WEBVTT Kind: captions Language: en 00:00:00.200 --> 00:00:01.620 [ soft rhythmic music ] 00:00:01.620 --> 00:00:02.380 [ chime ] 00:00:02.560 --> 00:00:03.380 [ chime ] 00:00:03.620 --> 00:00:05.820 [ chiiiiime ] 00:00:06.080 --> 00:00:07.820 [ oh, another chime ] 00:00:07.820 --> 00:00:09.120 [ whooshy sound ] 00:00:09.120 --> 00:00:11.400 [ drums kick in, with some horns ] 00:00:11.500 --> 00:00:13.980 [ good lord this is getting pretty ambitious ] 00:00:14.440 --> 00:00:17.200 [ woah, rainbow horns ] 00:00:18.580 --> 00:00:21.140 [ THIS IS SO CONFIDENT I LOVE IT ] 00:00:21.400 --> 00:00:23.320 [ and now the video glitches like crazy because CED ] 00:00:23.820 --> 00:00:27.040 Yeahh… things didn’t quite go as planned, did they? 00:00:27.040 --> 00:00:31.340 Welcome to part 2 of our exploration into the CED, 00:00:31.340 --> 00:00:35.660 RCA’s very strange yet still somehow marketed videodisc system which effectively 00:00:35.670 --> 00:00:40.930 used vinyl records to store up to 2 hours of video. We went over its history and a bit 00:00:40.930 --> 00:00:46.170 of the context surrounding why RCA was bothering to do this in part one, so if you haven’t 00:00:46.170 --> 00:00:49.560 seen that, you may want to consider clicking that clicky thing up there. 00:00:49.560 --> 00:00:51.460 Anyway, let’s get on … 00:00:51.640 --> 00:00:53.380 [ video glitches uncontrollably] 00:00:54.440 --> 00:00:54.940 [THUD] 00:00:54.940 --> 00:00:55.780 ...get on with the show. 00:00:55.780 --> 00:01:00.080 We’ll begin by taking a closer look at this player, as well as the device that RCA thought 00:01:00.091 --> 00:01:04.260 was too complicated to manufacture despite the fact that they were selling them already. 00:01:04.260 --> 00:01:08.640 On a fundamental level, the RCA videodisc player is merely a record player. 00:01:08.640 --> 00:01:13.630 It has a bit of a funky pickup, as well as an automated “tonearm” if you will, but it’s still 00:01:13.630 --> 00:01:19.050 just a spinning disc with a needle tracking a spiral groove. An insanely tiny groove on 00:01:19.050 --> 00:01:24.160 an insanely delicate disc, but with the engineering complexities devoted to the disc manufacturing 00:01:24.160 --> 00:01:28.270 process and not the player, it was thought that it could have perhaps might have been 00:01:28.270 --> 00:01:32.990 maybe a good idea maybe possibly. As a matter of fact, in an early demonstration of the 00:01:32.990 --> 00:01:38.340 system, Richard Sonnenfeldt, the Vice President of VideoDisc Operations put it simply; 00:01:45.980 --> 00:01:51.820 And that’s exactly how it panned out. These discs are marvels or precision manufacturing, 00:01:51.820 --> 00:01:56.260 but the players are mainly just a bunch of off-the-shelf parts. The most complicated 00:01:56.260 --> 00:02:01.640 bit of the player is how it manages fine tracking control. I briefly showed you the visual search 00:02:01.640 --> 00:02:06.031 function and explained that an electromagnet can move the stylus with fine control, but 00:02:06.031 --> 00:02:11.340 I didn’t really explore that at all and I should because it is admittedly impressive. 00:02:11.340 --> 00:02:15.870 Look in the stylus compartment and you’ll see this pair of little coils. These are controlled 00:02:15.870 --> 00:02:19.980 by the player’s electronics in order to move the stylus, either to get it out of a locked 00:02:19.980 --> 00:02:26.020 groove situation, or to advance or retreat across the disc’s surface for visual search. You’ll also 00:02:26.020 --> 00:02:30.370 see this little solenoid which can lift the stylus off the surface of the record. 00:02:30.370 --> 00:02:34.890 And it does a surprisingly good job. With a disc in good condition, the visual search 00:02:34.890 --> 00:02:41.190 is very fluid. Strikingly so. Way better than any VCR ever managed, and practically as good 00:02:41.190 --> 00:02:46.280 as the butter-smooth search of a CAV laserdisc. The only thing you’ll occasionally notice 00:02:46.280 --> 00:02:51.520 is some screen-tearing since there are multiple frames encoded with each rotation of the disc. 00:02:51.520 --> 00:02:56.280 But since the concept of screen-tearing was, I’m pretty sure, not even a recognized phenomenon 00:02:56.280 --> 00:02:58.430 in 1981, well who cares? 