Oooh, I enjoyed re-watching that! Rather a lot of guesswork here, but assuming the 2.5 um groove is around 21 km long for an hour and the undulations have a fixed 400 nm length and the disk runs at constant linear pickup speed, the undulations are running at about 14 MHz as a constant carrier frequency (not FM at all). The original baseband FM composite TV signal on its 3.58 MHz subcarrier, plus audio at 4.5 MHz is used to modulate the *depth* of the undulations, so purely amplitude modulation *BY* the original FM signal. The diamond stylus was only there to float along the top of the undulations, but it had a 250 nm thick metallization on its trailing face. The edge of that layer faces the grooves and the capacitance between it and the disk forms part of the capacitance of a tuned RF cavity at about 910 MHz. That is excited by a 915 MHz oscillator. The Q-factor of the cavity (or tank circuit) is such that a small variation in resonant frequency moves the response at 915 MHz up and down the skirt of the resonance curve. The amplitude level of that induced signal is then envelope-detected as an AM signal. The demodulated output of that is the 14 MHz carrier, still amplitude-modulated. After another envelope detection, that is then converted back to the original FM baseband signal using a limiter and normal FM discriminator or phase locked loop. That is then used to drive a modulator so the reconstituted signal can be watched on a normal broadcast TV receiver. The capacitance change of around 100 attoFarads for 85 nm peak to peak height variation needs a high-reactance cavity, with perhaps less than 100 femtoFarads of capacitance so the variation in resonant frequency gives sufficient FM deviation. One day, I must make a video about this. Those folks at RCA really wild with this idea. Must have been something in the coffee....

Growing up, my grandma had one of these and they had around 200 discs at the local library. In the mid 90's the library sold them for $1 per movie and my grandma bought the lot. We had everything from Star Wars to Jane Fonda workouts. The worst part was when someone would put the disc back in the case upside down so when you went to watch Escape from Witch Mountain it would start halfway through and you would have to reinsert the case upside down, take it out, flip it, put it back in only to find out there was a scratch and the movie would skip through the whole movie.

Since everyone is asking: I'm not just a monster, I had to cut the disc! I needed to cut a smaller piece to fit inside the SEM chamber, and on the AFM stage. Apologies for anyone who felt physical pain for watching that! 😅

as soon as i saw CED content i knew Technology Connections would be involved somehow 😂

ive watched the technology connections series on this like a dozen times. really fascinating saga, the politics, the science, it's just crazy

I'm so glad you recommended Technology Connections for their video! Love his channel and yours too. Both two great and thorough channels.

A little correction - the height of the groove is not what encodes the signal, as stated at 4:45. As the signal is FM, it's actually the change in frequency from a known carrier (I believe 915MHz). This has a few advantages - you can normalize the amplitude and thus actually remove a lot of noise from the system, and as the amplitude ideally does not change at all, the groove stays a constant width. Very cool to see up close! I'd never thought of actually trying to image the surface like that.

Hope this video won't spiral into a 5 part series involving the latent heat

I'd love to see some other disc-based media. Magneto-optical discs, like a MiniDisc, might look interesting. Also, a comparison of recordable CDs vs re-writable CDs vs pressed CDs would be very informative to see.

This thing feels like a project some engineer thought up out of curiosity whether it could work, and somehow it went way too far :D

I hope Technology Connections is even half as excited as me to see this.

Awesome video! Absolutely amazing the detail that can be resolved from such small features. And yes the Technology Connections series is a masterpiece.

Incredible technology, a shame it was all a bit of a waste. What I really wonder is how they made the masters, what sort of technology was involved 40-50 years ago to mass produce nanoscale features like this

It’s bizarre that a surface depending on mere nanometers of precision to function correctly would ever have something rubbing against it *by design.* I’m just surprised the very concept was approved to enter engineering phase much less was even launched as a product.

Been patiently waiting for a new one of these. Fantastic work as usual Mr.Z

It would be cool to see a size comparison to the pits on a cd/dvd.

