WEBVTT - The Tale of the RCA VideoDisc 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:12.320 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:16.040 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:19.520 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:19.600 --> 0:00:23.720 tech are you? You know, nostalgia is a heck of 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:28.240 a thing. It's fairly typical for popular media to depict 0:00:28.280 --> 0:00:32.760 stuff from a generation earlier. You know, studios are catering 0:00:32.800 --> 0:00:37.000 to adults by reminding them of their childhoods. Plus, studios 0:00:37.000 --> 0:00:40.159 are run by people who are potentially thinking back to 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:43.440 their own childhoods and how much quote unquote better it 0:00:43.640 --> 0:00:46.880 was back then. So we've seen this multiple times, right 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.960 back in the nineteen seventies. If you are of an 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:54.720 age as i am, back in the seventies and early eighties, 0:00:54.800 --> 0:00:58.920 you had movies like Greece and the far Superior Grease Too, 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.160 which were set in the late fifties early sixties. These 0:01:03.280 --> 0:01:06.360 days we see shows like Stranger Things and films like 0:01:06.600 --> 0:01:09.840 The four thirty, these are set in the nineteen eighties. 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:12.840 We see this reflected in other ways as well. The 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.600 vinyl format for LPs and such was on its way 0:01:16.600 --> 0:01:21.080 toward extinction with the introduction of other technologies like compact 0:01:21.120 --> 0:01:25.240 discs CDs did a number on Vinyl as well as 0:01:25.280 --> 0:01:28.280 audio cassette tapes, but then in the mid two thousands, 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.920 Vinyl began to mold a comeback. These days, Vinyl's a 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.200 booming business again, and the reasons for that are varied, 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:39.600 from the mythology of audio files about the superiority of 0:01:39.640 --> 0:01:43.280 the Vinyl format to the desire to actually own a 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.520 copy of music rather than be beholden to some streaming 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:49.680 service that may or may not carry that music. In 0:01:49.720 --> 0:01:53.080 the future, and I'll probably do a full episode about 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:56.120 the Vinyl revival and kind of trace how that came 0:01:56.120 --> 0:01:58.160 to be, because I think that's a pretty interesting story. 0:01:58.320 --> 0:02:01.600 But as I was thinking about all this, I decided 0:02:01.640 --> 0:02:06.000 I should do another episode about obsolete media. Now. Originally 0:02:06.280 --> 0:02:08.560 I was going to do a round up episode with 0:02:08.800 --> 0:02:14.720 several different intrees, several different examples of obsolete media. I've 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.000 done some of these in the past, and in fact 0:02:17.040 --> 0:02:19.120 I had to go and take a look back on 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:23.240 past episodes to figure out what technologies I had already covered. 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:25.840 I've done it a lot. In fact, I have an 0:02:25.840 --> 0:02:28.919 episode from just two years ago that went into detail 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:33.560 about obsolete formats that I had completely forgotten about. Like 0:02:33.760 --> 0:02:36.680 I remembered I had done episodes about obsolete media, but 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:38.520 I didn't remember that it was just two years ago 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.760 when I did a big one. In that one, I 0:02:40.840 --> 0:02:44.240 covered stuff like the umatic video cassette, which Sony was 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.639 pushing out as a consumer product, but it mainly saw 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:51.919 use in broadcast studios, not in consumer technology. Instead, the 0:02:52.040 --> 0:02:55.520 VHS and Betamax formats would take over that market, or 0:02:55.639 --> 0:03:01.560 the tefifon or tefifhone format tefi fon. Took me a 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:04.000 while to track that down because it didn't spell it 0:03:04.520 --> 0:03:07.120 in that episode from twenty twenty two, but that was 0:03:07.600 --> 0:03:10.960 a media format out of West Germany or what was 0:03:11.320 --> 0:03:14.240 West Germany at that time, and I dedicated about a 0:03:14.280 --> 0:03:16.799 third of the episode to this tech back in twenty 0:03:16.840 --> 0:03:18.880 twenty two and forgot about it. It's really cool though. 0:03:19.040 --> 0:03:22.320 It uses a ribbon of plastic and a groove kind 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.359 of like what you would find on a record album, 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.400 and the plastic tape that's inside these cassettes. It's in 0:03:29.440 --> 0:03:32.000 a loop, so it does loop all the way back around. 