Funnily enough i noticed just recently while having a bit of a Dr who DVD Marathon that the PS3 would start the DVD right up at the bit i stopped watching it at.....brilliant little feature.
VHS nostalgia... =(
- Thread starter Itisnotlogical
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Funnily enough i noticed just recently while having a bit of a Dr who DVD Marathon that the PS3 would start the DVD right up at the bit i stopped watching it at.....brilliant little feature.
Yeah, my VCR growing up never rewound a tape that quickly. It was usually a few minutes.
Not a thing I miss about VHS.
I certainly have a nostalgia for the early 80s when my family got a VCR and the home video business was just starting to boom. Probably more than the format itself what I miss is the artwork for movie posters and VHS tapes back then. A really great cover could make me fond of a film even after I watched it and found out it was a pretty crappy low-budget horror, sci-fi or action film.
I still watch crappy low-budget horror, sci-fi and action films, but the covers are boring these days.
I still watch crappy low-budget horror, sci-fi and action films, but the covers are boring these days.
Funnily enough i noticed just recently while having a bit of a Dr who DVD Marathon that the PS3 would start the DVD right up at the bit i stopped watching it at.....brilliant little feature.
Yeah, it is. Quite nice. Although that might be a standard Blu-ray feature rather than a PS3 feature as it does it on our dedicated Blu-ray player as well.
Goliath, yeah, we used to do that as well as we had an old TV from the early 90's that didn't have any kind of digital inputs. Made it a pain to try and configure our Harmony remote though, as it wouldn't recognize a setup like that. It wasn't until recently that we got an HDTV that made it much easier to switch things as needed.
I thought about this the other day actually. My room used to be filled with VHS tapes, mainly Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Star Trek Voyager and a few others, not to mention a couple of dozen off-air Babylon 5 tapes.
I sold off most of my collection in 2003-2004, and my VHS died not long after. The only thing I have left is a VHS tape of my home movies as a kid (which is itself a copy of old 8mm films), which I plan to copy to DVD/digital file in the coming weeks.
Do I miss it? Part of me does, but I'd never go back. DVD has happily replaced what came before.
VHS only gave me the show. DVDs gives me the show, plus commentaries, deleted scenes, stills, documentaries, bloopers and more.
While we're on the subject of old formats, my BetaMax player from 1985 got the bif last month too.
I sold off most of my collection in 2003-2004, and my VHS died not long after. The only thing I have left is a VHS tape of my home movies as a kid (which is itself a copy of old 8mm films), which I plan to copy to DVD/digital file in the coming weeks.
Do I miss it? Part of me does, but I'd never go back. DVD has happily replaced what came before.
VHS only gave me the show. DVDs gives me the show, plus commentaries, deleted scenes, stills, documentaries, bloopers and more.
While we're on the subject of old formats, my BetaMax player from 1985 got the bif last month too.
Absolutely this. Buying a second-gen DVD player for US$500 was an easy sell to the missus after many interrupted movie rentals because the tracking on the tape couldn't be fixed.
Two things that do annoy me about DVDs though are persistent mastering issues which mean I need a standalone player and my computer because I have a handful of DVDs that will freeze up on one, but not the other (and vice-versa) and region-locking. The latter means using a remote code on the standalone player and multiple external DVD players on the computer since I have DVDs from four regions. On the other hand it's good to have spare players around!
Five minutes? Really? I never had one take more than thirty seconds, or maybe a little longer. Also, I had a rewinder that I had to toss because that thing was SO fast it would rip the tape right off the spool. The one good thing that came from that is I learned how to fix VHS tapes.
That being said, five minutes is not an eternity either.
I repeat: kids today.....
^^^I know, dont know when they have it so good......I remember when Video recorders came with a playing needle that you had to change when they ran down, i remember Hitler bombing the local video recorder needle factor so nobody could record and watch any radio programmes on it, and everybody had to go back to the old video cassettes made from old cloth and bits of skin.
Good days.
Good days.
Eh, I can live with 45 seconds of unskippable bullshit for all the advantages of the format. I throw a disc in and go pour myself a beer.
I thought about this the other day actually. My room used to be filled with VHS tapes, mainly Doctor Who, Blake's 7, Star Trek Voyager and a few others, not to mention a couple of dozen off-air Babylon 5 tapes.
