1982 Hitachi VIP201P: C.E.D Player

Mauritron claim to have one if you have no other offers.

Unfortunately  data for this model seems to be scarce even on the net, I did manage to find the USA RCA selectavision versions of service data.

 These are of no use to you whatsoever though, as they are very  different animals in every sense of the word, although nominally the same format,  PSU and NTSC differences aside the consensus according to some online reading seems to be that the RCA versions are completely different machines entirely.

Sorry.

I believe the GEC/McMichael V5000 is the exact same rebadged model but I can't find anything for that either. I joined a CED forum in the USA and a helpful chap over on there is going to scan the user guide for me but no circuit thus far. He's also been looking for the cct too so that makes me think its going to be a very hard piece of data to locate.  

Posted by: Nuvistor

Mauritron claim to have one if you have no other offers.

Hi Frank, link? I did a search there and they only had a VIP101

Without going into detail there are two universal constants about obtaining from that source. Once bitten as they say, but yes a last resort if they actually have it.

Sorry can't help with any info but just to say Thorn also dipped their toes into the videodisc market with the Ferguson 3D00. Not CED but a JVC clone using their similar but not compatible VHD format, both used a caddy system for the disc. These were available through Thorn Rentals but only for educational establishments, I'm not 100% sure but I don't think they were released on to the consumer market. It was quite apparent that VHS killed it at birth.

Posted by: Jayceebee

Thorn also dipped their toes into the videodisc market with the Ferguson 3D00. Not CED but a JVC clone using their similar but not compatible VHD format, both used a caddy system for the disc. [....] I'm not 100% sure but I don't think they were released on to the consumer market. 

Thorn were going to launch VHD into the consumer market but following the disastrous Philips LaserVision launch in 1982 and coupled with RCA’s exit and huge losses with CED, a related technology to VHD, these plans were aborted.

This might be an interesting read for those like me, interested in obsolete formats.

Thanks for that Chris, I was totally unaware of the background to it. Fascinating read, hardly a toe dipping exercise ? 

I had not heard of this version of the video disc, only the Philips and RCA types. Not that I would have been in the market for any of the products.

Sorry I forgot to add the link last night to where I got the RCA player manuals from, although not of any real use To Chris (or anyone else in the UK for that matter), if anybody is interested in the two service manuals to have a look at, then they can be obtained free from here:

http://manuals.lddb.com/CED_Players/

I have two CED players, a Hitachi and a GEC McMichael which is also made by Hitachi. In fact, a number of early '80s GEC TVs and video recorders were made by Hitachi - they must have done a deal with each other, before GEC withdrew from the domestic TV and video market altogether.

I don't have any service manuals for the GEC / Hitachi CED player, but then again I never looked too hard for any. Both my machines needed nothing more than a loading belt to get them working. The electronics seem to be very reliable. I did have another CED player about 25 years ago which had a poor quality picture. It sometimes skipped while playing. I suspected the stylus may have been worn or damaged, but never had chance to find the fault before I had to get rid of the player due to a house move.

As you know, CED was a flop. It came too late. VHS was already firmly established; no-one was interested in another format. Indeed, several other disc formats like Laserdisc, CD-Video and VideoCD appeared without making much impact before DVD finally displaced VHS 20 years later. I reckon the lack of service data for CED players is due to their relatively short shelf life. Most were not used for long enough to need repair, they were soon consigned to the attic or the dump.

Even if you do obtain a service manual, it may not enable you to repair a player. Spare parts will be pretty much unobtainable by now, except generic parts like resistors, capacitors etc. Fortunately, the electronic parts seem to be reliable. If you're curious about how the CED system worked, there were articles in Television magazine c. 1983 and other titles. You must have come across the website cedmagic.com which has some technical information and also goes into fascinating detail about how the movie discs were manufactured - a very specialised process.

The CED player certainly deserves a place in a collection of obsolete home video technology. It's unusual and a bit of a technological dead-end. That's what makes it so much fun.

Posted by: hamid_1

Even if you do obtain a service manual, it may not enable you to repair a player. Spare parts will be pretty much unobtainable by now, except generic parts like resistors, capacitors etc. Fortunately, the electronic parts seem to be reliable.

