@@johnnyrottenpiss I have probably watched every episode at least 3 times. Some like Cause and Effect where the Enterprise kept getting destroyed in a time loop more than that. I do not think I have ever gone back and watched the entire series from beginning to end. DS9 is my fav though.
Our first VCR - VHS - had a remote on a wire...with ONE switch...Play (or record) / Pause...It was handy for taking out commercials so you could have the movie for years.
@@misters2837 If I remember correctly mine had a rocker switch, fast forward and reverse. I would fast forward thru commercials and overshoot then reverse to the end of the last commercial. Episodes were 45 minutes I think. By Enterprise they were 42 minutes. The Original Star Trek was 50 minutes including a 1 minute preview of next week's episode.
I can barely remember when they came out with 4 head vcr's, at the time, it seemed like such a big deal, also remember they had standard play, longplay, & extra longplay settings on them, you could record up to 6hrs on one cassette, but the quality was so compromised it was never worth it! Haven't thought about that stuff in quite awhile! Thanks David✌
I'm NOT disagreeing with you about the quality, but we used to record almost exclusively on long or extra-long play. We couldn't resist the economy. We had three films on every tape. 🤷♂ Also, as I recall, it wasn't that the quality was immediately much worse, it was that the picture deteriorated quickly with time. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I remember. 👍👍👍
@@TroubleToby3040 oh yea, absolutely! I lived most of my younger life on a budget! And I did the same exact thing, we had 3 movies on every single tape, and there's still stacks of them somewhere in one of our closets! It's just as I recall it, I can't swear to my memory these days, that's for sure! 😂 (just the best I can remember) the quality of them seemed to me to be nowhere near as good as the one's we recorded on standard play, now maybe it was mostly bc of the cheaper brand names of blank vhs tapes we bought? Possibly, Idk? You're also right about time taking it's toll on them, however our home videos of vacations and kids b-day's etc, were always on extra longplay too I'd say? And they seemed great especially at 1st, even compared to our recorded movies, for some reason? Who knows? But I doubt they're even watchable now, I don't own a Vcr these days, haven't had one in years✌
@@JWF99 I imagine you're right on all points... I don't want to get in a battle of one-upmanship, but your memory couldn't be any worse than mine. Mine is Swiss cheese, now. Good reminiscing, though. 👍😉
It's enjoyable viewing this promotional tape about the incoming VCR tech of the 1980's. Like yourself, I'm both an archivist and independent filmmaker, but started with video first and later moved into Super 8 and 16mm film by the mid/late 1990's. I was thankful for the ease of editing that VCR's eventually provided, even if quality substantially degraded over tape generations depending on the format used. The addition of flying erase heads to most decks was a lifesaver for anyone doing complex/clean edits before the shift to digital in the 2000's. While multimedia editing is far better quality now, for anyone whom experienced the tape/A/B deck-to-deck era, it was a very tactile process (similar to film) that while unforgiving at times, gave cutting a news story or program a far more exhilarating (or aggravating depending on the machine) experience. I still have a functional Sony VO-5600, although most of my 3/4" tapes have been transferred, the few I still have around from the 1980's play great, even at the 40+ year mark. Thanks for the video, David!
I know my husband and I purchased our first VCR around 1984 or 85. It was so wonderful to record shows and watch them when you had the time. And skip through the commercials!
Growing up, my friend's family had a Betamax. The rest of us had VCRs. If we hung out at his house to watch movies, one of us had to lug over our VCR with VHS movies so we could be entertained. Otherwise, we were stuck with the same two movies he had on Beta. I can't remember what those two movies were, but we didn't want to watch them because they were boring. I asked him why he had a Betamax, and he said it was because they got it as a gift.
You do realize that pretty much every movie released on VHS was also released on Betamax through about 1985? A steady stream of movies continued to be released on Beta until around 1990. Even into the early 90's movies could still be purchased on Beta through special order. Movies continued to be released on Beta until around 1996.
@@jacobm617 I was aware, but my friend and his family apparently were not. By the way, all the VHS movies the rest of us had were recorded off of HBO and Movie Channel. I was the one who had cable and recorded movies like an insane person. The VCR I had was constantly recording and I was one of those rare people in my town, at a young age, who knew how to program a VCR. Everybody else had their's flashing 12, 12, 12.....
I really enjoyed your description ( write up). In the late seventies I was working on a fishing boat and was making an obscene amount of money, I don't remember what year it was, but my fir VCR cost me almost $ 500. It was an exciting time for me. I had my on phone at 12, was able to buy a $1000 stereo. I was the envy of my peers, every body wanted to be my friend. I don't know about you but the 60's, 70's and 80's were the best years of my life. What happened ??? Thanks for your videos, they bring back great memories and they make you think.
Keith: Thank you for your comment. If your resources allow, I would sure appreciate your using the THANKS button under any of my videos including the one you have commented on. It is something new that TH-cam is beta testing and would mean a great deal for my continuing efforts. David Hoffman filmmaker
I knew people, when I was a kid, who had Betamax. For some reason, everyone looked like Claymation in those movies. It was the strangest look. You also couldn't get movies over two hours long on Betamax, unless it had been edited. We had a first generation VCR in my high school. It was a relic, by the time I got to high school. It was a top loader, fake wood paneling, with these odd, toggle-like buttons to depress for the various functions. My Ancient History teacher was showing some program or another, taped off the television, and he had to fast forward through a commercial. As the commercial showed on the screen at a speed barely faster than regular play, my teacher quipped, "This thing is amazing. It whips through a minute-long commercial in 58 seconds!" (As an aside, the teacher's name was Larry Hunt, and he was the son of the big band leader, Pee-Wee Hunt. Oh, the stories he told!)
