Anyone Miss The VCR Era? (best, star, music, movies)
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As a buyer for my library, there was a time when I saw prices dirt cheap for VHS and DVDs, the result of the stores going out of business and someone buying up their stocks.
The shelving in my garage came from a video store that was giving away all of their shelving for free! It cost them many thousands of dollars and they sold all of their tapes for dirt cheap; but they had to clear out the shelving to be free of their landlord. Much of the shelving they built themselves out of pine lumber and I also repurposed that lumber into other projects around our house. It was a windfall for us that we happened to be in the right spot at the right time.
The shelving in my garage came from a video store that was giving away all of their shelving for free! It cost them many thousands of dollars and they sold all of their tapes for dirt cheap; but they had to clear out the shelving to be free of their landlord. Much of the shelving they built themselves out of pine lumber and I also repurposed that lumber into other projects around our house. It was a windfall for us that we happened to be in the right spot at the right time.
I would love for something like this to happen to me. Lumber is crazy expensive right now.
I would probably lose track of which tape had which show. Not to mention having a ton of tapes since I'm into so many shows. The only thing miss about that era was all the cheesy straight to video slasher flicks I rented on the weekends. That a ritual in my house. Wait for mom to get home, we'd hit the 2 mom and pop places in the neighborhood and rent movies making sure to include at least 2 horror flicks.
I would probably lose track of which tape had which show. Not to mention having a ton of tapes since I'm into so many shows. The only thing miss about that era was all the cheesy straight to video slasher flicks I rented on the weekends. That a ritual in my house. Wait for mom to get home, we'd hit the 2 mom and pop places in the neighborhood and rent movies making sure to include at least 2 horror flicks.
I do this periodically with Netflix. They have some REALLY low budget slasher films which can only be found if you browse by category and go to the end of the list.
I miss the family trip to Blockbuster or any of the varying privately owned video stores. I miss the dinner that came along with Friday movie night. I miss "everyone gets to pick their favorite" and spending Friday-Sunday getting through the stack.
I DO love technology and love that I have thousands of titles between movie and tv that I can hold in my hand and any of the other benefits I mentioned earlier in the thread.
I still miss the family time of the era.
I tend to agree with the nostalgia part. Remember, we didn't know anything about DVRs or streaming video, so getting to see a recently released movie at home was really magical at the time. I can remember heading to Blockbuster after dinner on a Saturday night with the wife. We'd scan up & down the aisles looking for the perfect movie, grab some snacks and head home for "movie night". It was really something special. This might be a topic for another thread, but it seems that that might be one downside to technology. It turns the "magical" into the "routine".
As for me, I still have a VCR and about a dozen old movies that were never released on DVD that I watch from time to time. Amoeba Records in Hollywood has racks of VHS movies. Last time I was there I picked up "Run Silent, Run Deep" for a buck. Great old war movie.
I would probably lose track of which tape had which show. Not to mention having a ton of tapes since I'm into so many shows. The only thing miss about that era was all the cheesy straight to video slasher flicks I rented on the weekends. That a ritual in my house. Wait for mom to get home, we'd hit the 2 mom and pop places in the neighborhood and rent movies making sure to include at least 2 horror flicks.
A neighbor threw out in the trash a big box of VHS tapes,
she had taped every Oprah show for years! I couldn't pass it up,
I taped 3 movies per tape, totaling almost a thousand movies.
I have since bought some of them on DVD as VHS picture quality
is unfortunately not up to par with modern TV's.
No way I can replace all of them on DVD, would cost over 10 grand.
A neighbor threw out in the trash a big box of VHS tapes,
she had taped every Oprah show for years! I couldn't pass it up,
I taped 3 movies per tape, totaling almost a thousand movies.
I have since bought some of them on DVD as VHS picture quality
is unfortunately not up to par with modern TV's.
No way I can replace all of them on DVD, would cost over 10 grand.
True but 3 movies on a tape means recorded in SLP (6hr). Those tapes are going to degrade the fastest.
A neighbor threw out in the trash a big box of VHS tapes,
she had taped every Oprah show for years! I couldn't pass it up,
I taped 3 movies per tape, totaling almost a thousand movies.
I have since bought some of them on DVD as VHS picture quality
is unfortunately not up to par with modern TV's.
No way I can replace all of them on DVD, would cost over 10 grand.
Well, not now!
That was my authentication project to ensure that for all the movies acquired in an unethical youth I had a proper consumer copy.
It has been a project, now close to conclusion, that has probably been going on for 10 years at least if not a little bit more. Fortunately for me, Fate decided that I should start the project during the overstock era when things were dirt cheap.
A thing about SLP recording and quality when it is transferred to DVD is that our technology has finally caught up to us. If one tries to watch it in wide screen, yes, it is going to be very "blurry" such as at the edges of objects in the screen. If it viewed with a VLC media player, though, then the width of the screen is reduced and the quality is rather acceptable.....at least on the lap top screen.
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