Beta records - are they laser discs?
 

Just saw a collection of "beta discs" at the local thrift shop. I thought they were laser discs but the store has them listed as "beta records" They all come in hard white plastic cases with the movie cover and info on the back of the case stickered over the case. Are these the same as laser discs or are "beta records" something different? They have a nice collection of several hundered for dirt cheap so just curious if they're worth getting.

Sounds like the old RCA CED discs.

They played movies similar to a record, where a stylus contacted the surface (I believe). The quality was on par with video tape, from what I remember.

Yeah, those are definitely CED VideoDiscs. This site has a ton of information on the format and pics of various discs.

Yep, i went back and checked. They are CED's. Iet some guy there that actually owned one years ago. Can't beleive I've never heard of them before. People have talked about laser discs and VHS here.; but i've never seen anyone mention these before. Anyone here collect them or ever own one?

I bought player and had about 25 movies.The first movie I got was Raiders of the Lost Ark.If I remember right the movies ran between 29 and 39 bucks.

wow. That's pretty cheap considering that VHS movies were in the $80 to $100 range. The local thrift store is selling them 3 for $1 now. might be worth getting a couple to frame and out on a wall like people do with vinyl record cases. I could buy 150 movies for $50; not a bad instant collection. picture and sound quality will probably be horrible though.

We used to have a CED player when I was a kid. For some stupid reason, my father bought that (when they first came out) instead of a VCR. :lol: Terrible system, very error prone. They would start to wear quite quickly (due to a stylus actually coming in contact with the disc), and most of the discs we rented ended up having a fair amount of skipping. Luckily my dad realized his mistake, and within the year he traded it in and bought our first VCR. Never heard of them referred to as "Beta discs" before.

CED sucked ass badly. One of my friends had one. Sometimes you'd rent a disc, play it and it would skip like crazy. People on here freak if their DVD skips once. Try a format that can skip every 20-30 seconds. Good riddance CED.

My mom rented one from some store when I was a kid and I recall the movie I picked out to see on it was Blade Runner. I think it might even have been my first viewing of Blade Runner as a kid. I recall the movies we rented with it skipping terribly bad. We stuck with good ol' VHS until the DVD days rolled around.

Wow. Never ever heard of such a thing. Thanks for the history lesson, maybe I have to pay more attention! ;)

I actually own a Blade Runner Videodisc along with a few others.

<embed style="width:800px; height:652px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=3196982259153601292&hl=en" flashvars=""> </embed>

You can see the format's trademark skipping at about 1:45. The less patient can skip ahead to 4:14 to see the first player in action. The later ones had motorized loading.

<embed style="width:500px; height:426px;" id="VideoPlayback" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" src="http://video.google.com/googleplayer.swf?docId=4600859956535453850&hl=en" flashvars=""> </embed>

Wow, never heard of CED. Laserdiscs, yes.

My dad still has an old player in the basement with a few discs (<i>Star Wars</i>, <i>Raiders of the Lost Ark</i>, etc.).

Pretty cool, can't believe I never heard of this format until today.

I had absolutely no idea until now that format ever existed. Had literally never even heard mention of it.

I'm not surprised that most of you haven't heard of these. CED only lasted for a few years, from '79-'84 I believe. I have three Star Trek CEDs that I won in an auction along with some Star Trek Betamax tapes and I would have to say the picture quality isn't on par with VHS, it's worst.

Alan Smithee - I remember that commercial! I didn't realize at the time they were actually inserting a disc into the machine. All it looked like to me was the guy stuck in an album cover and then pulled it back out. I remember thinking the machine must be so smart it can read a bar code on the cover and instantly play back the movie. :lol: And you gotta love how everything had a wood grain finish and a goofy switch.

Wow! "...and the player is less than $500."
What a bargain!

I remember going to a timeshare sales pitch and the model condo had one of these in it. I sat and watched Clash of the Titans while Mom listened to the salesman. I also remember seeing several of these in Radio Shack around this period.

LOL, how much was that back then, $5000? I never saw those commercials. Nice find!

I had three of these units when they were in exisitence. Ahhhh.... the good old days of renting a CED and dubbing it to Beta. So what they skipped once in a while. The last unit I had was so "advanced" it would read side two without "ejecting" the disc.

It would be about $1222.49 as of 2006.

This is very interesting, I'm happy I wasn't around when all these versions existed and the quality was an issue (compared to now).