Does CED look good? How often do you get bad ones?is rot an issue? Have you witnessed discs in your collection wearing down and getting worse over time?MOST importantly how long does it take for them to wear down?

for me when i had one it looked like VHS, there is no rot but there will be some skipping if the disc is older.
i think you have over 10,000 or more plays per disc, so if you watch that disc enough it will wear out

also it's the stylus that you need to repair/replace from time to time.
it's a fun format if you have the space, i didn't so i sold the player and few discs i had.

check out that CED web site, they have lots of info.
good luck !!

I don't have the player, but my neighbor did when I was a kid, and it was really cool. The TV he played it on wasn't anything compared to modern TV sets, so I couldn't tell the difference between it and a VHS tape except seeing him loading either one. I have 18 CEDs, but no intention on getting the player. I just think the disc-caddy looks cool, like a GIANT computer disc

It does not look good at all. About the quality of *early* VHS (can't compare to 90s HiFi, post-HQ VHS).

There is no rot though, at least not in the way that LD rots. You might very well find some where mold has taken off inside the cases, which is death. You can't just Windex off a CED like you can an LD.

The players are going to be your main concern. They're...not well made. If you decide to get into the format then save yourself a lot of time and just get a refurbished one from one of the guys that does this.

so sign,

for the FEW titles that even tempt me to consider CED at this point,your saying a clean VHS copy is a better way to go..

if you have a VCR already i would.
it's not that hard to fix them but it's true, you're better off getting one working from one of the major sellers.

i bought my player broken, then had to buy belts and make a part that was cracked inside.
cost me total $60 and you can buy them for 100 perfect and working with no issues, and i'm sure the stylus is going to be good for a while.
it will be a little clearer than the VHS depending on use of the tape but not by much, that's what i feel.

also i feel that i was better off just buying the few titles on copy DVD from sellers than keeping the CED.

I got into CED when the format was first released in March 1981 and had players from every generation right up until the shutdown.

CED produced 240 lines of luma resolution and 30 lines of chroma. It was a a bit sharper than VHS, but the 'overall' picture looked like an LP (4 hour) mode tape recording, and the edges of objects often have moving diagonal lines or serrated edges on them due to the pre-encoding comb filtering of the luma which reduces diagonal resolution for certain angles. That was done to dig out a 'notch' in the luma to fit the chroma within - the so-called 'buried subcarrier' system. It had to be used because the bandwidth of the capacitance disc was not wide enough to carry an unaltered NTSC signal. The VHD system used the buried subcarrier system too, but buried the chroma higher in the spectrum and used much more precise digital comb filters during encoding so the artifacts from the process are minimal to none.

CED's stereo audio is about like that of an FM stereo radio broadcast with audible ticks and pops whenever a drop out appears on screen. It's mono audio performance is similar the bad AM radio or a well worn 45 RPM record, with all kinds of noise.

If well taken care of, CED discs really don't wear out - the styluses will need replacing after about 2000 hours (that applies only to RCA players which used a diamond stylus - non-RCA players often used sapphire styluses that only last about 500 hours). CED discs should always be stored on their edges, like LP's and LaserDisc's, NEVER flat on their face or backs - and especially never stack them flat - the weight of the stack causes the caddies to bend and scratch the center of the discs. You can lay them flat for short periods, but no flat stacking because you will destroy them.

If you get new, still shrink wrapped discs today they might need several plays to playback without skipping since the silicone lubricant tends to thicken and playback cuts a fresh path through it. The ONLY good CED players that don't skip all the time are the auto-loading RCA SJT and SKT series of players. The best is the SJT/SKT-400 interactive model. I have two of them (and their required remotes) plus all the interactive games and it's a great player. Discs don't skip unless truly damaged. The 400's freeze frame and interactive features are wonderful, and the games, some of which were started for LaserDisc then switched to CED when Pioneer didn't really support their development, are a lot of fun to play.

CED collecting is fun, but not to own reference letterbox copies of movies - they are fun to collect for what they are, a failed attempt at a low cost videodisc system.