00:02:58.430 --> 00:03:02.880 I believe the reason it works so well is precisely because the discs have the synchronization 00:03:02.880 --> 00:03:08.190 signals hard-coded onto them, and their speed is constant. Even if the stylus skips into 00:03:08.190 --> 00:03:12.930 the next track mid-frame, it doesn’t interrupt the video signal at all because each adjacent 00:03:12.930 --> 00:03:18.650 track is EXACTLY four frames ahead or behind, down to the precise location on the scanline. 00:03:18.650 --> 00:03:23.220 So even though it lacks the fine control of a laser-optical system, the effect is exactly 00:03:23.220 --> 00:03:24.220 the same. 00:03:24.220 --> 00:03:28.140 That’s pretty much the only impressive thing about how the player works, though. 00:03:28.140 --> 00:03:31.820 Everything else is cost-optimized as far as possible. 00:03:31.820 --> 00:03:34.580 Were you looking for a composite video output? 00:03:34.580 --> 00:03:35.280 NOPE. 00:03:35.280 --> 00:03:38.660 Too expensive. Ya get RF out only, suckers. 00:03:38.660 --> 00:03:41.040 As mentioned before, the turntable motor is 00:03:41.040 --> 00:03:46.100 just a bog-standard AC motor and drives it with a belt, though I should note that later 00:03:46.100 --> 00:03:50.940 models had a direct-drive turntable that could stop itself in a defined position to allow 00:03:50.940 --> 00:03:54.610 for a fancier disc loading operation. But more on that later. 00:03:54.610 --> 00:03:59.720 My favorite cost-cut has to do with the mechanism which moves the stylus carriage. Notice how 00:03:59.720 --> 00:04:04.740 the function lever engages this felt clutch. When the lever is in the load position, the 00:04:04.740 --> 00:04:10.770 mechanism which moves the carriage is entirely disengaged. Why? Well, because they used the 00:04:10.770 --> 00:04:15.720 action of you insterting the caddy to move the carriage back to the start point. 00:04:15.720 --> 00:04:16.660 It’s... 00:04:16.660 --> 00:04:17.960 a little violent. 00:04:18.340 --> 00:04:19.780 [ mechanical thunks and clunks of this incredibly refined disc loading system ] 00:04:20.100 --> 00:04:21.340 Look at that! It’s just… 00:04:21.860 --> 00:04:23.480 so inelegant. Just… 00:04:23.480 --> 00:04:24.180 WHAM! 00:04:24.820 --> 00:04:31.320 You can, with conscious effort, make this not-quite-as-bad if you slowly insert the caddy, but I mean… 00:04:31.330 --> 00:04:36.169 who was gonna bother with that? I will say, though, that if you for some reason are using one 00:04:36.169 --> 00:04:39.960 of these machines daily, you probably should make that effort. 00:04:39.960 --> 00:04:43.960 So anyway, once the stylus has been belligerently put back in its place, and you move the lever 00:04:43.960 --> 00:04:49.570 to play, the clutch re-engages and now the player has control over where the stylus lands. 00:04:49.570 --> 00:04:54.240 And the first thing it does it bump the carriage forward to hopefully find the start of the disc. 00:04:54.240 --> 00:04:58.030 Oh, and since I haven’t yet mentioned it, the disc is read from the outside in, 00:04:58.030 --> 00:05:02.919 like a normal record, and not from the inside out, like a Laserdisc and the vast vast majority 00:05:02.919 --> 00:05:06.210 (if not all) of its optical disc offspring. 00:05:06.210 --> 00:05:10.410 From here, the player just monitors the track signalling to be on the lookout for problems. 00:05:10.410 --> 00:05:14.210 If the user doesn’t press any buttons, it’s just gonna bump the pickup forward every once 00:05:14.210 --> 00:05:18.570 in a while as the stylus tracks the disc. If it notices it’s in a locked groove, 00:05:18.570 --> 00:05:22.860 it will try to get itself out by kicking the stylus forward with that electromagnet. 00:05:22.860 --> 00:05:28.720 Unfortunately, as these machines have aged, the felt clutch and the belt on its motor have worn to the 00:05:28.720 --> 00:05:33.480 point where the carriage itself can get stuck, and the player wasn’t programmed with any 00:05:33.480 --> 00:05:39.010 way to rectify that. This can create the appearance of a badly damaged disc, when in fact it’s 00:05:39.010 --> 00:05:43.540 a problem with the player. To get out of this issue, you can use the rapid access buttons 00:05:43.540 --> 00:05:47.550 to move the carriage backwards, and then use visual search to get back to where you were. 00:05:47.550 --> 00:05:52.950 Now that’s a modern problem related to age, so I doubt it was an issue back in the day. 00:05:52.950 --> 00:05:57.210 And I want to point out that there is an optical encoder here that the player uses to monitor 00:05:57.210 --> 00:06:02.130 the carriage’s movement, but apparently this is only used for the rapid access function, 00:06:02.130 --> 00:06:05.780 as it barely turns at all under normal operation. 