Nesbit

I don't know if I'm just imagining things but I remember back in the mid 80's (when I was very young) that I had a home system that played films on large, box like, cartridges. They were about the size of laser disk boxes and about half an inch thick. I think you had to flip them over halfway through the movie but they would automatically repeat the side they were on. I asked my mother recently and she remembered these as well but couldn't think of the name of the format. Any ideas?

Spiky

Ask Josh Z. Those were a form of LD, can't remember the details. His site has some info, I think.

Quatermass

I think it was called "Laservision" and it played the discs with a phonograph needle rather than a laser.

Nesbit

Was the quality better than VHS? How expensive was the format? I remember I didn't own any discs but we'd go rent a few every weekend. We were pretty poor at the time.

Toka

Its a CED player...


http://www.cedmagic.com

bboisvert

That's CED. Died out in the early 80s.

Alan Smithee

I have almost every exisiting title made for this format, there's only about 5 or so that I don't have yet! I also recently got a stereo player made in July 1982 that had never even been taken out of the box until now!
Wasn't a great-quality format, but the first laserdiscs had problems too. I collect these just because it was a monumental failure, and is video's equivalent of the 8-track tape. The very last movie released on it was "Jewel Of The Nile".

Nesbit

Very cool. What are the ones you are missing? I go to a lot of pawn shops/yard sales looking for OOP dvds and older books. I'll keep an eye out for em.

Lastdaysofrain

I see these ALL the time at used record stores and salvation armies. Was "Disc-o-vision" one of the name brands?

Alan Smithee

Discovision was the brand-name of the first laserdiscs, and they still play on the later LD players. They had a lot of manufacturing problems with them though, most of the surviving discs play with a lot of noise and sometimes skip, and of course widescreen movies were transferred in pan and scan.
Right now the only consumer CED title I'm still lacking is "Greatest Fights Of The 70s" from MGM/CBS, though someone on Ebay right now is selling it with a few other titles. One commercial title that was manufactured but pulled before being put out for sale was "The Story Of O", from MGM. I haven't seen this movie but apparently it was pulled because of its sexual content. I don't know why they made a few copies before deciding not to sell it. Since RCA licensed the format, they had a policy against hardcore porn (probably one of the main reasons the format failed!) but there were a few Playboy videos put out on it.
There's a number of promotional-only discs that are a lot harder to find though, such as RCA Video Communications- a series of discs that was sent to dealers showing their TVs and other video equipment. There were a few discs made for Avon sellers too (I've got 3 of those, one of them is just a 15-minute speech from some old lady who won an award) and others made for a travel agency which I haven't been able to find. I did manage to get the VERY last videodisc title put out right before they shut down the factory- "Memories of Videodisc", which has still pictures and some video clips of the videodisc and player manufacturing and the people who worked there. This disc was given out to the last factory employees and I paid waaay too much for it.