"We want part 6"
"We want part 6"
"We want part 6"
"We want part 6"
"We want part 6"
"We want part 6"
JoJo fans be like
No. This was yet another book report told with the flare of pretentious authority. He also diminishes the intelligence of engineers and business professionals... like _all the time_ . If this is his new format (bad pun intended, and I apologize) then I'm outta here.
Yes! Part 6!
DUDE NO MOVE ON TO A NEW SERIES LIKE HOW COMMODORE IS DEAD TODAY
"riot"
"riot"
"riot"
The captions during the "RCA Fanfare" video had me rolling :)
16:34
me: *looks at the numbers on the devices*
me: Nice.
Nice
Thank you for producing this series. I remember seeing this system demonstrated at an electronics shop in our mall when I was a kid. The disks being housed in plastic cases was the most memorable part. Then the technology seemed to just disappear. Looking back I assumed it was laser disk, but this series set me straight.
The sidenote about the VCR format wars was honestly the least expected part here. And I have never heard this take on it!
Imagine him talking about sega, and their CED(Dreamcast)... A 3 video series... with ten episodes... or more.
Take a look at Gaming Historian channel, you might find your hapiness there.
16:33 I see what you did there. Niiiice.
Noice
It should have been at 16:20 though
Heh, foreshadowing of the "mature content" discussion. :)
Nice.
Blazeit
This was an absolutely wonderful, delightful, illuminating series. You are a more than worth successor to James Burke, and I have missed him terribly. Thank you. You have a new loyal subscriber.
Yes, we talked about how rice cookers worked, but not how they *don't* work. I.E. how do I fix my broken rice cooker? But yes, I'm sticking it out to the end of the CED series. It's worth it for that bloody perfect cut of RCA's fanfare!
And here's hopening for more feature-length film's worth of videos on interesting and bizarre equispment. Not to mention disastrously smooth jazz!
I just can't stop watching your videos.
I tell myself: "10 minutes and I'll start doing the stuff I have to"
But then when I hear the outro I am annoyed (yet happy) that I couldn't stop watching
And that's _how_ the CED video series came to be!
you know some videos are good when I put them on as background noise and then several videos later, I've gotten zero drawing done
Colleagues: so what did you do over the weekend?
Me: I finished the epic journey that was the CED saga
I had a tremendous amount of fun watching this 3-part/5-part series and learning about RCA's history, very well presented! I can't wait for the prequels 😀
The reason why I made it through no less than five episodes (so far? 🤔) about a gadget that I never even knew existed is simply because it's told with a lot of humour.
"...THAT kind of DISC picks..." 😂🤣
Actually, I think the CED showcases exactly what went wrong with RCA and why it did so. Looking into RCA's fabulous flub shows us how they died.
Just popping in to say I got a 1980's Eurythmics concert on DVD recently which had in the credits the fact the video was produced for RCA video discs. Good thing they produced it with a proper master because the DVD looked and sounded fantastic.
Having a player that could do Audio OR Video might have been the way to go, licencing MTV content (either way) for example
I suppose if they had thought , using it as a loader for computer games or the TV games consoles might have been an addition - Indeed why didnt RCA licence in the IBM PC as a domestic unit at a lower price into their sales channels - might have halted the rise of compaq and so on.
@@highpath4776 JVC had the VHD (Video High Density) system which was a rip off of the RCA CED (except most of the kinks were ironed out) and it was going to also play digital music and even video games. See Techmoan's video here th-cam.com/video/fKLwAwIfZT4/w-d-xo.html and if you like that, be sure to watch his follow up video about the US market.
@@highpath4776 Nah, by the 80s they were using cartriges for games and really such a massive disk is not very comfortable for games, also there isn't really and random access on a spinning disk like this, since the needle is going through the groove, it can't really jump from place to place like a CD or DVD does and a Cartrige has the best random access of all these formats, since games require at least some random access, since they aren't linear code after all, I don't think you can make it work, unless you could store the complete game into the RAM of the video game console, which in the 80s, wasn't cheap to do.
And because of the fact that games became increasinly more complicated, it wouldn't be sustainable anyways and probably wouldn't result in anything but a minor footnote.