@Rob C Nope. But he made jokes all the time about that, in reference to his son ("That kid's lucky I didn't name him Mike...") Years later, that son died in 9/11, unfortunately.
I remember a rich family that my cousin Nannied for back in 1983 thar had a machine that was very similar to a VCR but the movies were the size of albums but were square and they had E.T., Annie, Grease, and Tootsie. There were probably others but we were in HEAVEN when we got to visitor there!!
One of my relatives worked overseas with a “colony” of other Americans in the late 70s/early 80s. To entertain himself and colleagues and keep them culturally connected to America, he sent a VCR to us to record VHS tapes and mail them to him. The tapes would pass through the American families and then be returned to us to re-record new programming. When we got the machine, friends would come over just to look at it. It was huge and had big dials and faux wood paneling. It was way beyond our family’s means. We learned later that our family was considered “angels” by the other families for helping with homesickness and for our programming choices - a lot of which was PBS. I can almost guarantee Mr. Hoffman’s work was included in the programming.
Yep the late Father in Law was a TV repair man in the late 70's he had the huge beta system and the color camera with the suitcase sized recorder that had to be carried over the shoulder.
Thanks so much for reminding me of this brief moment in history. I used to love to go to Blockbuster to pick out the movie for the night. Nothing like when there was just one copy left of that movie that had just been released and I was there to grab it.
I remember my first encounter with a VCR like it was yesterday! Actually, it is more like the day before yesterday. Anyways, my brother had a friend, and his friend's father had bought a Sony Betamax VCR. MY MIND WAS BLOWN when I saw movies playing in someone's home. I never knew that such a miracle was possible. This was in 1979 or so. What an exciting time!
David, Thanks for the history lesson! Having grown-up with 2 parents that worked in ENG, I had dreams of becoming a journalist. Then reality set in. However, I worked for a rather large-midsize studio in SOCAL back in the 90's. I was tasked with an impossible project. To try to save NASA footage that was recorded on 3/4", 1", and Betacam from the 1960's-1980's. I basically took on this project with the understanding that it was not a priority for the studio. The client was UCSD-TV. They had tried to do the transfer and experienced similar results as to what you described. This is where I may be able to help. I tried several methods, the one that worked best was putting the tapes in a freezer and cleaning the VTR heads as much as needed! Best of luck to you!
I purchased my first VCR in 1983, I had graduated college in 82 and finally had the money to buy one, my first was an RCA unit and cost me about $400 if I remember correctly, by 83 there were video rental stores and I was in heaven with all the movies I could ever want to watch (when I wanted to watch them) 😊
I loved my VCR and VCR tapes. I paid for some of my personal recordings (family events, etc) to be put on DVD. Just a matter of time til that will be outdated also. Good memories=THX.
This is cool I really like this video, I always like a David video but I really like old technology especially when it's presented as brand new and unknown
That could've bought a decent used car in 1981. That was the year I was born, so by the time I remember seeing VCRs in the store, they were mostly under $300.
The world of physical objects is getting further and further away. Very interesting look back, thanks for posting Mr. Hoffman. Which did you own, Beta or VHS?
In fall 1980, I went on a car-trip with my folks to visit my Dad's cousin and other relatives near Miami Fla. Dad's cousin had a Beta Sanyo VCR deck, with a bunch of tapes, and I was hooked So, ln '81, I bought my first VCR - a two piece portable Beta-Toshiba - for about $1100. By then prices of the least expensive Sanyo Home VCR was around $600. But I wanted a portable, with a car-cord and rechargeable battery. By that Christmas, I'd scored a very basic color Sony camera at a closeout sale for about $500.Took the Toshiba & camera down to my folks in Virginia Beach, and taped their New Years party, with a bunch of their neighbors (a few of them in embarrassing situations!). Then, in August '82, I took the outfit on an epic 7000-mile cross-country road-trip from Virginia to California and back.That thing had a shoulder-strap to carry the heavy, suitcase size recorder, while the Sony camera perched on my shoulder - TV-news style. The tiny battery was only good for about an hour, So the car cord got a lot of use on that trip. By 1986, I'd upgraded to a Zenith two-piece Beta portable made by Sony. That portable unit was about half the size and weight of the Toshiba, and had many more features. But it was fragile. First, one of the folding metal pins that guided the tape while it was threading, snapped off its' plastic hinge. I was able to find and install a repair kit for that, but after another year, something started heating up on the main circuit board, and after about a half-hour, the video would switch to snow! So no more on the go videos for me the next few years. Fortunately, in late '82, I'd picked up a Sanyo Beta home deck on sale for $400, So I could still enjoy my tapes and record off the air at home. I finally got a Mitsubishi VHS deck in 1988, and that started another long chapter of my video hobby, that I won't prolong here! 🙂
"What the industry calls 'time-shifting.'" Do they? Do they call it that? 😂🤣😂 My favorite part is when the lady said, "One of these machines can cost up to $800... Which is a lot of money back now."