0:03:32.080 --> 0:03:34.880 You don't have to rewind to the beginning or anything. 0:03:35.080 --> 0:03:38.120 It was a neat technology, just didn't see much use 0:03:38.200 --> 0:03:41.240 outside of Germany. But in previous episodes, I've also talked 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.760 about the organette, which is a device that works in 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.800 a way that's similar to a player piano. I talked 0:03:46.800 --> 0:03:50.840 about wire recorders, where the recording medium was literally a 0:03:50.960 --> 0:03:54.320 length of stainless steel wire. But in this episode, I'm 0:03:54.320 --> 0:03:56.800 going to talk about a device that I've mentioned a 0:03:56.800 --> 0:04:00.120 couple times before, but I have never dedicated a full 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:02.880 episode to it. And I'm doing this purely out of 0:04:02.960 --> 0:04:07.800 nostalgia because I actually own one of these devices. In fact, 0:04:08.240 --> 0:04:11.720 it's sitting immediately to my right as I am recording 0:04:11.760 --> 0:04:17.279 this episode, and the tech is the RCA CED player, 0:04:17.720 --> 0:04:22.480 or more officially, the RCA videodisc system. And I should 0:04:22.640 --> 0:04:25.240 probably have warned you that this episode's going to have 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:29.640 some alphabet soup stuff going on. But RCA stands for 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:32.640 the Radio Corporation of America. That was a company that 0:04:32.760 --> 0:04:36.520 had an absolutely critical role to play in the production 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:40.039 of media here in the United States. RCA's history is 0:04:40.080 --> 0:04:44.359 one that includes dominating radio broadcasts and being a huge 0:04:44.400 --> 0:04:47.479 player in the early recording industry, as well as much more. 0:04:47.760 --> 0:04:51.040 Now I've done episodes about RCA. In fact, I did 0:04:51.080 --> 0:04:54.560 a series of I think four episodes about the history 0:04:54.600 --> 0:04:57.919 and evolution of RCA back in twenty nineteen. Because again, 0:04:57.960 --> 0:05:01.120 this company is huge, it has a very long history, 0:05:01.440 --> 0:05:04.200 and it has had a massive impact on the evolution 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:09.120 of technology in tons of different ways. However, the CED player, 0:05:09.680 --> 0:05:13.839 I would argue, would not rank among those massive influences 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:20.320 on technology. CED stands for capacitance Electronic disc and I'll 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.360 explain why a little bit later. But first some history, 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:26.960 which is a bit complicated, as one of the best 0:05:27.000 --> 0:05:32.120 accounts about the CED is stored on the CED format itself, 0:05:32.400 --> 0:05:36.679 and since CED is an obsolete medium, it stanged hard 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:40.159 to get access to that material. Gosh, if only the 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:43.120 format hadn't gone obsolete, I could learn more about this 0:05:43.240 --> 0:05:46.400 obsolete format, or at least that would be the case. 0:05:46.680 --> 0:05:49.560 We're in not for the fact that YouTube exists, and 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:56.719 of course people have created YouTube videos of that recorded 0:05:56.760 --> 0:06:00.279 material that was originally only on CED. The channel I 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.520 got access to this material from was the media Hoarder. 0:06:04.880 --> 0:06:09.560 They posted a historical video on YouTube. So RCA actually 0:06:09.600 --> 0:06:13.400 made a video disc or CED for its own employees 0:06:13.440 --> 0:06:16.120 who had worked on the player. So these are people 0:06:16.160 --> 0:06:20.240 within RCA who had dedicated their time and efforts into 0:06:20.279 --> 0:06:24.000 the creation of this technology, and RCA wanted to acknowledge 0:06:24.040 --> 0:06:27.360 them and to say, y'all did amazing work. Even though 0:06:27.400 --> 0:06:33.120 the product ultimately failed in the marketplace, the technological achievements 0:06:33.400 --> 0:06:37.719 were really substantial. And this ced that RCA made for 0:06:38.080 --> 0:06:42.800 RCA employees was titled Memories of Video disc So this 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:44.920 was already when the format was on the way out, 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:48.120 and that format only lasted a couple of years after 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.000 being introduced. And I just think that's pretty neat. You 0:06:51.000 --> 0:06:53.680 know that a company would actually spend the resources to 0:06:53.920 --> 0:06:56.320 make a record of the work that folks had done 0:06:56.360 --> 0:06:59.200 on a technology that ultimately was a market failure. Like 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:03.080 most companies' do that, right, They wouldn't take the time 0:07:03.279 --> 0:07:07.120 and spend the money to create a record of this 0:07:07.279 --> 