Here you will find information on how to decode serial numbers and production numbers on CED discs and players.
Player Serial Numbers
First lets decode the RCA player serial number.
The 9 digit number is found on the serial number label on the back panel of the player and also inside on the front or side of the chassis.
The first digit is the year. 1980- 1984. Example a 2 is 1982.
The second and third digits are the week. Example 14 – a week in March.
The fourth digit is the day of the week – Sunday = 1.
The fifth digit is the player production line – a 1 or 2 or 3.
The remaining 4 digits are the player ID number.
Serial number example: 213231905
This player was made in 1982, 13th week on a Monday on line 3 and the ID is 1905.
To locate the week here is a calendar with week numbers.
Disc Pressing Numbers
John Stevens had given me some decoding information for the numbers pressed into the disc itself.
So first we must know how the disc is made. Starting with step 1.
1. Aluminum Blank – the plate which is coated with copper.
2. Copper substrate – the copper coated plate into which the grooves are cut.
3. Recorded substrate – the copper coated plate after the grooves are cut.
4. Master – a negative replica of the final disc surface electroformed from nickel to a thickness of 0.015-inch.
5. Mold – or Mother, – a positive replica of the final disc surface electroformed from nickel to a thickness of 0.015-inch. A number of molds are made in the videodisc manufacturing process.
6. Stamper – a negative replica of the final disc surface electroformed from nickel to a thickness of 0.0075-inch. A number of stampers are made from each mold, and the stampers are used to compression mold the final disc.
Stamper Number Decoded
John also noted that on a pressed disc, the scratched marking usually indicate the stamper and production run numbers. Stamper life varied, but usually at least 500 to 1,000 discs could be produced from a single stamper.
This was confirmed by Bob Huck who told me the stamper number was the 3 digit rough etched number on each disc. The stamper is decoded as follows.
So for example A3A.
The first digit identifies the Master it came from, so A would be the 1st Master, B=2nd and so on.
The second digit represents the Mold or Mother that it came from, so 3 would be the 3rd Mold.
The final digit would be the stamper number itself, so A would be the 1st stamper, and so on.
Production Number Decoded
Each disc will have a number scratched into it that looks like this,
09-436-2373-2
Sometimes it will have dashes, but sometimes it will just be one long number,
0943623732
The first two numbers are the press machine that was used to press the disc, in this case it was machine 09.
The next three numbers are the Mold Number for the Mold that was used to make the stamper, in this case mold number 436. (I am not sure how to decipher the mold number just yet.)
The next four numbers are the Julian date, so the first three numbers are the day of the year 237 or the 237th day, and the last digit is the year, so 3 would be 1983. So the disc was pressed on August 25th 1983. 0=1980, 1=1981 and so on. (You can use Google to determine the exact date.)
The last number is the Set Up Number, so 2 would be the 2nd pressing set up of the day for Aug, 25th 1983 on machine 09.
Program Numbers
Each disc is stamped with it’s program numbers. The first is a code that can be deciphered below, the 2nd number is the 5 digit studio number followed by the 5 digit individual program number assigned by RCA. So the numbers stamped on the disc would be as follows.
60=60 cycle (US NTSC)
50=50 cycle (European PAL)
B=Bilingual or dual audio channels
M=Monaural (1 channel) audio
S=Stereo audio
C=Closed Captioned
61=60 cycle + “banded”
62=60 cycle + “interactive”
Pam, another former RCA employee, has also told me “open the caddy and look on the inner circle, no grooves, you will see some numbers….example…Urban Cowboy…00639-1A… the first number is assigned to movie, the 1 is side 1, and letter tells you what substrate it was or how many times they had to make a new substrate. All the way through the alphabet. A few times we would use up the alphabet and start over…1AB, etc.
Now when she says substrate she must mean stamper or maybe the mother or even the master. I spoke with one of the employees who actually cut the discs from the studio tape to the copper substrate and he said that one substrate was used to press all the discs of that title.
UPC Numbers
The UPC code has the studio as the prefix and the title number for the 2nd half. The studio numbers are as follows,
16476 New World Video
24543 CBS/FOX Video
25757 Warner Home Video
26359 THORN EMI Video
26476 Family Home Entertainment
27616 MGM/UA Home Video
28485 Vestron Video
37757 Paramount Home Video
42995 Embassy Home Entertainment
47897 MCA Home Video
74643 MGM/UA Home Video
75051 Pacific Arts Video Records
76476 RCA/Columbia Home Video
77080 RCA/PAL Home Video
So for example, Red Dawn above has UPC number 27616 10499, meaning it was released by MGM/UA Home Video and the title number is 10499.
Label Spine Numbers
The spine number on RCA releases seem to be 8 sections. A spine number for example would be CM11E-V105582.
Section one is C. C=Color W=B&W M=Both
Section two is M. M=Mono S=Stereo N=Interactive or Banded Disc
Section three is 11. 11=1 of 1 disc, 12=1 of 2 discs, & 22=2 of 2 discs
Section four is E. E=Language E=English, S=Spanish I=Italian Sometimes it will have 2 digits, EE for example, not sure why.
Then a dash separated the next segment.
Section five is V. V=? (Could mean Videodisc?)
Section six is 1. 1=Single disc title, 2=Two disc title
Section seven is 05. 05=? (Not sure on this one)
Section eight is 582. 582 seems to be the title number or the number in which it was released.
The French Connection = CM11EE-V105001
Planet Of The Apes = CM11EE-V105002
Laura = WM11EE-V105003
Sands Of Iwo Jima = WM11EE-V105004
I have not noticed if any of them get into four digit numbers but I think they stopped using this spine code before that happened.