TelDec, a partnership between Telefunken and Decca, introduced an early disc system in 1975 in Germany. Called TeD (for Television Disc) it resembled a conventional phonograph system, with a needle reading grooves in the discs. The disc ran at 1,500 revolutions per minute (rpm) and played about ten minutes per disc. The system failed due its short playing time, lack of a software market, and many technical problems due to its fairly primitive hardware base, which couldn't deliver the bandwidth necessary for quality video playback.

     Subsequent development of videodisc systems was divided into two distinct technical approaches. Capacitance systems resemble traditional phonograph systems, although the grooves' function is simply to guide the stylus over the disc surface, where pits on the disc would be read as an electrical signal and decoded into audio and video. Optical systems used a laser beam to read pits on a disc.

     Both RCA in the United States and JVC in Japan developed capacitance systems in the 1970s. JVC's format was called VHD and utilized a ten-inch disc spinning at 900 rpm, yielding two video frames per rotation. VHD was sold only in Japan, and was eventually withdrawn after optical videodiscs came to dominate the Japanese market in the early 1990s.

     In March 1981, RCA introduced its SelectaVision videodisc system after a substantial research program and a massive advertising campaign. This system featured a 12-inch vinyl disc that spun at speeds of up to 450 revolutions per minute, with four frames read in each rotation. When not playing, the disc was protected by a plastic caddy. The RCA system was a contact system, with an electrode at the end of a stylus reading variations in capacitance on the grooved disc.

     RCA supported its rollout of SelectaVision by marketing discs of recent films, classic films, documentaries and how-to programs. They were sold at RCA dealers and were priced  between  $14.95  and  $24.95. At launch, there were 100 titles available.

     Philips and MCA developed similar optical videodisc systems that used a laser to read pits on a disc in 1972. Their systems were confirmed in 1976, and players using this standard were first available in 1978 . This system used a disc rotation of 1,800 rpm, and held 54,000 frames per side of disc, for a continuous playing time of 30 minutes. This method of encoding, called CAY (constant angular velocity) put each frame in its own track, with the adjacent tracks in concentric circles from the inside to the outside. Since each frame had its own unique address, CAY discs excelled at displaying still frames, short motion sequences, slow motion, and random access  to individual frames or sequences .

     These special features made it possible to use video, and video players, in entirely new ways. Educators embraced the discs as powerful teaching tools, and corporations adopted videodisc for industrial training and sales kiosks. Interactivity was boosted, first, by the creation of bar codes that could be bound into a book or lesson plan, making short motion sequences or still frames available on demand with the simple swipe of a light pen. Educational technologists called this "level 1 interactivity." Later, sophisticated videodisc machines with microprocessors provided built-in interactivity (level 2), and, finally, external microcomputers were linked to videodisc players. In this setup (level 3 inter­ activity) the student would follow a text on a computer screen, occasionally clicking a button that would trigger a motion sequence on an adjacent video screen.

     Later, in order to fit an entire feature film on one disc, the CLV subformat was developed. This system could hold up to 60 minutes of video per side by varying the rotational speed of the disc from 600 to 1,800 rpm and by arraying the tracks in a long spiral, similar to a record album. While this system was more efficient than CAY, ordinary players could not access the special features available on CAY discs. Videodiscs appeared after consumer videotape for­mats such as Betamax and VHS were introduced, and struggled to reach success in the marketplace. While videodisc players offered high-quality audio and video playback, consumers regarded videocassette recorders, which could record off the air as well as play prere­corded movies, as being more flexible.

     As the home video industry evolved, tape became the most common rental medium, further limiting the sales of videodisc hardware and software. Competing formats also hurt the videodisc industry, in comparison to the video rental industry, which settled on VHS tape. As home videocassette recorders became a mass medium, their prices dropped significantly, while videodisc players, as a niche medium, remained expensive.

     RCA bowed out of the home videodisc market in April 1984, after selling only about 550,000 players and losing $580 million in the venture. MCA's optical system, initially called DiscoVision, and later, LaserDisc, got a renewed lease on life by becoming the de facto disc system. As home video became more popular, connoisseurs would purchase videodiscs as the best signal source for their large-screen televisions and surround sound systems. As the audio compact disc diffused into the marketplace, videodisc players were developed that could play audio CDs, as well as new digital soundtracks on conventional videodiscs. These "combi-players" helped keep the format alive into the 1990s.

     As the audio compact disc gained in popularity in the 1990s, researchers set out to develop a videodisc with the same appealing form factor. An early attempt was Philips's CD-I, or compact disk-interactive format. The CD-I players required a hardware add-on cartridge to handle MPEG decoding, and the discs faced the same limitation of laserdiscs: they could only hold about an hour of video. Since feature films typically run up to two hours, this meant that movies on CD-I had to be distributed on two discs.

     It was not until the development of DVD that the right combination of technology, price, software support, and consumer acceptance converged to deliver a successful, mass market videodisc format.