0:07:11.720 and to say this is an exploration of the work 0:07:11.800 --> 0:07:15.200 and effort and innovation that went into this technology. They 0:07:15.240 --> 0:07:17.600 just wouldn't do it. They would kind of like mark 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:19.600 it off the books and try to move on as 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:23.280 fast as possible. But anyway, the story actually begins in 0:07:23.320 --> 0:07:26.360 the nineteen fifties when RCA engineers, led by a guy 0:07:26.400 --> 0:07:30.080 named Thomas Stanley, began to experiment with ways to record 0:07:30.160 --> 0:07:35.240 not just audio, but also video onto grooved discs like 0:07:35.600 --> 0:07:38.720 vinyl record albums. So RCAA had been a really important 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:42.520 company during the early days of record players. They bought 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:46.760 the Victor Talking Machine Company and became RCA Victor, so 0:07:47.080 --> 0:07:51.320 that was a massive move, Victor being like the oldest 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:56.640 company to produce gramophones or phonographs, and RCA even introduced 0:07:56.640 --> 0:08:00.520 a thirty three and a third RPM format before World 0:08:00.600 --> 0:08:04.520 War Two, so RPM being revolutions per minute, most records 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.080 were at seventy eight RPM. It was challenging playing records 0:08:08.080 --> 0:08:11.920 at slower RPMs, which would allow you to fit more 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.880 material per side of a record, but it also meant 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:19.120 that the quality of the audio played back would often 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:24.680 take a hit. Right faster RPMs you typically would get 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:29.200 better audio quality, but you could fit less material per side. 0:08:29.640 --> 0:08:33.440 Slower you could fit more material, but the quality wasn't 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:35.959 as good. RCA had created a thirty three and a 0:08:36.080 --> 0:08:39.880 third format leading up to World War Two. Actually, I 0:08:39.880 --> 0:08:42.360 think it was around nineteen thirty when they introduced that, 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:45.360 and this version of thirty three and a third was 0:08:45.440 --> 0:08:49.560 different from the post war format. After the war, you 0:08:49.640 --> 0:08:54.080 had Columbia Records, which introduced micro grooves and allowed for 0:08:54.160 --> 0:08:58.200 the LP or long playing format. So while RCA did 0:08:58.200 --> 0:09:01.080 have a thirty three and a third version, it wasn't 0:09:01.080 --> 0:09:04.000 an LP album. It couldn't fit as much information as 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:08.920 a microgroove record would later on, but it was still neat. Unfortunately, 0:09:09.320 --> 0:09:13.280 the record players that had a thirty three and a 0:09:13.360 --> 0:09:18.120 third speed available to them were exorbitantly expensive, and it 0:09:18.200 --> 0:09:20.520 was the middle of the Great Depression, and as you 0:09:20.600 --> 0:09:24.000 might imagine, those two factors together meant this particular medium 0:09:24.040 --> 0:09:27.880 didn't get much traction in the market. But RCAA engineers 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.959 were really well acquainted with the concept of encoding information 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.440 within the groove of a rotatable disc and using a 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.680 stylus to pick up that information, convert that information into 0:09:39.800 --> 0:09:43.080 an electric signal, and then amplify that signal so it 0:09:43.080 --> 0:09:46.600 could be played back as audio on an electronic device. 0:09:47.040 --> 0:09:50.560 While RCAA would engage in fierce competition against rivals like 0:09:50.600 --> 0:09:53.800 Columbia Records, giving rise to a format war that ultimately 0:09:53.920 --> 0:09:57.040 ended in a truce, it would also continue to innovate 0:09:57.480 --> 0:09:59.959 with this kind of technology. So by the late night 0:10:00.000 --> 0:10:03.640 teen fifties, the thinking was that if a grooved album 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:07.800 can hold the information necessary for audio playback. When used 0:10:07.800 --> 0:10:11.000 with the proper turntable and stylus, it could potentially do 0:10:11.160 --> 0:10:14.840 so even for other kinds of information. With a fine 0:10:14.960 --> 0:10:19.160 enough stylus and precise grooves that were of a small 0:10:19.280 --> 0:10:23.520 enough form factor, you could presumably include data that encoded 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:26.520 not just an audio signal, but a video signal as well. 0:10:26.960 --> 0:10:30.200 Initial work was sporadic, but in nineteen sixty four a 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:34.880 pair of engineers named Eugene Kaiser and John Clemens tackled 0:10:34.880 --> 0:10:40.000 this problem in earnest But how would you encode the information? 