00:06:05.780 --> 00:06:08.220 Shame they couldn’t have made that a little more useful. 00:06:08.220 --> 00:06:12.720 You may have noticed that the player has a pause button. Well, instead of providing a 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:15.680 freeze-frame, that simply blanks the screen. 00:06:15.680 --> 00:06:18.860 On this television is shows a white screen, but that's the television doing that, 00:06:18.860 --> 00:06:19.740 not the player. 00:06:19.740 --> 00:06:22.479 Because there are four frames of video encoded 00:06:22.479 --> 00:06:27.100 with each rotation, it’s impossible for the player to provide a real freeze-frame 00:06:27.100 --> 00:06:33.070 without a frame buffer, and that would certainly not be possible cheaply in 1981. However, 00:06:33.070 --> 00:06:37.370 there was a mode called “page mode” which would lock the stylus and force it to read 00:06:37.370 --> 00:06:41.520 the same four frames over and over again, and it can be activated on this player by 00:06:41.520 --> 00:06:46.600 holding both the forward and reverse visual search buttons. This mode, though not officially 00:06:46.600 --> 00:06:51.540 supported with this player, could be used for navigating more advanced interactive discs, 00:06:51.540 --> 00:06:52.690 but more on that later. 00:06:52.690 --> 00:06:57.990 Now, we’ve basically covered everything this player can do. Remember, its goal wasn’t 00:06:57.990 --> 00:07:03.120 to be super exciting or to be particularly advanced. It was trying to be a modified record player, 00:07:03.120 --> 00:07:05.520 and to that extent - it is. 00:07:05.520 --> 00:07:07.280 Now let’s look at a VCR. 00:07:07.280 --> 00:07:10.480 This RCA VDT-600 is a Matsushita-built 00:07:10.490 --> 00:07:16.330 model introduced in 1979. Removing the case reveals right away there’s a lot more 00:07:16.330 --> 00:07:17.420 going on here. 00:07:17.420 --> 00:07:19.340 You’ve got your rotary video head drum. 00:07:19.340 --> 00:07:20.180 An erase head, 00:07:20.180 --> 00:07:20.925 an audio head, 00:07:20.925 --> 00:07:22.720 and a tracking pulse head. 00:07:22.720 --> 00:07:26.460 Moveable tape-guides are used to thread the tape around the drum. 00:07:26.460 --> 00:07:30.610 There's a capstan and pinch roller to move the tape across all these heads, which is done at three 00:07:30.610 --> 00:07:32.700 different speeds with this model. 00:07:32.700 --> 00:07:35.020 And there’s a lightbulb on a stick, 00:07:35.020 --> 00:07:37.540 which is used to detect when the tape has reached the end 00:07:37.540 --> 00:07:40.181 by shining a light through the cassette itself, 00:07:40.181 --> 00:07:43.380 through the clear tape leader, and out these holes on the side. 00:07:43.380 --> 00:07:45.229 All VHS machines detect the end 00:07:45.229 --> 00:07:49.000 of the tape optically, that’s the reason the ends of the tape are clear, but these 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:53.350 really early ones use an incandescent light bulb for the light source, rather than infrared 00:07:53.350 --> 00:07:55.130 LEDs of newer machines. 00:07:55.130 --> 00:07:58.699 All of that stuff is just part of the tape transport. I haven’t even mentioned the 00:07:58.699 --> 00:08:02.820 electronics which deal with the tape’s signals, how tracking is accomplished, the fact that 00:08:02.820 --> 00:08:06.440 the video heads are coupled through a rotary transformer, or the simple fact that the tape 00:08:06.440 --> 00:08:08.240 is being helically scanned. 00:08:08.240 --> 00:08:10.680 If you want to learn more about video tape technology, 00:08:10.680 --> 00:08:13.720 you can check out this much earlier video of mine, but be warned, 00:08:13.720 --> 00:08:15.770 it’s a much earlier video of mine. 00:08:15.770 --> 00:08:21.639 Anyway, now you can see why RCA thought the videodisc might still make sense. This VCR 00:08:21.639 --> 00:08:26.479 is horrendously complicated compared to a CED player, and it also lacks some useful 00:08:26.479 --> 00:08:31.389 features like a real time display or smooth visual search, with this particular VCR not 00:08:31.389 --> 00:08:36.199 having any sort of visual search function at all. And these things were not cheap to 00:08:36.199 --> 00:08:40.219 manufacture. The precision required to make the head drum and transport was pushing the 00:08:40.219 --> 00:08:44.930 limits of mass production at the time, so these machines were sold for outlandish prices, 00:08:44.930 --> 00:08:51.380 with this particular unit likely retailing for about $1,250, close to $5000 in today's money. 