This page is for titles and discs that were not released to the public, other than some discs only available to special customers/organizations.
Some rare discs include, Avon Discs, Blackhawk Films, Retail Sales Discs, Unreleased Titles, Test/Prototype Discs, and Vaporware(discs or titles listed, or in advertising, but their existence cannot be confirmed).
Avon discs were made for the Avon Sales company and distributed to leaders in their organization to show meetings and new products. They are extremely hard to find as they were produced in very limited quantities and most were discarded after use. Please visit my Avon Discs page for more information.
The Blackhawk Films discs are samples made for the Blackhawk Films company. They were sent to Blackhawk for evaluation but they decided not to proceed with production. These are extremely rare as they were pressed in very limited numbers, the only ones in existence would have come from Blackhawk Films themselves, or from former RCA employees involved with disc production. You can learn more on my Blackhawk Films page.
Retail sales discs are discs that were sent exclusively to RCA dealers, sales and repair shops. They include service discs, demonstration discs, and discs containing information for dealers. You can learn more on my Retail Sales page.
The first title I am going to start with is the Memories of Videodisc. This is a title that was made and produced by Bob Huck to be presented to the final remaining employees who worked at the Rockville Road Videodisc factory. Both Bob and John Stevens have confirmed there were roughly 400 of these pressed and handed out. My copy was presented to Pam Menchhofer who worked in Mastering Quality Control from 1980-1984.
There are several titles that were never released to the general public. This could be because of copyright issue, or publication problems with the studio, but for whatever reason these titles were never released and if copies exist, it’s because employee’s took them home. The two most common are The Story of O, and Savage Streets. These were pressed in decent quantity but then for some reason were cancelled.
Another title that can be found in limited quantities but was never officially produced is Suspicion. This was most likely only made as a test disc at the small pressing facility at RCA Laboratories in Princeton, NJ.
Watch the intro to Suspicion here.
The next disc I have was obtained from Martin Royce. It is a test pressing of the title A Tribute to Toscanini. It is test disc number T-6278 and is identical on both sides.
Click here to watch the Tribute to Toscanini CED.
Click here to watch Horowitz in London.
Click here to watch the Engineering Demo Disc.
Click here to watch the Player Test Disc.
Click here to watch Der Zigeunerbaron.
The next few discs I am adding here just for information. I will probably add this to a different page later on. RCA made several different ES discs, or Extra Side, which was just usually something to throw on a blank disc or to mark an unused side rather than just leave it blank.
Supplemental ES(Extra Side) Disc 76476-88888
Some studios chose to have a “dead side” message, or basically a card indicating there was no material on that side of the disc. This is a PAL one from the film Dinosaurs. It can be found on several other titles. While not rare, it is interesting to note.
Supplemental -Extra Side (PAL) 77080-99998
Click here to watch the DM-83-31-31 WK1567A Test Disc
Click here to watch the PAL Prototype Service Alignment Disc
Another test pressing/sample disc, along the same lines as the Blackhawk Films, is this copy of Star Wars. When FOX Studios sent over the master tapes for RCA to make the CED, RCA recorded it in real time, meaning it was just over 2 hours long and required 2 discs. Copies were produced and sent to FOX Studios for evaluation. FOX said, no it needs to be on one disc. So RCA re-mastered it and by speeding the time up, was able to make it fit on one disc. The only copies of these 2 disc set of Star Wars A New Hope are ones sent to the studio for evaluation or copies taken home by employees. This is my disc 2 with side 3 from John Stevens. He lost disc 1 at some point.
While YouTube does not allow a video of Star Wars Side 3, you can download the video here.
The title Laura can also be found with the Prototype label on Tom Howe’s CED Magic website. https://www.cedmagic.com/featured/laura/laura.html
Some other very rare discs are The World War II discs. There are three of them, and they were only available through a mail in offer through readers digest. Customers could choose between VHS, Betamax, or CED. As you can imagine, very few people who ordered opted for the CED so very few of these actually sold. So few that they are more rare then some of the employee only discs above. I would even go as far to say they are more rare then Savage Streets which never even got an official release.