0:10:40.440 --> 0:10:44.000 Physical grooves would need to be incredibly precise, and the 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:49.160 stylust would have to be unbelievably tiny or fine pointed. 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:52.280 The folks at RCA came up with the idea of 0:10:52.400 --> 0:10:56.880 using capacitance. So capacitance is the capability of a conductor 0:10:56.920 --> 0:11:00.280 to store an electrical charge, and using a pair of 0:11:00.360 --> 0:11:03.800 such conductors, you can measure the difference of a separated 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:08.160 electric charge between the two of them, a difference in voltage. 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:12.240 In other words, lots of variables determine this difference in voltage. 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.480 For example, the plate area of the two capacitors is 0:11:15.480 --> 0:11:18.520 a factor how much overlap is between the two plates 0:11:18.600 --> 0:11:21.679 that affects the difference in voltage between them. So if 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:24.199 you were to move the plates relative to one another 0:11:24.280 --> 0:11:27.960 to change the amount of overlap, you actually change the 0:11:28.040 --> 0:11:32.439 difference in voltage as well. Another variable is applied voltage, 0:11:32.480 --> 0:11:35.439 So obviously, if you change the voltage that is applied 0:11:35.640 --> 0:11:39.280 to one capacitor, it's going to affect the difference in 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:43.760 voltage between it and a second capacitor. But another variable 0:11:44.040 --> 0:11:47.280 is distance. If you change the distance between the two 0:11:47.440 --> 0:11:51.640 separated capacitors, they will register a change in voltage. So 0:11:51.960 --> 0:11:55.280 if you keep all other variables constant and the only 0:11:55.360 --> 0:11:59.720 thing you allow to change is the distance between the capacitors, 0:11:59.840 --> 0:12:03.200 you can use that as your encoding mechanism for data. 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:07.080 And that was the secret to the CED. The disc 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:10.320 would have a layer of carbon on it. This is 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:14.040 a conductive material, and inside the grooves of the disc, 0:12:14.080 --> 0:12:16.080 if you could get in there, like the trench of 0:12:16.160 --> 0:12:19.200 the Death Star in Star Wars, you would see that 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:23.400 the floor of that groove had little peaks and valleys. 0:12:23.440 --> 0:12:25.440 The floor would come up at some points and dip 0:12:25.559 --> 0:12:28.920 down in other points. Now, the stylus on a CED 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:32.959 player had a titanium electrode tip on it. It was 0:12:33.040 --> 0:12:36.760 usually a diamond tipped stylus with a titanium electrode at 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.280 the very tip. Now, the size of the stylus was 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.720 such that it would fit into a groove, but the 0:12:42.760 --> 0:12:46.520 stylus wasn't so long that it would actually touch the 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.840 floor of the groove. So the tip of the stylus 0:12:50.880 --> 0:12:54.560 is suspended above the groove's floor, and the peaks and 0:12:54.640 --> 0:12:57.080 valleys of the groove meant the floor would change the 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.640 distance between the floor itself and the titanium electrode on 0:13:00.679 --> 0:13:05.800 the tip of that stylus, and that was changing the 0:13:05.880 --> 0:13:09.760 distance between two capacitors, which resulted in a difference in 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:15.120 the voltage red by the stylus. Ultimately, this would be 0:13:15.200 --> 0:13:18.480 the signal that would be sent to the player, which 0:13:18.520 --> 0:13:20.880 would then decode the signal and send it on to 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.600 a television set, and then you could watch your copy 0:13:23.640 --> 0:13:26.800 of you know, Singing in the Rain or Indiana Jones 0:13:26.840 --> 0:13:29.160 and Raiders of the Lost Arc. I named both of 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:33.560 those titles because I know they appeared on CED, because 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:37.480 I have those titles. Those are two of the films 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:40.839 I actually own on CED, so that's why I chose them. 0:13:41.000 --> 0:13:44.000 I was confident that they exist and This was really 0:13:44.120 --> 0:13:47.600 a brilliant move because switching from physical vibrations. I mean, 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:52.400 that's how your regular vinyl records work, right. A stylus 0:13:52.440 --> 0:13:56.040 goes through this groove. There are ridges and things cut 0:13:56.080 --> 0:14:00.200 into the groove. The stylus or needle vibrates as it 0:14:00.240 --> 0:14:05.440 travels through this groove. Those vibrations get transformed into an 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.560 electrical signal which then is amplified and sent to speakers 0:14:08.800 --> 0:14:11.679 and played back