VCR's in general

[jason h]

Re: VCR's in general

"Please rewind the tape before returning to the store" - Classic.
We got our first VCR in about '83 and the first movie we rented was Dirty Harry. It was a SHARP and it came with a remote control connected to the unit via a cable - so not so remote then. The dog chewed thru the cable later on. It was VHS and a front-loader.
Our model came with a special light on it called 'DEW'. I think this was some kind of warning light but it never came on and I always want it to, just once.

[Danny]

Re: VCR's in general

See these DVD players , they can be really annoying when you viewing a wide screen movie
You have to press buttons to change view format or zoom in, my old video just made the jump from standard to wide screen automatically.

Also you could 'fast forward' through all copyright warnings at the start , now the little not allowed logo pops up ,by the time you can see the film it's time to pause and put kettle on!

[sixtyten]

Re: VCR's in general

Easily.
I don't have a TV or Video
Got one for the DAB but never use it

[karenbrown18]

Re: VCR's in general

I remember the first type of remote control with all the bloody wires everywhere.... Don't think we bothered after trying it out, was easier to get up and turn the tele over. Can you imagine life now with a Remote??

[Morcar]

Re: VCR's in general

It was years before my parents had a video as my dad has always been a technophob.

My first video was a Ferguson brought it from a rental place that was cloasing down so I have no idea of how many hands it had been through before me. Cost me abnout £80 I think and I still have it and it works fine (Damn now I've said that it will probably break).

It's a great piece of kit - front loading - black (with all the printing on the buttons now long gone) proper remote control (now lost) so I'm the only one that can use it as I know which button is which.

Re: VCR's in general

My dad worked for a tv/video rental firm in the late 1970s and so we were lucky enough to have access to a video recorder at home .....legally ... I think! :-)

The company also had a small video library of tapes including:

Von Ryan's Express
The Posidon Adventure
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Jaws
Jaws 2
Grease
Capricorn One

.... and that was about it!

Video recorder rental costs were not cheap (I think my dad said it was about £ 18 a month in those days) and blank video tapes cost a tenner each!

I remember to this day the first thing we recorded off the telly. It was the 1979 Easter edition of Disney Time (remember that one?).

We must have watched that over and over again for days, purely because we could!

I also remember that we recorded the episode in 1980 when JR got shot because our family went to a party that day. We all got up at half six the next morning to watch it, so as to avoid hearing on the radio who had shot JR!

For those interested this is the type of video recorder they had in the 1970s:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVoBsw2ngIs

Enjoy!

[Rapanui]

Re: VCR's in general

Our first video was a betamax - a great big clunkie thing that was almost two big to sit on top of the tv. Ant that rediculous remote control with a long lead to it that you had to plug in to the back of the video - and if you wanted to record somethig and cut out al the adds you had to keep the button pressed in for the duration ...

[Rapanui]

Re: VCR's in general

Similar story here - someone I once worked with having a birthday party for their daughter who was turning 6 - they decided to rent out a video (snow white and the dwarves) for the kids at the party to watch after the food. Thank God the parents decided to preview it the day before the party as it turned out to be the porno version - it had been put back in the wrong cover at the video shop !

[Cal]

Re: VCR's in general

I remember being about ten, mum let me buy a betamax from a car boot sale, it only cost a few pounds and came with a few tapes, we got it home set it all up, pressed play, and to mum and dads horror on came a porno, i remember me and my brother being told to get out while he and mum "sorted it" took a while.

excellent little story PMSL.
i remember a friend of mines old fella getting a home video camera kit.circa 1983-4
the camera was huge but you had to connect it via a cable to a video that you also had to carried along with you , the video was the size of a small suitcase. lol ....how times have changed

[Fatboy]

Re: VCR's in general

I remember being about ten, mum let me buy a betamax from a car boot sale, it only cost a few pounds and came with a few tapes, we got it home set it all up, pressed play, and to mum and dads horror on came a porno, i remember me and my brother being told to get out while he and mum "sorted it" took a while.

lol, Thats a funny story lol.

[Heather74]

Re: VCR's in general

I remember being about ten, mum let me buy a betamax from a car boot sale, it only cost a few pounds and came with a few tapes, we got it home set it all up, pressed play, and to mum and dads horror on came a porno, i remember me and my brother being told to get out while he and mum "sorted it" took a while.

[Fatboy]

Re: VCR's in general

My parents were rather late in getting a video, the first video they got was in 1987, all I can remember is that it was an AKAI brand. I can remember years earlier, my friends having Philips video 2000 machines, which were MASSIVE, I can always remember the arguments my two friends would have regarding which was better, as one had a Betamax and the other had a video 2000, the friend who had the video 2000 used to always say that they were better as you could record on both sides of the tape. I can always remember people saying that Betamax was the best format as it beat video 2000, VHS, on picture quality, is this right ?

[Oggy]

We had a video disc player too, my dad won it at his works raffle, but we only had like 3 discs......

[steve edwards]

i remember that my dad bought our first ever video , it was a video 2000, NO I HADNT HEARD OF IT EITHER , it worked on the same idea as a music cassette , where as you can record/ tape on both sides it was fab

[Cal]

our first vcr was a sony C7 betamax a great bit of kit back then......the days of having to lie down on the floor to input all the time and programme details into the machine to do a timed recording.
i think it was stupid money back then (81), the figure of £499 seems to ring a bell