Oh I miss Eastern Air Lines! I have many happy memories of Eastern from when I was itsy bitsy whether it was flying on them to see my grandparents or picking my dad up at the Eastern gate (as we once could) when he'd return from trips.
8:57 "it's ja-FRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHH" 🤣 that bit just made me snort coffee.
The CED system didn't sink RCA but the company had several years of lackluster earnings
with some parts of the company becoming more valuable than the company as a whole.
When Thornton Bradshaw was brought in to replace Griffith, many employees realized
they weren't going to be retiring from RCA (or GE). Bradshaw prepared the body for burial.
GE was lusting after the National Broadcasting Company and RCA's defense business so
a deal was struck. GE pretty much sold off everything but the 2 mentioned divisions.
As GE itself was getting out of consumer electronics, they sold off that portion of the
business (along with their own consumer electronics business) to Thompson Electronics .
RCA Victor Records went to BMG. Semiconductors went to Fairchild.
One may forget but in the 1970's and 1980's the Japanese were a buzz saw in consumer
electronics with their lower manufacturing costs. American companies could not compete
and many left the field altogether.
Now the Japanese companies are dealing with the buzz saw called China, having a great deal
of difficulty competing with China's lower costs.
As a person viewing the death of RCA from the bottom (so to speak), I can only agree. I joined the company in 1980 as an Electronics Specialist (union job), and watched as Bradshaw handed the company over to GE. It took 20 years, but I saw how it all disassembled.
Yes, if the CED project had been handed to Indianapolis sooner, it might have worked out, but I think the corporate heads would have found a way to kill the company anyway.
Technology Connections: This is a 3 part series
Also Technology Connections: hold my CED player
Launched in 1981, CED was beaten to market by Teletext, colour interactive digital television, by ~7 years.
The longer this series goes on the funnier RCA's struggle to make CED lmao.
Fun story about Matsushita relating to RCA. Despite being financially involved, JVC still considered Matsushita a competitor and licensed VHS to them to produce VCRs. The problem was the LP speed. Matsushita added that feature at RCA's request but without JVC's blessing. JVC wasn't happy and none of their VCRs would record to that LP bastard format that some licensee created without their blessing. So what did JVC do? They created the EP speed that ran the tape even slower and still didn't support LP speed recording! Back in the 80's it became obvious who the OEM of a VHS VCR was just based on the tape speeds available. Matsushita's decks were much more popular and for some reason they were much more tolerant of sloppy tape quality (they could track even the lousiest tape while JVC's decks were much more prone to playback issues).
So in the end, tapes had three speeds for the same reason records did: a minor format war that's been all but forgotten.
Interestingly enough EP heads early on were standard 2 head machines with a so-called "jack of all trades" video head that was compatible with both SP & EP speeds, it was good enough but covered only half of the tape of a true SP rated head, so they would often track horrible on bad quality tape or badly recorded content. This also mattered when recording with these same 2-head EP rated VCR's before 4-head machines came along, playing back in a SP/LP rated machine would often cause playback issues. I think it was more about EP heads being 35 micron while SP heads were much larger. They later refined EP heads to be 19 micron on 4 head machines.
Thanks to all the patreon supporters of the channel, thanks for finding him so he can bring this wonderful informative and entertaining videos. And ofcourse the creator for his time and efforts.
"Part 5 of this 3 part series" LOL cracked me up. Great series btw glad you made it. Thank you sir.
I was introduced to this channel by episode 1 of this series. It's been a genuinely enthralling run, watching your commentary on RCA's downfall (which I had no idea about). I've subscribed because of the stellar production value here and in your other content as well. Genuine content creators deserve more support now than ever, and I'm proud to call you one of them which I support. Thanks for the great series, and I can't wait to see what other bizarre stuff you can get your hands on!
you are in for a treat , so much material his channel has , even if you stay within the last 2 years worth of content he has a ton of it that is good quality , the really old stuff is ok but you can tell when he really go serious as the quality of his work grew exponentially
I legit avoided looking at the comments because of spoilers for part 6's existence.
