Ive heard of a CED player called the VHD system that doesn use grooved discs. What is this?
The Video High Density system – a joint effort by Matsushita and JVC, was intended to be introduced shortly after the RCA VideoDisc system. RCA was somewhat chagrined in 1977, when after demonstrating the RCA VideoDisc system to a group of JVC technical experts, JVC provided a counter demonstration of their until-then unknown VHD system. The system uses a 10″ grooveless disc stored in a caddy like the RCA system (VHD is incompatible with the RCA VideoDisc system). A rather wide diamond stylus tracks the disc surface with a servo mechanism reading tracking signals adjacent to the capacitance-encoded signal pits on the disc surface. Because the stylus force is spread over several adjacent signal channels, estimated disc life is longer than RCA’s system- about 10,000 plays per disc. A $12-million factory was built in Irvine, California to press the discs, but the system was never marketed in the U.S. The VHD system was marketed in Japan starting in April 1983, and the system was launched