Back in 1979, my shop supervisor bought a VCR when they first came out. He paid $1000 and mostly used it to record the Muppets. We were stationed overseas in Korea and there wasn't a whole lot on military tv. Just a few years later you could pick one up for under $30.
We didn’t have one and only black and white 📺 until i got married. In 1992 my husband sold audio and home theater systems etc. vcr’s were 300-600$ depending upon features 10 years they came way down
@Texas Wunderkind wow. I have so many...classic Disney, popular movies from different years, taped TV shows too, and endless MTV interviews. Plus a promotional video for GTE Wireless/Mobilnet (now Verizon Wireless) taped in 1991. I worked in Product Marketing at their Corp offices back then and was asked to play an insurance adjuster inspecting a car and using the newest bag phone to report my findings to the office. Lol. We shot it in the parking lot of the Corp bldg in Atlanta. Classic. You've encouraged me. Maybe I should comb through those old treasures and see if any are worth anything.
The VCR wars, the vhs tape ran slower and was a bit cheaper than these betamax. Also I think Phillips licensed more companies to manufacture vhs, competition brought the machine purchase price down very fast in 5-10 years. They say became quality was higher. TEAC the company at the end of this clip, got very big in reel to reel tape recording, and cassette recording. They came out with 4 track portastudio for musicians. It allowed a lot of the English synthesiser bands OMD, Depeche mode etc to buy cheap synths, rent or buy a portastudio and release singles on a small budget, or go into a studio and have half of it already on cassette
I wonder if this was from slightly before 1981. From Feb to Aug 1981 before going to college I managed the first video library in our town, one of the first in the country. We had many movies on VHS and Beta, marketed by companies such as Intervision, Hokushin and ITC. Highlights included Enter the Dragon and Annie Hall. Bond and Star Wars were not yet available to us. We had a machine of each type on display, Beta was better, but VHS was edging ahead in popularity. Both had timers. We also had a colour camera (JVC) to link to the VHS machine - the recorders and camera each cost about £1000/$ 12 years later in 1992 the wonderful Panasonic FS200 edit VCR (amongst others, but the FS200 was best) made it possible to do clean insert edits on domestic VHS, and complex home productions became possible. I made my first promotional film in that year for which I was paid £1000. At each stage we think tech has finally arrived, and still do. What's emerging now is domestic equipment and tech good enough to make a feature film. But we're still only half way. What lies in store is the ability to replace any actor in any movie with an actor of your choice, or yourself. The day is coming when every Bond movie will star Sean Connery. Also the era of photo or video material being admissible as evidence may soon come to an end.
We had one of those RCA selectavison. Priced into today's dollars the cost made me cry. Before the RCA we had an AKIA B&W reel to reel video system. The cost of that thing was astronomical. Still have it in the basement.
The VCR was made popular by it's inclusion in the 1976 Columbo episode on NBC "Fade Into Murder" where the murderer Ward Fowler, played by William Shatner, used the VCR to create an alibi for himself.
VCR's and video rentals changed the film industry and allowed people to watch whatever they wanted, judgement free, in their own homes. Porn, obviously, got story and production money, but so did first time film makers in every category. Horror films made cheaply made a lot of money !
The Zenith VCR used in the thumbnail and the majority of the video is the model JR-9000W. I own two of them that I've fixed to playing condition...They were Zenith's first VCR model and were a re-badged Sony SL-8200 (Sony's third betamax, and the fist beta to offer the longer record time of the BII speed) and I keep my nicer example on top of my working 1962 Zenith 29JC20 Color TV (Zenith's first color set which they waited till 7 years after color was introduced to market, despite contributing to the development of the color standard). They told a half-truth about these not having a timer....There was no internal timer, but there was matching accessory timer offered (I've got one). I also recently picked up a Sony LV-1901 which was a TV-VCR console that contained the first Betamax deck the SL-6200...I plan to try and use the Zenith to dub a BI speed test tape (every tape I have is recorded in BII or BIII) for the LV-1901 once I have time to test it's VCR. I've got a 1971 Sony VO-1600 U-Matic VCR (the first U-Matic) too...A lot of people call it a broadcast deck, but IMO Sony wanted it to capture the same consumer market they were aiming at with Beta. The early U-Matics were not built to produce precise enough sync for broadcast (unlike true broadcast formats like Type C and Quadraplex), and while other's claim the first U-Matics which had tuners 'weren't built for the consumer market because they didn't have built-in timers' I'd like to point out that BOTH the first 2+ generations of standalone Betamax decks AND the first generation U-Matics had matching optional external timers.
I use the Sony VO-1600 to copy my three-quarter inch videos. If I treat it very delicately, it keeps on working. Knock on wood. David Hoffman filmmaker
@@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker I think I had to flip the belts over on mine once. I wish I could find a service manual with a schematic. The tuner on mine is dead, and while it's not really needed it irks the OCD part of my brain that the tuner doesn't work. (yes I know about the DTV transition, and workaround it with my own low power analog TV transmitter).
