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CED in the History of Media Technology

In October 1983, RCA introduced the CED VideoDisc system in the United Kingdom. The players, such as the VIP201P, were all made by Hitachi, and the discs all used the "CED VideoDisc" logo, as RCA wanted to minimize the association of their name with the product abroad. PAL discs rotated at 375 RPM rather than the 450 RPM of their NTSC counterparts. With groove geometry being the same in both instances, this meant the PAL discs could hold 150 minutes of program material per disc. Thus there are no two-disc PAL/UK CED titles. RCA only released 272 titles in the PAL format, as the company announced the end of the CED system only six months after the UK introduction.

The above advertisement for the PAL CED system is interesting in that it shows the front panel of the VIP201P PAL player mated to the inner working of the SFT100 NTSC player. The VIP201P doesn't look anything like the SFT100 internally, as the pickup arm moves left-to-right in the Hitachi players, but top-to-bottom in the RCA players. The minute counter on the PAL Hitachi player stops at 75 minutes, while it stopped at 60 minutes on the NTSC Hitachi players.