Europe: The Allies Close In 74643-91792
The Pacific: War Begins 74643-91812
Another thing RCA was trying to do was come up with new uses for it’s interactive titles and players. Some options were video games, educational titles, music discs, and travel agencies. Yes that’s right, they partnered with VidMark systems to produce a travel agent disc that would show customers different travel destinations, hotels, and resorts. You can read more about it on my Travel Discs page.
Click here to watch Rocky Mountain Ski Vacations.
Click here to watch Hawaii and Southern California Sun Vacations.
One of the educational discs they made for use with the interactive players was, A Walk Through the Universe. This was designed as part of the Telecourse: Project Universe, created in 1977 as a college course offered through the College of Southern California. I do not know if these was ever officially released to a school or was merely a sample of their interactive capabilities to send to the school. I only know of 3 or 4 of these in existence.
Click here to watch A Walk Through the Universe.
Continuing with their interactive theme we come to video games. RCA had high hopes for the video game market. They actually contracted with Bally to produce a NFL Arcade machine that used the SJT400 or SJT400X player and two different NFL discs featuring different teams and plays. The user would see clips from the discs in-between game play to give a more realistic experience. Unfortunately Bally felt this game play was worth more and raised their typical .50 cents a play to $1.00 per play, making this the most expensive arcade machine of it’s time. It’s pretty safe to say it didn’t do well and most machines were converted to something that would make the arcade more money. There are very few of them left in existence and I had the opportunity to see one first hand. There are 2 discs, one typically in a white caddy, and the other in blue, even though they were both mono discs. They rarely were labeled, often with just hand written description on them of what they were. They were only available through arcade distributors.
Test pressings were also made 11111-98024 & 11111-98126 but none have ever been found.
More information on the Bally NFL discs can be found on Tom Howe’s CED Magic website here,
NFL Football CED Arcade Game Web Page
Or you can watch a brief preview of the machine that I saw here.
Bally Midway NFL Football Arcade in Action
Watch the full Cowboys vs. Redskins blue disc here.
Watch the full Raiders vs. Chargers white disc here.
Another video game RCA was working on was through a company called Southgate. I don’t know much about the company, the game was called Lazon and you had to fly your plane or space craft though various levels and defeat aliens or alien ships while acquiring upgrades throughout the way. This is the only known disc to exist.
You can watch the Lazon disc here.
Hoyles Last Resort is another video game/interactive disc. It involves a detective who must gather clues to solve a crime. The caddy has no label or writing on it. This came from Tom Howe.
Click here to watch Hoyles Last Resort.
These are some discs aquired by Jesse Skeen. I am not sure where he got them or what they were made for. I have no record of them on any of my pressing lists so I don’t know what they were for.
Due to copyright infringement they are not allowed on YouTube, but you can watch a brief segment of disc III on Jesse’s YouTube channel here.
Midpoint of CED Jukebox Video Vol. III
Another rare set of discs I would like to cover are called the Compuvision discs. They were essentially a set of commercials related to the newest computer technology that would have been sent to stores for display on the showroom. I am not sure if they were ever utilized, or how many were actually pressed. I only know of two discs in existance. One was in the Jeff Gold collection, and one was found in a player by Jesse Skeen. Jesse states on his video, “This super-rare disc was demonstrated at the Spring 1984 Comdex Show in Atlanta as a prototype kiosk for computer stores to show promo material, using the random-access SJT-400 player controlled with a Commodore 64 computer.”
The discs were as follows,
COMPUVISION #1 76476-60401
COMPUVISION #2 APRIL 76476-60402
COMPUVISION #3 JUNE 76476-60403
COMPUVISION #4 AUGUST 76476-60404
COMPUVISION #5 76476-60405
COMPUVISION #6 NOVEMBER 76476-60406
COMPUVISION #7 76476-60407
Click here to watch disc #7 – 76476-60407 owned by Jesse Skeen.
I would like to thank everyone who donated images or information to help support this page. A special thank you to Austin Nealon and Jesse Skeen for the video’s they have uploaded to YouTube. Please visit their channels and subscribe for future videos.
Jesse Skeen – The Media Hoarder on YouTube
Austin Nealon – Video Store 64 on YouTube
As always, if you have any information about anything not included on this page please send me an email at videodiscjunkie@gmail.com thank you. -Josh Gibson