00:08:51.380 --> 00:08:55.520 Knowing that VCRs were outside the reach of many consumers, and also knowing about how 00:08:55.529 --> 00:09:01.209 difficult it must be to mass-produce pre-recorded tapes, RCA thought the CED would still have 00:09:01.209 --> 00:09:03.080 a meaningful place in the market. 00:09:03.860 --> 00:09:07.000 And they were… kinda right, for a while anyway. 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:12.490 Remember, both the CED as well as the Laserdisc were pioneers in home video, as although the VCR 00:09:12.490 --> 00:09:16.119 would eventually become the device you’d watch the latest flicks on, at this point 00:09:16.119 --> 00:09:20.660 in time it was simply too expensive to use $20 blank cassettes, spend a couple hours 00:09:20.660 --> 00:09:26.050 recording onto them, and sell them for a reasonable price. So, nobody knew how home video would 00:09:26.050 --> 00:09:29.580 be received. Nobody would know until somebody tried. 00:09:29.580 --> 00:09:34.410 And you could argue RCA’s experiment was the first successful attempt. Although MCA 00:09:34.410 --> 00:09:39.579 DiscoVision had gotten laserdiscs out earlier, it never got too much traction. RCA seems 00:09:39.579 --> 00:09:44.209 to have done a better job with licensing content, and while their discs certainly haven’t 00:09:44.209 --> 00:09:48.629 held up well over time, early laserdiscs were plagued with issues and a lot of mistakes were 00:09:48.629 --> 00:09:50.640 made learning to manufacture them. 00:09:50.640 --> 00:09:53.700 To their credit, though RCA took their sweet time getting this 00:09:53.709 --> 00:09:57.980 product to market, they did at least iron out all the kinks and release something that 00:09:57.980 --> 00:09:59.339 actually worked well. 00:09:59.340 --> 00:10:03.840 In fact, those who bought the players really liked them. They liked them so much that 00:10:03.840 --> 00:10:07.160 it's no wonder the average purchaser of this player 00:10:07.160 --> 00:10:11.620 is also buying from 20 to 30 of these discs 00:10:11.630 --> 00:10:13.940 in the very first year of ownership. 00:10:13.940 --> 00:10:17.149 That was surprising to RCA, in fact they were selling 00:10:17.149 --> 00:10:21.930 about twice as many discs per household as they had expected. Their goal of having the 00:10:21.930 --> 00:10:28.170 system in 50% of American homes by the end of the decade was incredibly optimistic, 00:10:28.170 --> 00:10:32.600 but they did produce over half a million players, and with the help of other OEMs, a total of 00:10:32.600 --> 00:10:35.350 about 750,000 players were produced. 00:10:35.350 --> 00:10:41.069 Still, it was clear early on that things weren’t going that well. Initially, they only sold about 00:10:41.069 --> 00:10:46.680 half as many players as anticipated, and the public at large seemed pretty apathetic. 00:10:46.680 --> 00:10:50.680 I mentioned in my video on Laserdisc that a large part of why it (laserdisc) never really 00:10:50.689 --> 00:10:56.129 took off was that home video was an entirely new, and completely foreign concept. On the 00:10:56.129 --> 00:11:00.149 other hand, a VCR which could record shows while you’re away, or which could record 00:11:00.149 --> 00:11:05.230 one show while you watch another, was a true problem-solver. RCA seems to have had better 00:11:05.230 --> 00:11:09.439 success with convincing the public to take a leap of faith into the land of home video than 00:11:09.439 --> 00:11:13.769 laserdisc did, but not nearly as much success as they needed. 00:11:13.769 --> 00:11:18.500 However, they didn’t abandon the project right away. They did make some improvements. 00:11:18.500 --> 00:11:20.880 Notice how this disc has a blue caddy. 00:11:20.880 --> 00:11:25.220 In the CED ecosystem, blue caddies usually mean the disc is in stereo, 00:11:25.220 --> 00:11:30.300 and later players were able to decode the stereo sound to be output over RCA jacks. 00:11:30.300 --> 00:11:33.800 And even on this mono player, you can tell that the sound quality could 00:11:33.800 --> 00:11:35.740 be quite good depending on the disc. 00:11:35.880 --> 00:11:37.880 STAR WARS!!!!! 00:11:40.760 --> 00:11:43.840 But I was going into Tosche Station to pick up some power converters! 