The best way to understand the CED failure is to put it into historic context with other developments: 1960 - First commercial products with helical-scan tape heads 1960 - First pumped/pulsed ruby laser operated 1960 - First continuous HeNe gas laser operated 1962 - First continuous GaAs semiconductor laser 1963 - LaserDisc invented 1964 - CED invented 1971 - VHS development started 1972 - First LaserDisc demo 1973 - First VHS demo 1974 - First analog optical disc development 1976 - VHS launched in Japan 1978 - LaserDisc launched 1981 - CED launched 1983 - CD Audio launched Big problems with CED were machine price, and reliability. Using a physical pickup really wasn't a problem, the head drum is also in contact with VHS tape and degrades it with every play, and in contrast, CEDs could simply be pressed, basically with a normal vinyl-pressing process, just that the PVC was carbon-filled and I assume the master had a shorter lifespan.

This is the best video you've ever put out. It's great! Good job and keep up the hard work.

This is just the right amount of density of information. I don't know much about what's going on or the technical terms but you make it easy to listen to!

Technology connections is my favourite channel, bar none. Really cool that you see that work as masterpieces as well! VERY cool vid!

If it didn't exist, I wouldn't believe it could work.

I was always enchanted by those rainbow patterns it made back in the day

I always have to watch your videos at least twice, because the first time around I'm too mesmerized by the images to hear anything you say. Keep up the great work!

I randomly came across this video and my first thought was that this was some channel with millions of subscribers. This is top tier content, i love the narration!

Those were some very cool images. The later landing zone images of the rougher surface were especially interesting to think about the level of refinement and how these were made.

Your microscopic content as well but mostly the way (intonation) in which you comment reminds me of the youtube channel: Journey to the Microcosmos. I just love the calm, almost hypnotic voice that sends my brain into a state of something in between being awake and asleep. Keep doing! Subscribed!

Wonderful in-depth showcase!

this channel is so good!

Technology Connections would probably love this

CED was a real wizardry to get old tech to do the unthinkable those engineers deserve all our respect

A beautiful video with great narration

so amazing. im glad i found your channel.

This video compliments Technology Connections' series extremely well! I found my way here from Ben @ applied science and I am happy as I can be!

Awesome stuff as always!!!

Beautiful music selection.

Love to hear the Technology Connection recommendation at the end of the video!

Looks like some ancient artifact under the microscope. Makes one wonder about actual ancient artifacts and if their obvious appearance hides something more profound similar to this

Awesome channel and video!

I had a CED and loved it!

Beautiful video!

I really enjoy your videos. But I have a small problem. Ever since I first became aware of the tunneling electron microscopes many years ago, I have always wondered how they are able to move the tip with such amazing precision. So far all of the articles I have read seem to gloss over this aspect of the technology. I’d truly love to know how this apparent wizardry is accomplished. Thanks

Journey to The Microcosmos AND Engineering, my dream come true : )

I'd never understood this technology until you've enlightened me. Thank you.

love your work

Awesome! I learned something cool just now.

Great pace for this subject.

This is fantastic

About a decade ago now, my father bought 3000ish records that had been stored in the back of a van for who knows how long. Among those records, we found about 200 CEDs. Naturally, I had to look them up. A couple minor points you missed. The stylus on a CED player is boat shaped. Also, the disc itself was coated in a lube that was required to keep the stylus from digging in like you showed. Well, that lube had 2 problems. The first, it attracted dust, like you showed in the landing groove. The second, it would dry out and destroy the stylus and cartridge.

My curiosity thanks you so much 🙌🏽🏆

super cool!

Breaking Taps is a top 10 YT content creator in this category.

I knew you were going to say watch Technology Connections lol.

Honestly.. The fact we've had technologies to produce really incredible products even far back as the 70s is really crazy.. I only imagine what can we really do that's not yet public as of today... Truly amazing and interesting

Fascinating!

I remember when they landed at Radio Shack in the early 80s. This was the end of the line of electromagnetic analog recording formats. The CD and DVD finally moved us into the digital realm and now, streaming has eliminated physical media altogether.

Love CEDs! 1970s analogue tech couldn't make use of it, but the feature size is *_so_* far below the wavelengths of visible light that optical discs like CD/DVD/BluRay could never compare - terabytes or even petabytes on a 12" disc!

1960's used to play the old gramaphone in the old ladys bungalow never understood how a needle could pickup sound from a disc seemed like magic dvds Cpus still seem magic to me trillions of tiny silicon strands that make a it work

The technology we had when we were forced to create things in the analog.. it's just amazing. We created the entire digital world with nothing but transistors, ridges and grooves, sensitive decoders, and vacuum tubes.

That's pretty accurate and revealing. Thanks! I worked on the project at RCA so if you have any questions let me know. Great micro-images!