😆 the survivor of the week with his munched tapes! Oh, how I remember the devastation of the VCR eating tapes! I grew up very rural, and I had a cousin who lived in Minneapolis and would tape MTV in the early days for me. Blank tapes were expensive as heck for a kid back then! 😆
I didn't recall that there were 4 systems. I thought it was just VHS and Betamax. I don't recall Quasar VR 1000 or V-Cord II. What happened to V-Cord I? I remember the Betamax enthusiasts arguing for its superiority over VHS but I correctly guessed that the VHS would become the standard and bought that system.
to put the cost into perspective since inflation makes the $2,400 price tag seem less impressive than it really was, a brand new Ford Ranchero, would've cost you $2,995 in 1970. so a home recorder and tv set was worth nearly the cost of a new car, granted the Ranchero was on the very low end, it was still a brand new car. cheapest new car today is a Nissan versa, at $15,830, not many Americans could spend that much on an entertainment system, especially without financing. crazy thing is if you plug it into an inflation calculator the $2,400 the system cost back then would be the equivalent of spending over $18,000 in 2023, so it'd cost more than the cheapest new car nowadays
I'll tell you who else is 'retro' ... David Hoffman ... and we 'dig" that fact!! I recall the local Butcher in outback Western Australia - 1987 (Herbert Hoover had been a gold mine Engineer there - 1890s) adding video movie rentals to his available items list. Perhaps he sensed veganism was 'just around the corner'.
He calls her RHEEEAh. Its Pronounced "Ray" Reminds me of my old friend, He kept telling me his middle name was "Rise." I said, "that's unique. How do you spell that?" "R-H-Y-S" he said. smh "ITS REESE! Your parents have been telling you wrong for 25 years!"
Problem with generation before 1970s nobody had known "VCR" now after 5 decades even today's generation don't know "VCR"...VCR ruled Earth in between 1970s to 2000s after 2000 CD then DVD then pend drive now You Tube...
I didn't buy a VCR until 1987 to record Star Trek The Next Generation and skip commercials on playback. A remote control on a wire! How stone age!
I love TNG. I've been getting clips suggested by TH-cam lately. I'm thinking about rewatching the entire series.
@@johnnyrottenpiss I have probably watched every episode at least 3 times. Some like Cause and Effect where the Enterprise kept getting destroyed in a time loop more than that. I do not think I have ever gone back and watched the entire series from beginning to end. DS9 is my fav though.
Our first VCR - VHS - had a remote on a wire...with ONE switch...Play (or record) / Pause...It was handy for taking out commercials so you could have the movie for years.
@@misters2837
If I remember correctly mine had a rocker switch, fast forward and reverse. I would fast forward thru commercials and overshoot then reverse to the end of the last commercial. Episodes were 45 minutes I think. By Enterprise they were 42 minutes. The Original Star Trek was 50 minutes including a 1 minute preview of next week's episode.
@@johnnyrottenpiss best television show ever.
I can barely remember when they came out with 4 head vcr's, at the time, it seemed like such a big deal, also remember they had standard play, longplay, & extra longplay settings on them, you could record up to 6hrs on one cassette, but the quality was so compromised it was never worth it! Haven't thought about that stuff in quite awhile! Thanks David✌
I'm NOT disagreeing with you about the quality, but we used to record almost exclusively on long or extra-long play. We couldn't resist the economy. We had three films on every tape. 🤷♂ Also, as I recall, it wasn't that the quality was immediately much worse, it was that the picture deteriorated quickly with time. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's what I remember. 👍👍👍
@@TroubleToby3040 oh yea, absolutely! I lived most of my younger life on a budget! And I did the same exact thing, we had 3 movies on every single tape, and there's still stacks of them somewhere in one of our closets! It's just as I recall it, I can't swear to my memory these days, that's for sure! 😂 (just the best I can remember) the quality of them seemed to me to be nowhere near as good as the one's we recorded on standard play, now maybe it was mostly bc of the cheaper brand names of blank vhs tapes we bought? Possibly, Idk? You're also right about time taking it's toll on them, however our home videos of vacations and kids b-day's etc, were always on extra longplay too I'd say? And they seemed great especially at 1st, even compared to our recorded movies, for some reason? Who knows? But I doubt they're even watchable now, I don't own a Vcr these days, haven't had one in years✌
@@JWF99 I imagine you're right on all points... I don't want to get in a battle of one-upmanship, but your memory couldn't be any worse than mine. Mine is Swiss cheese, now. Good reminiscing, though. 👍😉
@@TroubleToby3040 For sure ToubleToby, you have a good evening, and thanks✌
It's enjoyable viewing this promotional tape about the incoming VCR tech of the 1980's. Like yourself, I'm both an archivist and independent filmmaker, but started with video first and later moved into Super 8 and 16mm film by the mid/late 1990's. I was thankful for the ease of editing that VCR's eventually provided, even if quality substantially degraded over tape generations depending on the format used. The addition of flying erase heads to most decks was a lifesaver for anyone doing complex/clean edits before the shift to digital in the 2000's.
While multimedia editing is far better quality now, for anyone whom experienced the tape/A/B deck-to-deck era, it was a very tactile process (similar to film) that while unforgiving at times, gave cutting a news story or program a far more exhilarating (or aggravating depending on the machine) experience. I still have a functional Sony VO-5600, although most of my 3/4" tapes have been transferred, the few I still have around from the 1980's play great, even at the 40+ year mark. Thanks for the video, David!
Nice to see another video from you David, it a gem what you have. Thanks for sharing.🙂🎥
I know my husband and I purchased our first VCR around 1984 or 85. It was so wonderful to record shows and watch them when you had the time. And skip through the commercials!