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:46.180 Oh, and some later models did feature composite 00:11:46.190 --> 00:11:51.959 out, too. The much sleeker 2nd generation players had a semi-automated disc load mechanism, 00:11:51.959 --> 00:11:55.660 whereby you would only need to insert the caddy about ⅔ the way in, and it would take 00:11:55.660 --> 00:12:00.480 it from you, release the spine, and spit the empty caddy back out again for you to remove. 00:12:00.480 --> 00:12:04.320 Now, I used to have one of those players, and I’ll tell you that while it’s pretty cool, 00:12:04.320 --> 00:12:09.600 it dramatically slows everything down. Especially disc flips, since you have to wait 00:12:09.600 --> 00:12:14.379 for the stylus to return to the park position, have the player return the disc to the load 00:12:14.379 --> 00:12:18.420 position, and then once it finally lets you put the caddy back in, the motorized action 00:12:18.420 --> 00:12:22.920 prevents you from doing a quick one of these. Sadly, that player never worked right so I 00:12:22.920 --> 00:12:26.899 got rid of it years ago, but I’ve put some links in the description so you can see some 00:12:26.899 --> 00:12:28.549 of those players in action. 00:12:28.549 --> 00:12:31.060 Regardless of that little annoyance from the later players, 00:12:31.060 --> 00:12:34.239 RCA did plan on using the digitally-encoded position 00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:39.760 signals of the disc to enable things like true random access and discs with chapters. 00:12:39.760 --> 00:12:46.120 However, that never got far before RCA threw in the towel. In April of 1984, RCA formally 00:12:46.139 --> 00:12:51.069 abandoned the system, announcing players would no longer be manufactured. The remaining stock 00:12:51.069 --> 00:12:56.499 of players were sold at steep discounts, and people did buy them because RCA committed 00:12:56.500 --> 00:12:59.340 to producing discs for three more years. 00:12:59.340 --> 00:13:03.579 That’s right, RCA was so surprised with how many discs people were buying that they 00:13:03.579 --> 00:13:08.269 decided, well nobody’s buying new players, but at least those who own them are making 00:13:08.269 --> 00:13:14.089 us some decent money. Unfortunately they didn’t make it through to their three year commitment, 00:13:14.089 --> 00:13:18.970 not only because sales of the new discs started to fall as owners abandoned the format, but 00:13:18.970 --> 00:13:25.759 also because in a somewhat cruel case of irony, RCA was bought by their original owner, GE, 00:13:25.759 --> 00:13:31.429 in 1985 and swiftly broken to pieces. What was once a huge company with their hands in 00:13:31.429 --> 00:13:36.180 the buckets of communications, broadcasting, television, music, and at times even the military 00:13:36.180 --> 00:13:41.240 industrial complex, was now a bit of quick cash for GE, 00:13:41.240 --> 00:13:43.400 and a heaping pile of garbage. 00:13:43.400 --> 00:13:48.079 Although discs did in fact keep getting made for about a year after GE’s acquisition, 00:13:48.080 --> 00:13:50.560 by 1986 the format was officially dead. 00:13:50.840 --> 00:13:55.622 So. What went wrong? And what could have been had things gone better? 00:13:55.622 --> 00:14:01.640 Well, fundamentally what went wrong was that the system was delayed, delayed, and delayed further, 00:14:01.640 --> 00:14:03.480 until finally it was delayed again 00:14:03.480 --> 00:14:06.620 and subsequently delayed before its final delay happened 00:14:06.620 --> 00:14:13.290 before its eventual delayed released. RCA’s internal target was a 1977 release, though personally 00:14:13.290 --> 00:14:17.601 I think that might have been a little too late to be truly successful, so let’s just 00:14:17.601 --> 00:14:23.700 imagine they had managed to pull this off in only 11 years and get it out in 1975 00:14:23.700 --> 00:14:28.100 In 1975, there were basically no VCRs anywhere. 00:14:28.100 --> 00:14:32.540 Yeah, there had been these weird experimental things kicking around for a while, 00:14:32.540 --> 00:14:37.079 and I hear Sony’s getting ready to launch this new Betamax system, 00:14:37.080 --> 00:14:41.580 but you gotta be real dedicated to the idea of recording TV at this stage in the game. 00:14:41.580 --> 00:14:43.520 And fairly rich. 00:14:43.520 --> 00:14:48.220 But, here comes RCA with their fantastical videodisc! A player for 00:14:48.230 --> 00:14:53.580 only $500? And some of my favorite movies available to own for as little as $20? 