CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 7

CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 7 • 2/14/1998
From: Bill Vermillion 
Subject: Re VHD
To: ceds@teleport.com (Tom Howe)
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 09:59:02 -0500 (EST)

In  CED Digest Vol. 3 No. 6  2/6/1998

>   [Accompanying the article was a picture of the
> mentioned Panasonic VHD player.  It appears to be quite
> similar in size to the early CED players and even has
> a small door on top for access to something inside--no
> stylus with this format, though.  There's a VHD disc
> beside the player and it appears about eight inches
> square and three-quarters of an inch thick.]

The VHD was a capacitance system, as was the CED.   The CED used
the grooved surface to move the arm/stylus combination, while the
VHD used and embeded servo track.

I believe RCA's thinking at the time was the mechanical movement
instead of servo would be cheaper.  However we now know it was less
reliable.

I saw the VHD demoe'd at an AES (Audio Engineering Society) show in
NYC about 1980/81.

The disks were 10" as I recall.  They were groovless and had a
'sled' intead of a stylus, and the above mentinoed embed servo
tracks drove the motors that moved the sled across the disk.

The demo was interesting in that the VHD was a 4 channel system.
The channels could be audio or video.    It's been well over 15
years ago that I saw that, but the demo was a film with 3 channels
of sound.  One of the ways the channels could have been used was to
have 3 channels of video and one of sound, to emulate the
multi-screen slide show presentations that were so popular in that
era.

In the end the VHD was never introduced to America, but I recall
that it survived for a fairly long period in Japan, being used in
the educational market.  

The engineering design was superior to RCA's approach (IMO).

The interesting mention in the included paragraph above was the it
was a Panasonic player.  I seemed to recall that it was JVC who had
done much of the research in the VHD market.

My memory of the VHD demo I saw was that it was in a suite in NYC,
and also show was a digital cassette format and a very realist 3-D
(excuse that term) sound system.

THe digital cassette was the same shape/size of the Philips Compact
Cassette and ran for approximately 90 minutes in one direction.
(That was only a dozen or so years before the DCC debacle circa
1995).   THe  audio demo had a fly/bee buzzing around and it appear
to go behind you.  This was with a 2 speaker system, but listener
placement was highly critical, as in similar systems later from
Carver and Q-Sound.

Bill

-- 
bill@bilver.magicnet.net | bill@bilver.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: DOEck
Date: Sun, 8 Feb 1998 17:28:58 EST
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: CED movies

I am interested in selling all my CED movie collection of 120+.
I need any type of information concerning this, about where to advertise,
etc...

Thanks,

Mike Eckert

------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Kyleisus
Date: Mon, 9 Feb 1998 23:01:17 EST
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: Service for CED player

I am trying to find someone who will service my CED player in the 
Phoenix Arizona area.  Any ideas?

Thanks.

kyleisus@aol.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Wed, 11 Feb 1998 19:11:20 -0800
From: Neil Wagner 
To: *CED Digest <ceds@teleport.com>
Subject: Videodisc History, Part 15

>From the November 1981 "Popular Science" Special on
Home Electronics --

The coming record revolution: digital discs
by Leonard Feldman
======================================================
A laser "reads" the compact, no-wear disc to deliver
superior hi-fi.
------------------------------------------------------

[The crux of this article is a discussion of the forth-
 coming introduction of Compact Discs to the masses.
 However, in a few points, quoted here, the article
 touches on technology used by RCA's videodisc system
 and its contemporary competitors.]

  While the Philips-Sony [Digital Audio Disc] system is
based on optical laser technology, Telefunken of West
Germany has been demonstrating a different groove-type
disc system.  A mechanical pickup stylus traces digital
information contained in the spiral groove.  It now seems
unlikely, however, that Telefunken's system will be
accepted as a world standard, or even be offered to the
public in the near future.
  That leaves one other system, based on a grooveless disc
that uses a pickup to sense minute changes in disc capaci-
tance.  This DAD was developed by JVC as a companion to
its VHD (video high density) disc player for TV, slated
for marketing early next year.  JVC's audio-disc system
uses the videodisc player with an extra plug-in adapter.
.............

  The second digital audio-disc system we're likely to see
next year is AHD (audio high density), developed by JVC
with its videodisc.  This format carries audio information
as multiple rows of pits arranged in spiral tracks on discs.
The disc rotates at a constant 900 rpm.  A diamond pickup
stylus with a metallic section glides along the surface of
the grooveless disc, guided by additional tracking signals
located alongside the audio tracks.  AHD discs are made with
an electroconductive plastic.  The stylus reads millions of
tiny pits as changes in capacitance.  This information is
translated into digital signals and then into hi-fi audio
signals.  Discs are 10.2 inches in diameter and are auto-
matically loaded from a protective case slipped into the
player.
  JVC says it plans to market its videodisc player, used to
play AHD digital discs, at a price that's competitive with
the $500 capacitance-type video machines made by RCA and
others.  But it has not said how much the additional digital
audio processor will cost.

-- 
Neil - nw@ix.netcom.com

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Fri, 13 Feb 1998 21:53:45 -0600
From: Geoff Oltmans 
To: ceds@teleport.com
Subject: FS: Toshiba VP-100 

I have a Toshiba VP-100 player for sale. It works quite well (especially
after I just changed the turntable belt).

The player is in great shape...there are a few scratches, but nothing
major...the needle has a nice sharp point to it.

Make an offer!

*Geoff!*

-- 
Geoff Oltmans - geoffatsprynetdotcom - filthy spammers!
Kernal = Keyboard Entry Read Network and Link
http://home.sprynet.com/sprynet/geoff
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