1981, fresh out of tech college and I was busy cleaning and repairing VCR's. Gezz 😂
Good report. They didn't sugarcoat it. They expressed how expensive, lack of available movies and Sony being sued by Disney.
Also, I am glad that Chris Hawkins survived his injustice with Teac. His story is truly inspirational!
Growing up, my friend's family had a Betamax. The rest of us had VCRs. If we hung out at his house to watch movies, one of us had to lug over our VCR with VHS movies so we could be entertained. Otherwise, we were stuck with the same two movies he had on Beta. I can't remember what those two movies were, but we didn't want to watch them because they were boring. I asked him why he had a Betamax, and he said it was because they got it as a gift.
You do realize that pretty much every movie released on VHS was also released on Betamax through about 1985? A steady stream of movies continued to be released on Beta until around 1990. Even into the early 90's movies could still be purchased on Beta through special order. Movies continued to be released on Beta until around 1996.
@@jacobm617 I was aware, but my friend and his family apparently were not. By the way, all the VHS movies the rest of us had were recorded off of HBO and Movie Channel. I was the one who had cable and recorded movies like an insane person. The VCR I had was constantly recording and I was one of those rare people in my town, at a young age, who knew how to program a VCR. Everybody else had their's flashing 12, 12, 12.....
What a great story!
Betmaxes ARE VCRs!!! VCR = video cassette recorder. Back then, they were available in two formats, Betamax (or Beta) and VHS.
I really enjoyed your description ( write up). In the late seventies I was working on a fishing boat and was making an obscene amount of money, I don't remember what year it was, but my fir VCR cost me almost $ 500. It was an exciting time for me. I had my on phone at 12, was able to buy a $1000 stereo. I was the envy of my peers, every body wanted to be my friend. I don't know about you but the 60's, 70's and 80's were the best years of my life. What happened ??? Thanks for your videos, they bring back great memories and they make you think.
Keith: Thank you for your comment. If your resources allow, I would sure appreciate your using the THANKS button under any of my videos including the one you have commented on. It is something new that TH-cam is beta testing and would mean a great deal for my continuing efforts.
David Hoffman filmmaker
what happened is that you were young, and now youre not!
I knew people, when I was a kid, who had Betamax. For some reason, everyone looked like Claymation in those movies. It was the strangest look. You also couldn't get movies over two hours long on Betamax, unless it had been edited.
We had a first generation VCR in my high school. It was a relic, by the time I got to high school. It was a top loader, fake wood paneling, with these odd, toggle-like buttons to depress for the various functions. My Ancient History teacher was showing some program or another, taped off the television, and he had to fast forward through a commercial. As the commercial showed on the screen at a speed barely faster than regular play, my teacher quipped, "This thing is amazing. It whips through a minute-long commercial in 58 seconds!" (As an aside, the teacher's name was Larry Hunt, and he was the son of the big band leader, Pee-Wee Hunt. Oh, the stories he told!)
Did he have a brother named MIKE
@Rob C Nope. But he made jokes all the time about that, in reference to his son ("That kid's lucky I didn't name him Mike...") Years later, that son died in 9/11, unfortunately.
Betamax tapes ran as long as 3 1/2 hours, so you could easily get more than 2 hours on one Beta cassette.
This was fascinating in light of the popularity VCRs has faded. I still have one from early 90's great write up as always in your description. 📼
I remember a rich family that my cousin Nannied for back in 1983 thar had a machine that was very similar to a VCR but the movies were the size of albums but were square and they had E.T., Annie, Grease, and Tootsie. There were probably others but we were in HEAVEN when we got to visitor there!!
Laserdisc
@@africanfartingfrog Laserdiscs aren't square. CED seems more likely.
Why does this seem SO much older than 1981!! Oh, the hilarity!! 😂
well, it IS 42 years ago!!
@@larrybud listen Sonny, when you get to my age, 42 years ago was LAST WEEK! You'll find out if you're lucky enough to live this long!! 💕
One of my relatives worked overseas with a “colony” of other Americans in the late 70s/early 80s. To entertain himself and colleagues and keep them culturally connected to America, he sent a VCR to us to record VHS tapes and mail them to him. The tapes would pass through the American families and then be returned to us to re-record new programming. When we got the machine, friends would come over just to look at it. It was huge and had big dials and faux wood paneling. It was way beyond our family’s means. We learned later that our family was considered “angels” by the other families for helping with homesickness and for our programming choices - a lot of which was PBS. I can almost guarantee Mr. Hoffman’s work was included in the programming.
Wow what progress we made since then. I remember getting one and back then it was the best thing to happen in home video entertainment.
My dad used to have a vcr like that he’d record things with. I still have many of the old tapes of his they were cool
When did he first get a vcr?
81 was the greatest year of the 20th century.
Why?
Yep the late Father in Law was a TV repair man in the late 70's he had the huge beta system and the color camera with the suitcase sized recorder that had to be carried over the shoulder.
Thanks so much for reminding me of this brief moment in history. I used to love to go to Blockbuster to pick out the movie for the night. Nothing like when there was just one copy left of that movie that had just been released and I was there to grab it.
