What was life like before the invention of the video recorder?

[Gemmalah]

Hi, i'm just doing a topic for uni on the invention of the video recorder, what did you do before you got one in your house? Could you not live without one?

I just don't know where to start this topic so online serveys always bring up good results...

thanks very much guys should be an intersying discussion.

oh and please tell me where you are from in your reply.

[Blade]

I'm from Poland so I got a video a little later then guys more to the west I think.
Question: Is it VHS only or DVD too? VHS is quite an old tech now, but for few years after I got a recorder it was really a great thing. I used to watch many movies on that, borrow them or record some from the TV. I can even remember a few stories in my life concerning video. VHS used to be great, but now I don't use it anymore (and that's not only because my recorder is broken ). But I got DVD juest a few days ago and I already watched a dozen movies with that. I really like watching good movies. Could spend much time just watching.

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Heh. You make it sound like an ancient time, and make VCRs look like the lifesaver of mankind. "Could you not live without one"? Well, people had been living without it for more than 1800 years. Things is, these things don't become what they are until they're actually made, yes? Next year someone may invent something new, say, some other means of transportation or a brand new too, or whatever, and everyone will smack their heads and go "Wow, I never needed this until now and I never really THOUGHT abuot it before, but now that I DO think, it makes perfect sense! How have I been managing without it!". Just think of, say, the telephone. How WOULD we manage without it? But people HAD been managing without it.

I'm only 18, so when I came along there WAS a VCR already and so I can't really answer your question, but I CAN say, in a more general way, that WE - the WE, our generation - are what we are because of what is around us. WE couldn't live without cellulars and VCRs and washing machines and whatnot because THEY WERE ALREADY HERE when we were born. We got used to them.

[Babar]

VCR? Is THAT what you meant by recorder? Confused me for a second. I don't have a VCR. Not that it is a rare thing around here....hell, people got multifunction DVD/VCD/Music CD players here now. I dunno....just don't need it, and don't wish to spend money to buy one. Don't even have cable. TV is around only for news and the occasional late night movie on the local channels. The rest I get through the net. I'm from Pakistan, by the way.

[jaz]

I don't have a VCR and I don't miss it at all. On the other hand I would miss Smartmovie which is a program that allows me to watch movies on my cellphone. It comes especially handy while commuting to work and back by underground :-).

[jrl2222]

The question is what was life like before you could download all the disney classics for your kids and then play them out to the vcr with your video card that has t.v. output and record them so your kids can watch them anytime on their tv/vcr combo in their bed room...Well life sucked because then you had to go to a theater to see them or wait for them to be re-released every 5 - 15 years to buy them.

Yes VCR's are a great wonder.

[Privateer Puddin']

It was a dark and horrible place where small goblins ruled the streets.

[Dave Gilbert]

I vaguely remember my parents buying one of the first VCRs back in the early 70s or early 80s (or whenever they were invented).  It gathered dust in our basement until I went away to college and took it with me.  It was AWESOME.  It was big, ugly and clunky with huge beige buttons that made loud clunks when you pushed them.  A great conversation piece too, as people would walk into my dorm room and go "What the heck is THAT?"  Good times.

[Evil]

I've always had a tape recorder. I still go back and watch tapes that my parents recorded of old shows back when I was a tot.

But without the production of the VCR, things like DVDs and video cameras wouldn't be around. I imagine all cameras would be manual and computers wouldn't have DVD burners. TiVo wouldn't be around either.

But those tape rewinders, what was with that? Why did you need a separate machine when you can rewind on the VCR?

[Rui 'Trovatore' Pires]

Probably to watch another film while the tapes rewinded, or sumpthin'...

[Darth Mandarb]

But those tape rewinders, what was with that? Why did you need a separate machine when you can rewind on the VCR?

What Rui said, and also because rewinding tapes in a VCR can damage the tape sometimes.

I remember getting our first VCR in 1982 or so ... it was a gigantic machine (like Dave Gilbert said) but it was way cool!Ã,  My uncle (around the same time) jumped on the BetaMax train so I remember those too.Ã,  My old man said BetaMax would die off and VHS would rule ... guess he was right!