One of the things I like to do with your videos is get high and listen to them at .5 times speed. It makes you sound drunk but still highly intelligent and it makes me laugh.

To me, the most fascinating thing is the density of the stored "data". They use only CAV and only a part of the surface is used (from outer ring to inner ring). Laserdisc uses the entire disc. I always thought the optical approach is much more efficient, but seemingly it wasn't at that time.

Fascinating and very well done! This is by far and away the only video I've found to go into such detail on the disc itself. It really is amazing that these where produced in the 70s, but it's also painfully obvious why this format is flawed and never should have caught on, due to the rapid damage and destruction of the media and Stylus. Bravo. But no thank you on the technology connections plug, I am not a fan. But of Breaking Taps? Hell to the yeah I'm a fan!

I discovered a while back that if you shine a green laser (green for best visibility) on the surface of a CD or DVD etc, you can see the tracks and individual pits in the reflection if you project it on a wall. It's more visible with larger tracks on CDs, but DVDs work, too. It shouldn't be surprising, but it never fails to impress me when I see 5-10 tracks of a CD being projected on my wall.

this blew my mind... so in effect the player of the CED was a SCM device (similar to your AFM, which itself is kinda like the standard vinyl reader), all this done in 60s and 70s...

I enjoy rewatching this! The information density will only be topped by photo masks for lithography or the silicon chips made. I never expect to have a chance to see an analog video, all at once. Not even individual frames like a celluloid film would be.

So cool

I would love ❤️ to see a comparison of an AFM stylus to a CED stylus to the read/write head of a modern hard drive. I wonder how truly different they really are. I mean they all operate on the nm scale but serve completely different functions.

That's amazing

Nifty !

i gasped when you started cutting it up.

OK... Just WOW. WOW! A lot today was required to analyse what was "meh!" in those times to function!!!

absolutely crazy to think its analog, mind blown

"Engineers: Hmm we have problems with dust making distorsions and it require some high amount of data that take a lot of room on both side of the plate. If there only was a way to make a much smaller plate that has a protective surface that is much less sensitive and read out the info without even touching the surface, oh well that will never happen."

Quick! Somebody go get Alec…AKA “technology connections!” He’s gonna love this shit

On the note of Storage Formats, how hard would it be to make Optical Disks with your equipment? Would you even be able to make stuff like this, or BETTER YET a new*minidisk* ?

I ask to you more videos like this.

I just tought, could you probe a film strip? Or a photo? Could you get any detail out of that?

I had a friend with one of these players. In the context of the time the video and audio were still better than VHS and CED Discs and players were more affordable than laser.

It’s time for a technology connection

Awesome

Well this is fascinating. Thank you YT algorithm, you got this one right.

How douyls these nanometer-scale features look under the AFM after just briefly touching them with a fingertip?

This video says it's episode 05 but i only saw 3 episodes. Where can i find the rest?

Now I wanna see a VHD under that microscope

Would be great to the the needle itself 😄

It may have been a market failure but it is far more elegant than any tape recording and certainly the digital discs.

could you do organics under the AFM? organic polymers with micro- and nano- scale structures might be very interesting. particularly in chitin in funguses and insects

Can you scan an hologram? like the credit card ones.

What an absolute bonkers system. It feels kind of steampunk - like it's a weird hybrid of very modern and very old technology. I can see why it wasn't successful, but I'd be super curious to play with it.

Is this the same as the bluray disc?

It is very impressive they could do this on a mass manufacturing and that it works I’d like to see the same analysis on the Japanese version the VHD from what I understand they did not have groves

I didn’t even know this existed.

There are two types of engineering problem solving. 1 -- consistently overcome all difficulties, complicate the system and get a miracle of engineering, a wonderful creation. 2 -- find a fundamentally different way where these problems simply do not exist and get a product that will change the world.

What size was the stylus tip?

How about developing an optical divice to read/interpret these analogue discs? That should be possible today... or is it not?

Wow, cool tech! What speed do the discs rotate?

Somebody help me understand what I’m missing on how we go from measuring these tiny row heights or depths or sizes or whatever to thinking it was a good idea to somehow turn that measurement data into some other equivocal data that expresses as A Movie, 🤔 I’m missing something

how did they manufacture the disks!?

Imagine- there’s some engineer/scientist/tech sitting out there, reminiscing this project they’ve worked on that went nowhere.

but how re-write DVD worked?