00:14:53.580 --> 00:14:54.540 Hmm. 00:14:54.540 --> 00:14:55.640 That sounds intriguing. 00:14:55.640 --> 00:14:58.520 The magic of the RCA VideoDisc. 00:14:58.520 --> 00:15:01.280 A simple, affordable record that, like magic, 00:15:01.280 --> 00:15:04.200 can bring not just sound, but sound and pictures. 00:15:04.200 --> 00:15:07.160 Clear, beautiful pictures right into your living room. 00:15:08.420 --> 00:15:14.360 I would bet good money that if this system was out in 1975, it would have been a big deal. 00:15:14.360 --> 00:15:21.080 For one thing, in hindsight these discs and caddies are comical compared to a videocassette. 00:15:21.080 --> 00:15:24.720 But, in 1975 I suppose they wouldn’t seem too out of place. 00:15:24.720 --> 00:15:27.560 Music still comes on these things, 00:15:27.569 --> 00:15:32.040 and the videodisc is only marginally larger. By the way, I’m going to take this opportunity 00:15:32.040 --> 00:15:37.309 to admire how RCA used a circular theme in most of their artwork to really hammer home 00:15:37.309 --> 00:15:39.820 that there is in fact a disc in here. 00:15:39.820 --> 00:15:43.440 I sound sarcastic probably but honestly I love this aesthetic. 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:48.920 In 1975, this would have been the only way to turn your television into SelectaVision, 00:15:48.920 --> 00:15:50.540 and doesn’t that just sound neat? 00:15:50.540 --> 00:15:52.820 We’ve never had movies at home! 00:15:52.820 --> 00:15:54.780 You know what we’re gonna do? We’re gonna 00:15:54.780 --> 00:15:57.640 ♫ bring the magic home ♫ 00:15:57.640 --> 00:16:01.140 ♫ with RCA ♫ 00:16:01.140 --> 00:16:03.179 And it will be wonderful. 00:16:03.179 --> 00:16:08.619 The fact that RCA sold half a million players, and a few millions discs, 4 years after the 00:16:08.620 --> 00:16:13.240 VCR was pretty well introduced should prove in and of itself 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:15.920 that the idea was actually quite sound. 00:16:15.920 --> 00:16:22.580 So in a world where VCRs just... weren’t a thing yet this would probably be an extremely 00:16:22.589 --> 00:16:27.529 compelling product. And, with home video having proven itself before videocassette 00:16:27.529 --> 00:16:33.230 recorders truly became affordable, many people may have seen little reason to buy a VCR. 00:16:33.230 --> 00:16:35.529 At least, until they got really cheap. 00:16:35.529 --> 00:16:40.559 With a robust installed base of, maybe, 10 million units by 1980, blockbuster films in 00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:44.819 theaters could expect to make another $20 or $30 million after they’re on home video, 00:16:44.819 --> 00:16:49.819 and you just know movie studios would jump on that bandwagon real quick. With the greater 00:16:49.819 --> 00:16:54.579 manufacturing capacity financed by this successful system, RCA could start manufacturing more 00:16:54.579 --> 00:16:58.540 niche content like television shows, and maybe third-parties would get into making their 00:16:58.540 --> 00:17:01.470 own discs, and oh god this is horrible! 00:17:01.470 --> 00:17:04.610 If RCA had succeeded here, and everyone was 00:17:04.610 --> 00:17:09.420 selling their content to be owned on videodisc, would the VCR have been… 00:17:09.420 --> 00:17:11.080 outlawed? 00:17:11.080 --> 00:17:15.820 You might recall that there was a supreme court case on whether videocassette recorders violated 00:17:15.820 --> 00:17:20.420 copyright law, and we in no small part have this wonderful man 00:17:20.420 --> 00:17:23.240 [to thank, but Alec didn't say those words for some reason] for settling that with with an emphatic "no". 00:17:23.240 --> 00:17:25.960 Yes I know this disc is in horrible shape, but come on, I’m not gonna 00:17:25.960 --> 00:17:30.220 pass up an attempt to use this picture of Mr. Rogers on a videodisc, I mean duh. 00:17:30.220 --> 00:17:35.870 That case was settled in 1984, when it was clear that the CED was a disaster. But if CEDs 00:17:35.870 --> 00:17:40.650 had become successful, and everyone from television studios to independent filmmakers was putting 00:17:40.650 --> 00:17:47.890 their stuff on CED, then suddenly the case against time-shifting becomes a lot stronger. 