RCA selectavision video discs at goodwill

I found 2 players and a collection of about 30 CED discs at goodwill once. It was a hard pass for me.
My first CED find was a single player (the Sears-rebranded RCA I pictured above) and around 30 discs, which I found at an antique radio swapmeet, of all places, for $30. Most of the disks were in lousy shape, but some nice titles were included, like Star Wars and Back to the Future (a rarity on the format, as it was released not long before RCA stopped making CEDs). I've since found a few more players, as well as several more disks (including all three of the original Star Wars movies!), for fairly little money. My main CED player at the moment is a RCA SJT-300 (nicely-equipped, with a remote control and plenty of nice features), with the Sears as a backup.

Advantages then, cheap movies which could be pressed. Better picture and sound than early VHS. Better picture in good order than VHS was then, but not as good as the superior LaserDisc nor backed by RCA to the level Pioneer did. Sadly, the last USA made consumer electronics format. RCA's last major USA investment in consumer electronics.
Well, "cheap" is relative, as you generally had to pay $20-40 for movies, especially if they covered multiple disks (just about everything over 2 hours). I'm not sure how much LaserDiscs cost back then (probably fairly pricy), but I'm pretty sure VHS and Betamax movies cost about that much, if not cheaper. The main issue CED had, besides the defects (and the fact that you couldn't record on them), was that it took far too long to get the format to market. If they'd managed to work the bugs out and release it in the mid-late '70s, they may have had a pretty good hit on their hands. By 1981, however, it was far too little, too late to really make inroads against the other formats (especially VHS), and RCA took a big hit (supposedly around $600 million all told); this led to them being bought out by GE in 1986, which essentially spelled their demise as a company.
-Adam
 
Trip to the big city today, hit a couple thrifts, found several of the discs at a VOA store, $2.92 each. This one looked interesting, all the rca video disc.jpg cases were in good shape.
 
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