as audio. You know, that's all physical, 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:16.679 but by going to capacitance, it allowed for the possibility 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.720 of video because you were able to have much more 0:14:20.120 --> 0:14:25.920 precise encoding in a very dense format. I'll talk more 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:28.840 about it, but first let's take a quick break to 0:14:28.920 --> 0:14:40.920 thank our sponsors. Before the break, I was talking about 0:14:40.920 --> 0:14:46.280 how capacitance allowed for more data density than a purely 0:14:46.640 --> 0:14:50.760 physical groove that a stylus would travel through and vibrate 0:14:50.880 --> 0:14:54.680 as it moved through. There was no vibration with ced 0:14:55.520 --> 0:14:59.120 stylus like that. Instead, it just traveled through the groove. 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.200 The groove was in a very very tight spiral, and 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:06.200 the grooves are incredibly small. You need to have a 0:15:06.240 --> 0:15:09.239 microscope to really get a good look at the grooves 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.520 on a CED disc, but they are there, and the 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:16.520 stylust would travel through this groove and gradually move inward 0:15:17.040 --> 0:15:21.480 as it spiraled in through a really long groove on 0:15:21.520 --> 0:15:24.280 this disc, and it wouldn't vibrate it at all. It 0:15:24.280 --> 0:15:27.440 would just be guided through the groove through the walls 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:29.360 of it itself, and it'd be the floor of the 0:15:29.400 --> 0:15:32.280 groove and the distance between that and the tip of 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.840 the stylus that would determine the actual information. It became 0:15:35.920 --> 0:15:40.680 possible to put an hour's worth of material onto each 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.640 side of one of these discs, but that didn't happen 0:15:43.680 --> 0:15:46.240 all at once. The early prototypes were limited to a 0:15:46.280 --> 0:15:50.000 few minutes up to half an hour of information per side. 0:15:50.360 --> 0:15:54.160 For much of the early development of the CED, the 0:15:54.200 --> 0:15:57.960 engineers demonstrated that the technology was viable, but it would 0:15:58.040 --> 0:16:01.680 only be a viable product like it was viable from 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:05.240 a technological perspective, in the sense of it works, right, 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:10.240 we have demonstrated this technology works. Now. The technology working 0:16:10.320 --> 0:16:13.200 is one thing, but having it work as a product 0:16:13.400 --> 0:16:16.160 is another. You have to be able to demonstrate to 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:19.960 the customer that there's value, and without being able to 0:16:20.040 --> 0:16:23.120 record more than half an hour per side, the value 0:16:23.160 --> 0:16:26.560 just wasn't there yet, so the engineers were able to say, yes, 0:16:26.640 --> 0:16:30.160 this technology is possible, but we need to make it practical. 0:16:30.200 --> 0:16:32.640 In order to do that, we need to put more 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:37.400 time in working on this technology, and RCA was willing 0:16:37.440 --> 0:16:42.240 to do that. And even with the final product, it 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.480 would mean that customers would have to flip a disc 0:16:44.720 --> 0:16:48.000 about halfway through your standard two hour film. If a 0:16:48.080 --> 0:16:50.880 film were longer than that, you would actually need multiple discs. 0:16:51.280 --> 0:16:53.880 One other thing I should mention about these discs, RCA 0:16:53.960 --> 0:16:57.480 would not present them as discs to the consumer, Like 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.000 you wouldn't take one out of a sleeve the way 0:17:00.040 --> 0:17:02.200 you would a vinyl album and then put it on 0:17:02.280 --> 0:17:05.119 a spindle and then lift a stylus and put it 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:07.840 at the edge. That's not how this would work. These 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.800 discs needed more protection than your typical vinyl album does, 0:17:12.080 --> 0:17:17.280 so RCA chose to have them fit inside plastic sleeves. Essentially, 0:17:17.359 --> 0:17:20.919 they were like cartridges. These cartridges were about the size 0:17:20.960 --> 0:17:24.560 of your standard vinyl long playing album sleeve. Like if 0:17:24.560 --> 0:17:28.200 you went out and bought an LP today, the cardboard 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.280 sleeve that it comes in is about the same size 0:17:31.880 --> 0:17:35.280 by dimension as a CED cartridge. Although the cartridge would 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:38.639 be thicker. The cartridges made the CED media kind of 0:17:38.680 --> 0:17:43.800 like very large, squareish cassettes, but inside was that grooved disc. 0:17:44.160 --> 0:17:47.840 After inserting a CED cartridge into a player, the player 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:51.200 