00:17:47.890 --> 00:17:52.830 Of course you can’t tape your own TV shows, since NBC is gonna release that season next 00:17:52.830 --> 00:17:57.920 October. That would be infringing on their ability to make a profit, and we cannot have 00:17:57.920 --> 00:18:03.880 that oh no. As a matter of fact, movie studios kept on lobbying for some sort of legislative 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:08.260 action from Congress making time-shifting illegal, and the fact that they were making 00:18:08.260 --> 00:18:12.430 serious money from rentals and home video sales is cited as one of the main reasons 00:18:12.430 --> 00:18:14.940 Congress basically said buzz off. 00:18:14.940 --> 00:18:20.400 Though, to be fair, requesting that you buzz off seems to be Congress’s default strategy these days. 00:18:20.400 --> 00:18:26.200 That horrible hypothetical aside, a 1975 release would also have beaten Discovision to market, 00:18:26.200 --> 00:18:31.280 and I have a feeling Philips and MCA would just give up were that to have happened. See, 00:18:31.280 --> 00:18:35.740 though the existence of laserdisc was, I don't think, really hurtful to the CED, 00:18:35.740 --> 00:18:38.560 confusion between the two standards was definitely a thing, 00:18:38.560 --> 00:18:40.780 so having just one videodisc on the market 00:18:40.780 --> 00:18:45.970 would further help RCA. And, RCA didn’t repeat Sony’s mistake and be real stingy 00:18:45.970 --> 00:18:50.490 with the licensing of their tech. They were open to third party OEMs getting involved, 00:18:50.490 --> 00:18:55.950 in fact Hitachi, Sanyo, and Toshiba all manufactured third-party players, so it’s unlikely there 00:18:55.950 --> 00:19:00.460 would have been a VHS of discs to unseat RCA’s CED. 00:19:00.460 --> 00:19:05.500 Now, of course, RCA didn’t manage to get their product out in 1975. But they still 00:19:05.510 --> 00:19:10.150 thought it would be worth trying. Their thought that the cheap-to-make discs and inexpensive 00:19:10.150 --> 00:19:16.480 player would be a good value compared to a VCR wasn’t wrong. But they fundamentally 00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:19.680 misjudged something about the home video market. 00:19:19.680 --> 00:19:24.130 RCA basically forgot about the concept of rental. 00:19:25.040 --> 00:19:29.640 OK, "forgot" isn’t quite fair, but their research led them to believe that people 00:19:29.650 --> 00:19:35.399 would prefer to own a movie than rent a movie, and with that stuck in their heads, VCRs could 00:19:35.399 --> 00:19:36.880 never make sense. 00:19:36.880 --> 00:19:42.650 But of course, for the VCR, rentals were a perfect two birds one stone scenario. Pre-recorded 00:19:42.650 --> 00:19:46.240 VHS tapes are expensive and time-consuming to manufacture, sure, 00:19:46.240 --> 00:19:51.200 but if you’re renting them, well you’re spreading its use out between 10 or 20 people. 00:19:51.200 --> 00:19:52.620 And of course, that means you only need a 00:19:52.620 --> 00:19:57.040 tenth or a twentieth the number of tapes as you would if people were buying them, so tape 00:19:57.040 --> 00:19:59.900 duplication facilities don't need to be huge. 00:19:59.900 --> 00:20:06.090 Really, this was the one thing that RCA failed to imagine. Their product essentially 00:20:06.090 --> 00:20:10.380 relied on economies of scale and people wanting to buy their movies, 00:20:10.380 --> 00:20:14.000 and lots of them. That would in fact get expensive 00:20:14.010 --> 00:20:20.270 real quickly if you were buying pre-recorded VHS cassettes. But with a VCR, you could not 00:20:20.270 --> 00:20:25.400 only just pop down to your corner video store, and pay something like $5 to borrow a movie 00:20:25.400 --> 00:20:30.880 for the night, but you could also record TV while you were away. And once people started 00:20:30.880 --> 00:20:34.800 getting into that groove, they weren’t interested in RCA’s. 00:20:34.800 --> 00:20:36.370 God I love puns. 00:20:36.370 --> 00:20:41.020 Well. I didn’t think I was going to end up making three videos about this format… 00:20:41.020 --> 00:20:45.040 but it looks like I am. Before I end this one, though, have you noticed something about 00:20:45.050 --> 00:20:50.090 the CED? Those of you who know a thing or two about Laserdiscs will know that they come 00:20:50.090 --> 00:20:57.800 in two flavors, CAV and CLV. CAV discs only held 30 minutes per side, but CLV discs could 00:20:57.800 --> 00:21:02.080 hold an hour by slowing the rotational speed of the disc as it played, making use of a 00:21:02.080 --> 00:21:03.520 disc’s geometry. 