I remember my first encounter with a VCR like it was yesterday! Actually, it is more like the day before yesterday. Anyways, my brother had a friend, and his friend's father had bought a Sony Betamax VCR. MY MIND WAS BLOWN when I saw movies playing in someone's home. I never knew that such a miracle was possible. This was in 1979 or so. What an exciting time!
David, Thanks for the history lesson! Having grown-up with 2 parents that worked in ENG, I had dreams of becoming a journalist. Then reality set in. However, I worked for a rather large-midsize studio in SOCAL back in the 90's. I was tasked with an impossible project. To try to save NASA footage that was recorded on 3/4", 1", and Betacam from the 1960's-1980's. I basically took on this project with the understanding that it was not a priority for the studio.
The client was UCSD-TV. They had tried to do the transfer and experienced similar results as to what you described. This is where I may be able to help. I tried several methods, the one that worked best was putting the tapes in a freezer and cleaning the VTR heads as much as needed! Best of luck to you!
I purchased my first VCR in 1983, I had graduated college in 82 and finally had the money to buy one, my first was an RCA unit and cost me about $400 if I remember correctly, by 83 there were video rental stores and I was in heaven with all the movies I could ever want to watch (when I wanted to watch them) 😊
I loved my VCR and VCR tapes. I paid for some of my personal recordings (family events, etc) to be put on DVD. Just a matter of time til that will be outdated also. Good memories=THX.
Reminds me , I gotta return these tapes to Blockbuster
Killer Video!!!
That was fascinating
This is cool I really like this video, I always like a David video but I really like old technology especially when it's presented as brand new and unknown
I just can't get over paying over $1000 for a VCR! Or nearly $2000 for a color camera!!!! 😂
Adjusting for inflation, the $1,000 VCR would cost ~$3,300 today. Amazing how much less expensive consumer electronics have become...
That could've bought a decent used car in 1981. That was the year I was born, so by the time I remember seeing VCRs in the store, they were mostly under $300.
Inflation adjusted that's $3200 for the VCR.
The newer technology is the more it cost. Do you remember how much the iPhone cost when it first came out?
@@farmerj1 in 2008 a 52" samsumng lcd tv was over $3k. Now you can get one at Walmart for $300. It is strange to be a consumer sometimes.
The world of physical objects is getting further and further away.
Very interesting look back, thanks for posting Mr. Hoffman. Which did you own, Beta or VHS?
I own both.
David Hoffman Filmmaker
I remember having to rent them on the weekends if you were lucky enough to find one. LOL
This is great, Thanks!
I bought one. Wonderful invention
In fall 1980, I went on a car-trip with my folks to visit my Dad's cousin and other relatives near Miami Fla. Dad's cousin had a Beta Sanyo VCR deck, with a bunch of tapes, and I was hooked So, ln '81, I bought my first VCR - a two piece portable Beta-Toshiba - for about $1100. By then prices of the least expensive Sanyo Home VCR was around $600. But I wanted a portable, with a car-cord and rechargeable battery. By that Christmas, I'd scored a very basic color Sony camera at a closeout sale for about $500.Took the Toshiba & camera down to my folks in Virginia Beach, and taped their New Years party, with a bunch of their neighbors (a few of them in embarrassing situations!). Then, in August '82, I took the outfit on an epic 7000-mile cross-country road-trip from Virginia to California and back.That thing had a shoulder-strap to carry the heavy, suitcase size recorder, while the Sony camera perched on my shoulder - TV-news style. The tiny battery was only good for about an hour, So the car cord got a lot of use on that trip. By 1986, I'd upgraded to a Zenith two-piece Beta portable made by Sony. That portable unit was about half the size and weight of the Toshiba, and had many more features. But it was fragile. First, one of the folding metal pins that guided the tape while it was threading, snapped off its' plastic hinge. I was able to find and install a repair kit for that, but after another year, something started heating up on the main circuit board, and after about a half-hour, the video would switch to snow! So no more on the go videos for me the next few years. Fortunately, in late '82, I'd picked up a Sanyo Beta home deck on sale for $400, So I could still enjoy my tapes and record off the air at home. I finally got a Mitsubishi VHS deck in 1988, and that started another long chapter of my video hobby, that I won't prolong here! 🙂
When TV was worth recording
"What the industry calls 'time-shifting.'" Do they? Do they call it that? 😂🤣😂
My favorite part is when the lady said, "One of these machines can cost up to $800... Which is a lot of money back now."
these machines were amazing i loved watching horror films on vhs i still have one today.
The good old days!
Totally remember these ads, at the beginning those VHS models were pretty expensive. But eventually I did own one.
Thank you for a way to reach across the Generation Gap to my grandchilren.
I grew up on David Letterman because of a VCR!
FYI, $1000 in 1981 is = $3400 in 2023 using "official" inflation numbers.
I remember as a kid when we got our first VCR. I thought I had died and went to heaven.
Back in 1979, my shop supervisor bought a VCR when they first came out. He paid $1000 and mostly used it to record the Muppets. We were stationed overseas in Korea and there wasn't a whole lot on military tv. Just a few years later you could pick one up for under $30.
Are you sure this was recorded in 1970? In the beginning of the video, the guy said "...even though these have only been on the market since 1975." ?
There is absolutely no way this is from 1970. The guy also mentions 1976 later lol.