would extract the disc from the cartridge and the stylus 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.160 would move to the end of the groove. A lot 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:56.239 of players would then eject the empty cartridge out, and 0:17:56.640 --> 0:17:59.159 you would just remove that from the player while you 0:17:59.280 --> 0:18:02.840 watched the first half of your film. Other players kept 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:06.320 the cartridge housed inside the player itself, because either way, 0:18:06.720 --> 0:18:08.840 after you got an hour's worth of video in the 0:18:08.920 --> 0:18:12.399 US version or seventy five minutes per side for the 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.760 UK version, then you would need to remove the cartridge 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:18.159 or replace the empty one into the machine so that 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:20.720 it could spit the disc back inside of it. Then 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:23.439 you would flip the cartridge over reinsert it so that 0:18:23.480 --> 0:18:25.520 you could watch the second half of the film and 0:18:25.560 --> 0:18:28.080 then go from there. I actually have memories of having 0:18:28.160 --> 0:18:30.320 to do this with Raiders of the Lost arc So 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:32.919 keeping in mind, this is a memory that is like 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.360 forty years old at this point, more than that, maybe 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:39.160 actually probably more than forty years old, but I remember 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:41.680 that the point where I needed to flip the cartridge 0:18:41.720 --> 0:18:43.679 was right around the same time in the film that 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:47.160 Sala remarks the bad guys are digging in the wrong place. 0:18:47.760 --> 0:18:50.479 I just remember that being like the key phrase that 0:18:50.560 --> 0:18:52.480 meant in a second, I was gonna have to get 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.280 off my butt and get over to the player and 0:18:55.320 --> 0:18:58.040 physically turn the cartridge over so that I could watch 0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:00.280 the second half of Raiders of the Lost Ark. So 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:03.960 why did the US version, Why did that one store 0:19:04.119 --> 0:19:07.280 sixty minutes of content per side but the UK managed 0:19:07.280 --> 0:19:10.240 to cram in seventy five minutes per side. Well, that's 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:13.560 largely because of the different formats of the US and 0:19:13.600 --> 0:19:17.240 the UK for video production and video playback, and how 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.280 that impacted the tech down the line. So in the 0:19:20.359 --> 0:19:24.720 United States we use the NTSC standard for that version 0:19:24.720 --> 0:19:27.399 of video. That standard had a resolution of seven hundred 0:19:27.400 --> 0:19:29.480 and twenty by four hundred and eighty and it had 0:19:29.480 --> 0:19:34.040 a refresh rate of sixty hertz or sixty refreshes per second. 0:19:34.480 --> 0:19:39.000 The UK, however, used pal paal that has a resolution 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.520 of seven twenty by five seventy six, so better resolution 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:45.840 and a refresh rate of fifty hurtz, so a lower 0:19:45.880 --> 0:19:49.040 refresh rate. Now, this difference in standards meant that the 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:52.119 tech to play video on US devices is usually not 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:56.320 compatible with UK media formats unless you have something that 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.240 can switch modes. That persists to this day, where you 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:03.639 can get different region formats like I don't know if 0:20:03.680 --> 0:20:08.000 you've ever had the experience of ordering, say a DVD online, 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:10.520 receiving it, and then finding out it doesn't work in 0:20:10.560 --> 0:20:14.480 your machine because it turns out the DVD was designed 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:18.199 for a different regions format than whatever player you have. 0:20:18.320 --> 0:20:20.560 I've had that happen once or twice. Then I bought 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:23.280 a region free player, which aren't They aren't very expensive, 0:20:23.840 --> 0:20:27.040 but lets me watch formats that were made in the UK, 0:20:27.560 --> 0:20:30.640 which is great because I love certain UK series that 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:34.480 are to this day impossible to get in US formats. 