00:21:03.520 --> 00:21:04.600 Well? 00:21:04.600 --> 00:21:06.680 CEDs are CAV! 00:21:06.680 --> 00:21:10.940 They spin at a constant speed of 450 RPM. And yet, 00:21:10.940 --> 00:21:12.720 they hold an hour per side. 00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:16.680 If RCA had said, you know what? We’re gonna make the players a bit more 00:21:16.690 --> 00:21:22.420 expensive by using a variable-speed motor, but at the same time we’ll get 2 hours of 00:21:22.420 --> 00:21:28.620 video on each side, I think that might have made the format work. They had incredible 00:21:28.620 --> 00:21:34.660 information density on these discs, but wasted a lot of potential by using a constant rotational speed. 00:21:34.660 --> 00:21:40.760 If they figured out constant linear velocity, two disc titles would essentially be eliminated, 00:21:40.760 --> 00:21:44.660 and most movies wouldn’t even need a flip in the middle! Double-feature specials could 00:21:44.660 --> 00:21:50.320 be sold, two classic films for $20! And, had television shows started to be released on 00:21:50.320 --> 00:21:55.200 CED, an entire season could fit across just 4 discs, with bonus footage! 00:21:55.200 --> 00:21:59.220 Look, it’s a little late, but if I had a time machine… 00:21:59.220 --> 00:22:02.200 I might just whisper some thoughts into somebody’s ears. 00:22:02.200 --> 00:22:07.500 For now, I hope you enjoyed part 2. I think it’s safe to say that had RCA just timed 00:22:07.510 --> 00:22:12.320 this a little better, the CED wouldn’t have failed. And I also think it’s a fair bet 00:22:12.320 --> 00:22:17.990 that had that happened, our media landscape would be quite different. Maybe VCRs wouldn’t 00:22:17.990 --> 00:22:23.560 be illegal, but you can bet that the home video scene would look nothing like it does today. 00:22:23.560 --> 00:22:26.800 Well, streaming is king today, so make that… 00:22:26.800 --> 00:22:28.260 But you can bet that the home video 00:22:28.260 --> 00:22:32.860 scene of the 1980’s and into the 2000’s would look nothing like it does today. 00:22:32.860 --> 00:22:38.280 In the third and (probably) final part, we’ll look at why RCA couldn’t get this product 00:22:38.290 --> 00:22:42.360 out in time. It turns out that story is a lot more involved than at first you might 00:22:42.360 --> 00:22:47.720 think. I’m waiting on materials to arrive, so I may do something entirely different next, 00:22:47.720 --> 00:22:51.940 but be sure to subscribe if you haven’t already so you won’t miss part 3. 00:22:51.940 --> 00:22:54.940 As always, I’d like to thank all of the wonderful people supporting this channel through 00:22:54.940 --> 00:22:59.490 Patreon, with special thanks going to the fine folks scrolling up your screen. It’s 00:22:59.490 --> 00:23:03.000 with the support of viewers like you that I can make videos like this, and I really 00:23:03.000 --> 00:23:06.520 appreciate your support. If you would like to join these people in supporting my work 00:23:06.520 --> 00:23:10.440 with a pledge of your own, you can check out my Patreon page through the link on the end 00:23:10.440 --> 00:23:14.600 screen, or in the description. Thanks for your consideration, and I’ll see you next time! 00:23:15.700 --> 00:23:18.240 ♫ regrettably smooth jazz ♫ 00:23:19.720 --> 00:23:22.020 ...and that would certainly nuh bu baa buh buh buh 00:23:22.020 --> 00:23:25.909 You may have noticed that the player has a pause button, well…. 00:23:25.909 --> 00:23:27.020 There was a noise. 00:23:27.020 --> 00:23:28.240 Over there. 00:23:28.240 --> 00:23:29.280 Cool. 00:23:29.280 --> 00:23:32.160 ...clear tape leader, and out these holes on the sides of the … 00:23:32.160 --> 00:23:33.740 woah! I skipped some words! 00:23:33.740 --> 00:23:37.420 The discs are marvels of pre… oh yeah. Hang on. 00:23:37.420 --> 00:23:40.500 This is going so incredibly well. 00:23:40.500 --> 00:23:42.160 So well. 00:23:42.160 --> 00:23:46.420 ‘Cause we’ve planned this all out. Definitely didn’t rush anything. 00:23:46.420 --> 00:23:48.552 Arrgh. Come on. 00:23:48.552 --> 00:23:51.100 Come on. Be a good little defeat device. 00:23:51.100 --> 00:23:52.380 [click] 00:23:52.380 --> 00:23:53.850 Thank you. 00:23:53.850 --> 00:23:57.180 Look at that, it’s just so… [gestures and flails really oddly] 00:23:57.180 --> 00:23:58.340 No. 00:23:58.340 --> 00:24:02.780 And also knowing about how difficult it must be - this is a very loud rattly cassette.