I sold off most of my collection in 2003-2004, and my VHS died not long after. The only thing I have left is a VHS tape of my home movies as a kid (which is itself a copy of old 8mm films), which I plan to copy to DVD/digital file in the coming weeks.
Do I miss it? Part of me does, but I'd never go back. DVD has happily replaced what came before.
VHS only gave me the show. DVDs gives me the show, plus commentaries, deleted scenes, stills, documentaries, bloopers and more.
While we're on the subject of old formats, my BetaMax player from 1985 got the bif last month too.
I have the nostalgia for the experience of seeing so many of the things on video for the first time, I can remember the dates certain films were on TV, rushing around to find tapes, even finding odd gems on the end of recordings.
I've still got my Doctor Who collection, for one thing its not worth anything to sell it. I must have about 50 off air tapes that I never have time to copy as well.
My sister on the otherhand moved out earlier in the year, and left her collection of over 1000 off air tapes behind - shes waiting for someone to sort through them! But she taped everything.
Two things I notice about the DVDs I've bought over the past 12 years.
1. Loads of films I never bought on video. Mainly since I taped them off air, there was no point buying an official tape that wasn't much better than I could tape myself.
2. Kids shows on video were kids videos. Kids shows on DVD are collectable! I never would have got Transformers, Thundercats and so forth on video, but DVD boxsets seem more acceptable. (after all few kids the right age for them would have been interested, so it must be older fans buying them)
Widescreen films on video were the greatest waste of time in hindsight. There there was an advantage to buying it rather than recording your own. Still maybe it did prove to the companies they could sell you the same thing twice. Or four times.
Theres very little I'd get again Blu though, the leap isn't nearly so much. I did say Star Wars would probably tempt me, but as it happened we got a BluRay recorder free with a TV anyway. Only BTTF, Alien set rebought. So far...
Older technology was more 'hands on', and something we could understand with our senses. Video tapes were physical things that you could hold and touch. They were big enough and rugged enough to mean something to our senses. The amount of tape on the reels was something we could see, and was something tangible, and it corresponded with the point of time in the video.
In contrast, modern technology has less of a physical presence, and as such it is something we understand with our minds, rather than with our senses. DVDs are lightweight and fragile things, and we're supposed to handle them as little as possible. They don't wind, and they always remain the same bland semi-reflective circle.
The internet is another step towards mind-interaction and a step away from physical-interaction.
In short, modern technology requires more of our minds and less of our bodies, I think that part of nostalgia is that we miss those physical and sensory interactions. The technology we have now is less in harmony with our humanity than technology past.
I still love VHS. I use my VCR more than use my DVD player. I'm taping a cooking show off Food Network right now. With five fully functional VCRs in my house (including a brand new one still in its box) and hundreds of videotapes in my collection, VHS will still be with me for many years to come...
^^^I know, dont know when they have it so good......I remember when Video recorders came with a playing needle that you had to change when they ran down, i remember Hitler bombing the local video recorder needle factor so nobody could record and watch any radio programmes on it, and everybody had to go back to the old video cassettes made from old cloth and bits of skin.
Good days.
You left out the Zaphpruder film on the Lincoln assassination.
There was VHS involved there too. Also Beta.
And yet the overall reaction here has been "fuck VHS and the horse it rode in on".
The best way around the trailers (if you don't want to see them, every once in a while there's a good one), is to go straight to the menu, pick "chapters", pick "chapter 2", then use the BACK button on your remote. Works for me every time. Well, except for Sony. They desparately want to to know that you're going to prison if you copy this disk, and what they'll do to you once you're locked up. Then there's their disclaimers disowning the commentaries and whatnot.
But you're right, letting the DVD cycle through that gives you an excuse for a bathroom break.
Ten years from now, the video signal your VCR's produce may not be compatible with new televisions.
Modern electronics uses a lot of digital circuitry, and the signal processing circuits they use are using smaller and smaller margins of error.
An older television may be happy to accept a video signal that is 5 nanoseconds out of phase with the clock signal, but a future television might reject that signal completely, and the VCR will appear to not work.
So when your buy a new television (however many years in the future), remember to make sure your VCR's work with it.
Because physicality isn't enough to make a medium interesting. Again, look at record players. They're making a comeback because there's a genuine argument to be made for them having better sound quality, and the experience is largely more interesting than mp3s or CDs. VHS has neither of those advantages.
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