I remember a few years later my dad bought the family a new VCR for Christmas ... it was like 1000 dollars (or something rediculous like that) but it had 'digital' memory where you could freeze the image and the VCR would keep it so you could go back later and see what you saved!Ã,  It had these video effects too (like mozaic, heat vision, etc.)

Now I can't hardly watch VHS anymore ... I'm spoiled by DVD.Ã,  Actually, what's worse is that now I'm spoiled by my HDTV and find DVDs lacking ...

will it ever end?

Darth Mandarb - American, Florida

[Blackthorne]

I was born in 1978, and raised in the early 80's, so I saw the public evolution of the Video.

Now, my family didn't get our first VCR until about 1986 - but when I was a kid, our neighbors had a VCR.  Thing is, they had a BETAMAX or Beta VCR.  There was a big war between which VCR was the better format, Beta or VHS.  Beta WAS better, but it was an exclusive technology that SONY owned, while VHS was free to anybody who could build a recorder.  I remember, as video stores in the US popped up, they carried both Beta and VHS, but I watched slowly as the Beta selection dwindled.  Eventually, VHS took over the public market, while later I learned that broadcast TV used Beta.

Bt

[Gemmalah]

I agree with rui yes i was a bit melodramatic but i didn't know how else to put it.
Ã,  Ã, However as we have grown up with it such as i have grown up with my computer we couldn't see life without it because its always there, or an alturnative like dvd.

what is a betamax, i renember an old tape thing an our attic by one spool was twice the size of the other and it was shorter than tapes now. I think it way have been for an old camera, but is it a betamax thingy.

oh and tape rewinders, some of them had special heads on the spools to clean the tape so it would last longer or something. I wanted one because when my brother was little he would cry and cry if he didn't have that days favourite video on. He would go crazy while waiting for it to rewind, so a video quick change in the player so we could keep his videos on would have been great. (better than having my hair pulled out)

[SSH]

My parents didn't buy a VCR until after I had left home and bought one myself... but then, we didn't have a colour TV until like I was 10 or something. My mum used to watch snooker on a 9" black-and-white TV which had an analogue dial.

This wouldn't be surprising if I was born in the 50s, but I was born in 1975!

[Darth Mandarb]

what is a betamax, i renember an old tape thing an our attic by one spool was twice the size of the other and it was shorter than tapes now. I think it way have been for an old camera, but is it a betamax thingy.

What is BetaMax?

That link explains it better than I can.Ã,  I actually learned a few things from it!

[Babar]

I use a rewinder (a little non-electronic device with a crank) to rewind my cassete tapes without wasting my walkman's battery, but I suppose that would not apply to VCRs.
What about LCDs? My uncle had a machine that played LCD movies at a time when all I knew about was VCRs. Does anyone know what happened to that?

My dad still has this huge machine where you have to wind a tape reel around two spokes, and then run it to play music. He has some really funny reels. I wouldn't have thought "Fly Robin Fly, Fly Robin Fly!" would have made a good song, but apparently it did.

[Esseb]

You mean Laser Discs? They're pretty much dead outside of a small market in Japan, but collectors still covet them due to their perceived superiority over DVD and the fact that a lot of movies available on LD is not (yet) available on DVD.

[Darth Mandarb]

I have the Sony MDP-650 LD player.Ã,  I love the thing ... it's super heavy, super slow, and super loud!!

I don't use it much anymore ... I took the Last of the Mohicans LD that I had and made a DVD from the LD because the DVD version they released is the king of CRAP!Ã,  I also am making the Original versions of Star Wars into DVDs from the Star Wars Definitive Collection on Laser Disc.Ã,  Making my own DVD cases, menues, etc.Ã,  (yes I have a dual layer DVD burner!)

The image isn't as good as DVD (more comparable to VHS) but I apply a few filters and sharpen it a bit and get it looking pretty darn good if I do say so myself.Ã,  And it's only AC3 surround sound ... but that's good enough for me.Ã,  I just want the OT on DVD!

[Sylpher]

A whole lot less bad Bob Saget jokes.