We didn’t have one and only black and white 📺 until i got married. In 1992 my husband sold audio and home theater systems etc. vcr’s were 300-600$ depending upon features 10 years they came way down
Ha! Not only do I still have my Sony Hi-Fi Stereo VCR I still have a drawer full of personal tapes and movies.
@Texas Wunderkind wow. I have so many...classic Disney, popular movies from different years, taped TV shows too, and endless MTV interviews. Plus a promotional video for GTE Wireless/Mobilnet (now Verizon Wireless) taped in 1991. I worked in Product Marketing at their Corp offices back then and was asked to play an insurance adjuster inspecting a car and using the newest bag phone to report my findings to the office. Lol. We shot it in the parking lot of the Corp bldg in Atlanta. Classic. You've encouraged me. Maybe I should comb through those old treasures and see if any are worth anything.
Who thought we’d ever advance to the point where we don’t even need equipment outside of our TV set, I can’t imagine what the next step is.
The VCR wars, the vhs tape ran slower and was a bit cheaper than these betamax. Also I think Phillips licensed more companies to manufacture vhs, competition brought the machine purchase price down very fast in 5-10 years. They say became quality was higher.
TEAC the company at the end of this clip, got very big in reel to reel tape recording, and cassette recording. They came out with 4 track portastudio for musicians. It allowed a lot of the English synthesiser bands OMD, Depeche mode etc to buy cheap synths, rent or buy a portastudio and release singles on a small budget, or go into a studio and have half of it already on cassette
I wonder if this was from slightly before 1981. From Feb to Aug 1981 before going to college I managed the first video library in our town, one of the first in the country. We had many movies on VHS and Beta, marketed by companies such as Intervision, Hokushin and ITC. Highlights included Enter the Dragon and Annie Hall. Bond and Star Wars were not yet available to us. We had a machine of each type on display, Beta was better, but VHS was edging ahead in popularity. Both had timers. We also had a colour camera (JVC) to link to the VHS machine - the recorders and camera each cost about £1000/$ 12 years later in 1992 the wonderful Panasonic FS200 edit VCR (amongst others, but the FS200 was best) made it possible to do clean insert edits on domestic VHS, and complex home productions became possible. I made my first promotional film in that year for which I was paid £1000. At each stage we think tech has finally arrived, and still do. What's emerging now is domestic equipment and tech good enough to make a feature film. But we're still only half way. What lies in store is the ability to replace any actor in any movie with an actor of your choice, or yourself. The day is coming when every Bond movie will star Sean Connery. Also the era of photo or video material being admissible as evidence may soon come to an end.
I remember when my mom got a vcr. I was so happy. My friends had vhs nd a betamax player and was jealous for years.
I remember the time before vcrs very well, and how revolutionary this tech was. And now, it’s totally obsolete.
Sure, but it lead to current concept of time shifting, home movies, home rentals...
Fantastic Year. It's the year I was born in..
We had one of those RCA selectavison. Priced into today's dollars the cost made me cry. Before the RCA we had an AKIA B&W reel to reel video system. The cost of that thing was astronomical. Still have it in the basement.
Cool,you still have old recordings on tapes?
@@betaman-u9y Yes I've got boxes of tapes. Haven't found a way to recycle them. Also have two working machines that can play them.
This show was recorded in 1977, not 1970. 6:02 - the host mentions an event that took place several months prior in October 1976
The clip starts with an image of a Sony 1810 Umatic. I had one of them ! Odd, they didn't mention the Umatic.
She pressed those buttons like they were ignition switches on an F4
My first VCR was $300.......now they're $5 at thrift stores or in a landfill even if they work
The prices came down to $400 by 1986
This killed the peep show.
The VCR was made popular by it's inclusion in the 1976 Columbo episode on NBC "Fade Into Murder" where the murderer Ward Fowler, played by William Shatner, used the VCR to create an alibi for himself.
VCR's and video rentals changed the film industry and allowed people to watch whatever they wanted, judgement free, in their own homes. Porn, obviously, got story and production money, but so did first time film makers in every category. Horror films made cheaply made a lot of money !
@@texaswunderkind Like that is a bad thing ? It told you a lot about each other and cost you NOTHING, and was interactive !
The Zenith VCR used in the thumbnail and the majority of the video is the model JR-9000W. I own two of them that I've fixed to playing condition...They were Zenith's first VCR model and were a re-badged Sony SL-8200 (Sony's third betamax, and the fist beta to offer the longer record time of the BII speed) and I keep my nicer example on top of my working 1962 Zenith 29JC20 Color TV (Zenith's first color set which they waited till 7 years after color was introduced to market, despite contributing to the development of the color standard).
They told a half-truth about these not having a timer....There was no internal timer, but there was matching accessory timer offered (I've got one).
I also recently picked up a Sony LV-1901 which was a TV-VCR console that contained the first Betamax deck the SL-6200...I plan to try and use the Zenith to dub a BI speed test tape (every tape I have is recorded in BII or BIII) for the LV-1901 once I have time to test it's VCR.
I've got a 1971 Sony VO-1600 U-Matic VCR (the first U-Matic) too...A lot of people call it a broadcast deck, but IMO Sony wanted it to capture the same consumer market they were aiming at with Beta. The early U-Matics were not built to produce precise enough sync for broadcast (unlike true broadcast formats like Type C and Quadraplex), and while other's claim the first U-Matics which had tuners 'weren't built for the consumer market because they didn't have built-in timers' I'd like to point out that BOTH the first 2+ generations of standalone Betamax decks AND the first generation U-Matics had matching optional external timers.