I completely acknowledge you say "may not" rather than "will not" but circuit data is always preferable and handy to have when there is a fault. It saves one from having to spend an inordinate amount of time reverse engineering a circuit and staring at a PCB trying to map in your head how its all supposed to function.

As for unobtanium spare parts, that's simply overcome with a second machine used as a donor should the need ever arise. The exact solution I've applied to resurrect obsolete VCR's such as Philips N1500 and N1700 players needing model specific parts. As for replacing general passives, indeed they are simple but when a fault presents itself and a tricky one at that, having a scope/meter and crucially a circuit to fathom whats going on and exactly where, is far better than poke and hope, as I say above, preferable to have a circuit.

In my case I'm waiting for my VIP201P CED player to arrive sometime next week, it was described as totally dead. It may be something simple as a fuse (unlikely, for me nothing is ever that simple nor do I really want it to be) but in all likelihood it will be a power supply fault or a protection circuit in operation, either way it will require investigation, hence a circuit would be handy and hence my request within this thread.

Admittedly if a circuit cannot be found its not a total show stopper, a logical approach of PSU fault finding should yield results and is clearly what I will have to do as no data has thus far been located. However if these machines start to develop more complex problems such a chroma fault and after 40+ years anything starts to be possible, then a circuit is a must.

For those unfamiliar with the format here's a picture of the CED media with some other familiar obsolete formats for comparison to indicate its sheer size. You will notice the CED disc even exceeds the large Philips N1500 VCR chassis to the left.

I've heard finding replacement a stylus for a CED can be a real challenge in recent years.

RCA seemed to have a lot of trouble making the discs reliable enough to release on the general public, as the rejection rate was very high until production quality settled down.

I do wonder how well the surviving discs have survived, though I imagine a lot have not been played too much.

You can watch the not inconsiderable amount of engineering that went into their production here

Well my VP201P turned up this morning, it has more problems than just a non power up fault, though it may be related but without a circuit diagram at the moment I cannot be sure, I need to study whats what. Firstly there is a broken microswitch (function unknown at present) at the rear of the unit. Also the brass post that holds the cog that drives the linear tracking head, has sheared from the bottom plate. I think some of this damage was done in transit. I think this may well end up for spares and I'll have to look for another machine which will be nigh impossible as they are super rare now. Will have to see, it needs some thought.

After looking at how the unit should mechanically operate, I've deduced the Microswitch is related to power. When the CED cartridge is inserted its guide tray pushes on a bar, this bar is sprung and the caddy pushes the bar onto the microswitch. This in turn powers the machine up and actuates the loading motor, lowering the tray and spinning up the platter ready for reading.

I wonder if I can find a suitable microswitch anywhere?

The brass rod for the linear tracking arm drive wheel; I'm wondering if this could tapped and screwed from beneath. Not sure about tapping as its a tiny bar, would need micro-taps and that would be a prohibitive cost as I don't have tooling to do it. There must be a solution, perhaps superglue would suffice but doubt it.

Hi Chris, The micro switch looks a fairly standard type, if you can give some dimensions I may have something. Is it a normally open or normally closed switch, I would presume normally open contacts. Norman

Hi Norman, I would think like you, normally open.

I'm tempted to attack my home built Thyristor tester, that has two Burgess micro-switches that look identical, it would at least allow me to function test the player.

Linear arm removed so as to see how or even if the tracking cog can be repaired.

OK I think I found the solution to the sheered off post for the Linear arm drive transfer cog.

The original post was attached to the base-plate via the brass post having a peg passing through and then hammered over in a rivet type fashion. I know this to be so by looking at how other cog posts are attached on the player.

My solution was to drill a hole down into the post centre using a dremel tool-kit. Then using a screw which is of harder material than the brass, let it self tap a thread.

It seems to have worked!  I have manually rotated the wheel and it transfers the drive to the linear arm.

I need to find a couple of belts in my stock as the platter loading belt is perished and loose to the point it does not transfer drive when manually operated. Also the linear arm tracking motor belt has long since gone having turned to goo leaving its mess behind in the motor pulley.

Hi Chris, I will have a look in my microswitch drawer tomorrow and see what I have. Norman