What would those titles even be?

Except for the interactive games, I can't think of anything released on CED that wasn't also on VHS/Beta, LaserDisc or DVD. Of the interactive games on CED, only the two Mystery Disc titles were also on LaserDisc. A few NASA Space Discs were also on CED in addition to their LaserDisc releases.

Oh, the demo discs wouldn't be on any other format, although the opening bumper for early stereo CED titles "An RCA SelectaVision VideoDiscs Presentation" is also on LaserDisc and looks amazing.

the only two i know of are:
american hot wax.
devil and daniel mouse, but only the first cartoon was released on DVD the others have not been, but are not that great anyway.

If I had good copies of either disc I'll bet I could make great DVD's of them - especially using Faroudja's comb filter with chroma bandwidth expansion which would make the color look like it has much higher resolution and much sharper. I use LAST Factory's StyLAST on my CED stylus before playing a disc I'm going to record and it makes a great difference in the recovered picture quality - the capacitance detector gets a signal with less noise which demodulates into a cleaner picture with fewer artifacts and drop outs in the image.

As a side note about the very related VHD format - if the VHD Video Disc system had made it and been introduced into the US market, JVC was planning on introducing high end VHD players that used a laser to play the disc instead of the broad, flat stylus. So low end players would continue to use a stylus and high end players would use a laser. VHD discs were recorded with lasers like LaserDisc anyway, so it wasn't a big jump to using them for playback. JVC even engineered VHD to carry the Hi-Vision MUSE format.

Oh man, the Devil and Daniel Mouse...I saw that on TV when I was little. I'd like to see it again.

Not exactly a reason to get into CED though.

it's on the rock and rule 2 DVD set

Mick Fleetwood - The Visitor seems to have only been released on the CED format. As he was signed to RCA at the time as a solo artist I wonder if that was the reason why.

There are a few other music CEDs that are not available on LD but are available on other formats like VHS like Go-Go's - Totally Go-Go's.

I got Totally Go Go's when RCA released it on disc - what a great concert it was... I wonder how much coke fuled it? And how many acts of statutory rape occurred that night with the HS students?

Oh hell, I'm totally getting that. Why don't I own it already?

EDIT: Aparently there is a Bluray. I'll be getting that for sure.

Some of the music CED are still the only full version. I remember the Grover Washington JR on CED that I used to have. I was excited to get the laserdisc for it only to find out it was missing a song that the CED had.

Fleetwood Mac Mirage Tour CED was another one that got songs chopped on the USA laserdisc. The CED being 80 mins and the USA laserdisc only 57 mins.

I saw this title on CED at a thrift store about a year ago: In Praise of Older Women

Doesn't seem to be on LD, but it is on DVD.

Of all the CED covers I've seen, and I have a few hundred, that is the CED-ist.

There's about a hundred regular feature films on CED not released on LD in the USA, some are on PAL LD, such as Taps and Legend of the Lone Ranger. Of course I'm not considering the unique to CED titles that promote the CED system.

My CED player, SKT 400, looks as good as any of the newer 90s VHS tapes and Beta too, but not quite as good as LD of course. Still, on a proper TV set, they will look just fine. On the Sony 34" WEGA, they look as good as anything else on the 4:3 setting, as is typical with the smaller screen size. On the Pioneer 64" CRT rear projector, they look super for being such a large screen, but that's mostly due to the Pioneer set's capabilities. On newer sets, I would say the Sharp aquos LCD set does CED well, but most plasma sets do not for some reason.

I used to suggest to interested persons to go ahead and try out CED, but no longer. If you're not adept at doing repairs and mechanics/electronics are beyond you, then I would say don't bother with it. A CED player is easier to repair and maintain than a VHS player, but you can get good VHS players for so little now, that's not really an issue.

The only way I'd suggest you get one is if you have such and interest in the format that you must try it, then go ahead. It is quite fun to see these things work and play a movie on a vinyl disc, especially the SJT/SKT models.