Television Electronic Disc

Television Electronic Disc (TeD) is a discontinued video recording format, released in 1975 by Telefunken and Teldec.

Program information was stored in the form of ridges in the surface of a thin, flexible foil disc, which was claimed to be sufficiently robust to withstand being played 1,000 times.

The tracks were read by a pressure pick-up, which translated the surface of the ridges, via a piezo-electric crystal, into an electrical signal.

Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd. of Japan, which had been conducting similar research itself (but was by now also developing the V-Cord videocassette recorder), was granted a licence to produce a version that would play out in the NTSC television format and by the end of 1976 had devised a long-awaited auto-changer that took 12 10-minute discs.

Also in Japan, General Corporation took a manufacturing licence in July 1976 with an expectation of coming to market in April 1977.