0:28 The blinking 'L' made me laugh
I actually really enjoyed learning about the history of the the company, not just the technology. Maybe the history/rise and fall of technology companies could be a new avenue for your videos.
Clearly the labs needed to hire some engineers as well as scientists. Engineers are for iterating on existing technologies.
Engineers are for duct taping the theory onto the reality and spraying that shit with wd40 till it works.
@@batt3ryac1d That's what I said.
@@krellend20 haha well played, gentleman
Nigel Cam importing from china was cheaper, but we got too overdependant, abandoned our manufacturing sector, and started our slow decent into where we are today
youtube did a clever thing recommending me part 1 when part 5 came out.
What a journey! Earlier this afternoon, I had never heard of this format. I really, really enjoyed this entire experience. Thank you for all of your hard work and research.
Fascinating series on the history of the CED. I love your channel. You are very articulate for the most part you make technology understandable for non-techies like me. Thank you!!
The CED trilogy of 5, much like the Douglas Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy was also a trilogy of 5
"The fifth [video] in the increasingly inaccurately named [CED] Trilogy"
Ah! Didn't read this far down at first. Ya beat me to it...
let's pretend Mostly Harmless never existed
Apparently Disney have already approached TC about doing a disappointing sequel series.
Will it be the first "straight to CED" title?
They're going to switch directors for each project, and after the only one with any ideas worth exploring pisses off the social injustice warriors the conclusion is going to undo everything interesting that the sequels made.
@@timothymclean you forgot to mention that it also has to undo everything the original video series did for cheap economic gain, destroying even the message of those videos, along with allowing maverick directors to go ham on a universe with established logic and showing characters making frankly ridiculously stupid decisions.
@@xmlthegreat I disagree with several of those assertions, but that doesn't seem like a productive diversion from this joke thread. So make some jokes, dammit.
...you know, the lack of explicit tone in TH-cam comments is gonna bite me in the ass if I don't explain that this is supposed to have a joking tone.
@@timothymclean you wanna hear a joke?
The Rise of Skywalker
Thanks Alec! That was an amazing documentary series. Really appreciate the depth and detail you go into.
Just finished, thank you for delivering such an interesting and extremely well thought-out series. Really appreciate the hard work and effort you put into this!
You're a monster for getting me to care about CEDs for four extra videos lol
Frodo: "It's done. It's finally over"
Narrator: "It wasn't."
Good job! You've done it!
Thanks so much for slogging through all this because I'm certain it wasn't a fun experience sorting through all of the twists of this story, let alone the actual recording and sourcing the footage for the production.
I loved, loved, loved this series. I am so impressed with your ability to make a complicated and potentially boring subject exciting and worth watching.
I want to see a Technology Connections / LGR Tech Tales collab!
Umm, LGR does computer hardware, TC does consumer electronics.
@@DavidChipman Umm, yeah, that's kind of the point.
@@RCAvhstape my point was given there different subject areas, I wasn't sure what they'd collaborate on. Increased use of computing (mostly micro-controllers, I'd imagine) in consumer electronics?
@@DavidChipman They're smart, they'd figure it out.
@@RCAvhstape fair enough. On the face of it, I just wasn't seeing it.
My wife is very tired of me lying in bed listening to the history of the CED lol
She's not interested in disc pics? 🤔
@@andrewgwilliam4831 🤣
Man, this entire series about a format I had not known existed prior had me totally enthralled. Really good stuff!
This group of five videos is the best and most detailed and carefully documented story of the RCA company I have seen on the Internet. The videodisc is just an anchor to the timeline of the story.
Thank you!
PS - I know for sure the delay were caused by the excessive amount of discrete components needed for the digital portion of the design. Dozens of logic gates, counters and decoders initially made exclusively with transistors, while the integrated circuits - invented for the Apollo Guidance Computer - were becoming commercially available, radically changing the design while keeping the functions...
The series needs to be published on CED. :-)
"Beta in the backroom", "Disk Pics", "Conceived as the sequel" lmao
I feel so accomplished watching all five installments 👏 thank you so much for all the good work put into this!
This is literally the most complete dive in into RCA's history and the video disc format. Great work as always and keep them coming 👍🏼