I use the Sony VO-1600 to copy my three-quarter inch videos. If I treat it very delicately, it keeps on working. Knock on wood.
David Hoffman filmmaker
@@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker I think I had to flip the belts over on mine once. I wish I could find a service manual with a schematic. The tuner on mine is dead, and while it's not really needed it irks the OCD part of my brain that the tuner doesn't work. (yes I know about the DTV transition, and workaround it with my own low power analog TV transmitter).
😆 the survivor of the week with his munched tapes! Oh, how I remember the devastation of the VCR eating tapes! I grew up very rural, and I had a cousin who lived in Minneapolis and would tape MTV in the early days for me. Blank tapes were expensive as heck for a kid back then! 😆
I didn't see any instruction for setting the time. This explains a lot...
I didn't recall that there were 4 systems. I thought it was just VHS and Betamax. I don't recall Quasar VR 1000 or V-Cord II. What happened to V-Cord I? I remember the Betamax enthusiasts arguing for its superiority over VHS but I correctly guessed that the VHS would become the standard and bought that system.
I actually prefer the subtitle style on this old video which highlights each word vs the huge black box style on tvs today.
"Suing Sony for making VCR:s"? Totally insain!
We are laughing at that old technology but the Young an up-and-coming generation will be laughing at our internet and streaming services.
That $1000 VCR today, after calculating inflation is worth $3600 today 2023..
Electronics have sure become throw away items today..
Time shifting? Never knew I had access to such powers...
The betas were so loud and clanky.
The good ole days when you could own stuff and be happy.
@@texaswunderkind I guess thats why we will own nothing and be happy soon.
Doubtfuly about year .VHS was presented in 1976 in Japan and in sales in US started in 1977 or even later . this video seems to be 1978 or so.
VCRs are now worth hundreds to thousands again. Technology value is cyclical.
Why
@@darriusmackey7981 They are rare now. No longer being mass produced. i fix old VCRs and sell them on Amazon for around 800 each.
@@GalactusOG wow
@@darriusmackey7981 VCR DVD combos go for around 1500. i look for them in yard sales, Swap meets etc.
@@GalactusOG VCR's are analog right? Will they play tapes on digital TVs ok?
The prices make the latest mobile phones look like a bargain
$1,000 in today's dollars is about $3,411
bought my first in the summer of 1980
It's cool to watch recordings from that era
Hey David Hoffman did you hear David Crosby passed away today. He was 81.😔
I did hear. He was a memorable musical leader of our generations.
David Hoffman filmmaker
They didn't tell you that you need degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Engineering in order to figure out to program a VCR.
VCR is like a time machine 😇 📼 ⏰ 🕰⏳
I didn’t get a VCR until 1990
I believe this was from 1980. Partly due to the price, and also the woman mentioning what was going on in 1975.
to put the cost into perspective since inflation makes the $2,400 price tag seem less impressive than it really was, a brand new Ford Ranchero, would've cost you $2,995 in 1970. so a home recorder and tv set was worth nearly the cost of a new car, granted the Ranchero was on the very low end, it was still a brand new car. cheapest new car today is a Nissan versa, at $15,830, not many Americans could spend that much on an entertainment system, especially without financing. crazy thing is if you plug it into an inflation calculator the $2,400 the system cost back then would be the equivalent of spending over $18,000 in 2023, so it'd cost more than the cheapest new car nowadays
Chesus, 1000 bucks for a VCR system back then. That would be like ... well come to think of it fits well with the prices on smartphones...
VCRs were popular with the Eastern Bloc nomenclatura as hopefully thumb drives are to DPRK elite.
Wow how about the survivor of the week, not giving up until he got all 10 of his damaged tapes replaced!
Disney was even messed up with there ways of thinking even way back then
I'll tell you who else is 'retro' ... David Hoffman ... and we 'dig" that fact!! I recall the local Butcher in outback Western Australia - 1987 (Herbert Hoover had been a gold mine Engineer there - 1890s) adding video movie rentals to his available items list. Perhaps he sensed veganism was 'just around the corner'.
My parents bought a VCR in 1978 I know it was over $1000.
So 800 dollars for a VCR back in 1981 would be $2575.
What was the first VCR movie you ever watched?
tech prices havent really changed much
Chris survivor of the week lol
1970? I don't think so. The first Betamax came out in 1975.
you are correct and I have change the title.
DAVID HOFFMAN filmmaker
@@DavidHoffmanFilmmaker good going!
OMG. Honesty in advertisement?
He calls her RHEEEAh. Its Pronounced "Ray" Reminds me of my old friend, He kept telling me his middle name was "Rise." I said, "that's unique. How do you spell that?" "R-H-Y-S" he said. smh "ITS REESE! Your parents have been telling you wrong for 25 years!"
Problem with generation before 1970s nobody had known "VCR" now after 5 decades even today's generation don't know "VCR"...VCR ruled Earth in between 1970s to 2000s after 2000 CD then DVD then pend drive now You Tube...
I like these things, where can I get one?
Many are sold on eBay each day.
David Hoffman filmmaker
cant say i remember the pitch.. i was -25 at the time
Back then that thing cost $1'000.
Huh?