RCA VideoDisc Universal Product Codes

RCA VideoDisc Universal Product Codes

Barcode scanners, credit card readers, and other hardware at National Barcode.

Nearly all RCA VideoDiscs have a universal product code, printed in bar code and numeral format on the back of the caddy. This UPC uniquely identifies each title released in the CED format. The only titles listed in the CED Title Database that lack a UPC on the caddy are the service test disc, the service alignment disc, and the N.F.L. Football arcade discs. RCA test pressings, which were put in plain unlabeled caddies, also lack UPC's. The universal product code used on CED's is the same 12-digit format used in grocery stores, and consists of the following fields:

A single first digit specifying the coding assignment.
A 5-digit manufacturer number assigned by the Uniform Code Council.
A 5-digit product number assigned by the manufacturer.
A single check sum digit.

The UPC codes included in the CED Title Database are all 11 digits long. This is because the first digit on CED's is always a zero, which is normally dropped by bar code scanners like the one I used to scan the UPC's into the database. The number that appears under the bar code on the disc caddy is only ten digits long, because the leading zero is printed off the left side of the barcode, and the check sum digit is never shown.

With multi-part CED titles there are two ways UPC's are used to distinguish the individual discs. Most titles retained the same 5-digit product number on all discs, but added a 2-digit supplemental bar code to identify each disc. The supplemental bar code is always 10 for part 1 and 20 for part 2, and none of the titles using supplemental bar codes consisted of more than two discs. A few titles used a different 5-digit product number on each disc. With these titles, the CED Title Database includes the complete UPC found on each individual disc.

There were fourteen 5-digit manufacturer numbers assigned by the Uniform Code Council for use on the CED's distributed in the retail channel, corresponding to the manufacturers in the following table. The Digital Convergence company that made the CueCat optical scanner no longer exists, but the CueCat links in the table go to the web sites that used to automatically load when the UPC on caddies with that manufacturer's number were scanned using the CRQ software included with the free CueCat scanner.

Manu. Number	CED Era Manufacturer	January 2002 CueCat Link
16476	New World Video	Undefined
24543	CBS/FOX Video	Fox Home Entertainment
25757	Warner Home Video	Undefined
26359	THORN EMI Video	HBO Store
26476	Family Home Entertainment	Undefined
27616	MGM/UA Home Video (mostly MGM or UA origin)	MGM Studios
28485	Vestron Video	Undefined
37757	Paramount Home Video	Undefined
42995	Embassy Home Entertainment	Nelson Entertainment
47897	MCA Home Video	Universal Studios
74643	MGM/UA Home Video (mostly CBS origin)	Sony
75051	Pacific Arts Video Records	Undefined
76476	RCA/Columbia Home Video	RCA
77080	RCA/PAL Home Video	Undefined

While scanning in the UPC's, I found one title with a misprinted code:

26351 on "Evil Under the Sun" (should be 26359)

Most CED titles print the 5-digit manufacturer (M) and product (P) codes under the UPC in the following format:

MMMMM PPPPP

But some titles have inserted dashes, that split up one or both codes, as in the following examples:

MMMMM-PPPP-P
MMMM-MPPPP-P

The CED Title Database always uses the format:

MMMMMPPPPPX

Where X is the checksum digit, which is the final set of stripes at the end of the UPC. The checksum digit is never printed in numeral format below the UPC.

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