Article 'Meet the VHD, a failed LaserDisc competitor and the biggest **** floppy disk ever' - PC Gamer

[UsandThem]

https://www.pcgamer.com/meet-the-vh...etitor-and-the-biggest-damn-floppy-disk-ever/

Strip off the VHD's plastic shell, and what you'll find on the inside is, believe it or not, vinyl. As in, like, vinyl records. LPs. The same stuff that was dying, in the 1980s, as the CD took over the music industry. That vinyl disc is actually used to store video—hence the format's full name, Video High Density—at a quality even better than the LaserDisc

Here's something I never knew existed before reading this article. It's pretty funny to think some of these funky products were ever approved to be made in the first place.

 

[ElFenix]

i was shocked (well, more like a bit disbelieving) when i learned that laser disc is an analog format

bubble era japan was an interesting place

 

[DrMrLordX]

There was a similar product I was studying last weekend. Hold on, what was it . . . oh yeah! RCA Selectavision:

 

[bbhaag]

There was a similar product I was studying last weekend. Hold on, what was it . . . oh yeah! RCA Selectavision:

It's funny you posted that video. After reading UsandThems link I went down the rabbit hole so to speak and ended up watching all three parts of the video you posted. It's very well done and not only does he talk about the CED and the thought process behind it but he goes very in depth about the history of RCA. Which in and of itself is a captivating story.

It's a fascinating story that ends with the question of what might have happened if the CED made it to market in a timely fashion instead of spending decades in development and ending up having to compete with the VCR.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I may have held one of these monstrosities in my hand around 1987.
Friend of a friend was really into animation and I remember him having something like a big floppy drive that had anime on both sides of the “disc”.
If I remember correctly he had someone mail it from Japan to him. Something about it didn’t work but I forgot what it was. Maybe the power cord adaptor or video input?

 

[DrMrLordX]

It's funny you posted that video. After reading UsandThems link I went down the rabbit hole so to speak and ended up watching all three parts of the video you posted. It's very well done and not only does he talk about the CED and the thought process behind it but he goes very in depth about the history of RCA. Which in and of itself is a captivating story.

The guy has a really good channel. I'm looking forward to the fourth and (probably) final installment in the series.

It's a fascinating story that ends with the question of what might have happened if the CED made it to market in a timely fashion instead of spending decades in development and ending up having to compete with the VCR.

It's possible that legal recording of publicly-broadcast shows might never have happened the way it did (as mentioned in the videos). It also would possibly have killed Laserdisc. I remember seeing some of the CEDs in their caddies at a friends house as a kid, and I wondered to myself exactly what those were. Nobody ever used them while I was at that friends house that I could tell. They even had a CED with Rocky & Bullwinkle episodes on it.

 

[IronWing]

My dad bought the Zenith Video Disc Player (CED) because he thought that the VCR manufacturers were sure to lose the OTA recording lawsuit and he didn't want to buy into a doomed format.

The Zenith was an elegant machine with a simple user interface and it worked for 20+ years.

 

[Oyeve]

Ha! I still have my CED player and my laserdisc player. Hell, I even have my old Betamax VCR! Still use the LD player as I have many great titles on it still. I hated CED as it skipped and looked like crap IMO.

 

[DrMrLordX]

LaserDisc was amazing when it worked. I saw Akira for the first time on LaserDisc. Mind was blown.