0:20:34.560 --> 0:20:38.240 I'm looking at you that, Mitchell and weblook anyway for 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:44.600 CED players. One way that this difference in formats manifests 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:48.920 is the speed at which the discs rotate within the 0:20:48.960 --> 0:20:52.639 players themselves. So in the United States, if you were 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:56.800 able to look inside a CED player while it was running, 0:20:56.880 --> 0:20:59.600 and if you were able to count how many times 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:03.280 the disc rotated per minute, you would see it's at 0:21:03.320 --> 0:21:07.120 a revolution speed of four hundred and fifty revolutions per minute. 0:21:07.160 --> 0:21:10.520 In the UK it's slower, it's three hundred and seventy 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.680 five revolutions per minute. Now, the size of the discs 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:16.159 is the same in the UK as it is in 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:20.920 the United States, but because they turn slightly more slowly 0:21:21.200 --> 0:21:24.240 in the UK, it means you can fit more information 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.720 on a UK disc than you do on a US disc. 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:33.639 The US finishes about fifteen minutes earlier USA. USA. You except, 0:21:33.640 --> 0:21:35.840 of course, you know, finishing first is not a good 0:21:35.840 --> 0:21:38.440 thing in this particular context. It just means the UK 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:42.240 can fit more information per side than the United States, 0:21:42.720 --> 0:21:46.920 So not really a benefit in this case. Now I've 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.040 described in a broad sense how these disks and the 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:53.960 players worked. You've got this variable in capacitance that ultimately 0:21:54.040 --> 0:21:57.280 represents the information of a pre recorded video. But the 0:21:57.480 --> 0:22:01.600 process to get there was incredibly complicated, right, Like I 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.639 kind of flippantly explained how this technology works. But you 0:22:05.720 --> 0:22:10.560 have to remember every decision within RCA was one that 0:22:10.760 --> 0:22:15.160 had to be arrived at through long experimentation and innovation. 0:22:15.560 --> 0:22:18.520 They had to figure out not just to use capacitance, 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:22.119 but what materials they could use, which ones would be 0:22:22.359 --> 0:22:26.120 ideal for mass production, which ones would work well when 0:22:26.200 --> 0:22:29.840 you start designing the process for mass production, these are 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:32.920 not simple questions to answer. If you're working with an 0:22:33.040 --> 0:22:36.160 entirely new technology, or at least one that's new enough 0:22:36.440 --> 0:22:42.320 to necessitate big advances in manufacturing processes, that's a huge endeavor. 0:22:42.760 --> 0:22:45.760 And I really want to call that out because I 0:22:45.840 --> 0:22:48.440 just think it's remarkable when you when you think about 0:22:48.440 --> 0:22:50.600 all the pieces that had to come into play for 0:22:50.680 --> 0:22:54.280 this obsolete media format to even become a thing. Yeah, 0:22:54.359 --> 0:22:56.639 we can make it a joke and say, oh, and 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:01.199 it all came to nothing because the format, But I 0:23:01.240 --> 0:23:03.000 think that's the wrong way to look at it. I 0:23:03.040 --> 0:23:06.720 think the right way is to say the engineers had 0:23:07.080 --> 0:23:11.000 this one particular goal in mind, and they had to 0:23:11.080 --> 0:23:15.639 agonize over all these different decisions that would lead to 0:23:15.720 --> 0:23:18.919 the actual manifestation of that idea, and to me, that 0:23:19.000 --> 0:23:22.800 was just a phenomenal story. Anyway, this is not a 0:23:22.840 --> 0:23:26.840 simple task, right. You might find that one method that 0:23:26.920 --> 0:23:30.880 you are considering works great, like it provides a really 0:23:30.920 --> 0:23:35.120 good video experience. Maybe the video and sound are of 0:23:35.560 --> 0:23:38.640 a quality that makes them superior to some other formats 0:23:38.680 --> 0:23:41.480 that are on the market. However, you might also find 0:23:41.480 --> 0:23:46.000 out that this particular approach is far too costly to 0:23:46.440 --> 0:23:48.919 go into production. That if you were to do that, 0:23:49.400 --> 0:23:52.000 the media player and the media itself would be so 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:55.879 expensive that no one would ever buy it. So it 0:23:55.960 --> 0:23:59.080 can't just be the technology that you're taking into consideration. 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:02.320 The market condition end up being a real factor you 0:24:02.359 --> 0:24:04.399 have to consider as well. So they had to figure 0:24:04.400 --> 0:24:08.000 out which processes could be replicated in mass production or 0:24:08.760 --> 0:24:12.679 how much time is spent per unit being built in 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:14.720 order to make an actual business out of it. It 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:16.600 wasn't good enough just to figure out something that would 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:18.359