WEBVTT - TechStuff Classic: Sets its VCR 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.160 Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:14.240 stuff works dot com. Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. 0:00:14.280 --> 0:00:17.560 I am your host, Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer 0:00:17.600 --> 0:00:19.319 with How Stuff Works, and I heart radio and I 0:00:19.400 --> 0:00:22.759 love all things tech. And it is time, my friends, 0:00:23.040 --> 0:00:26.520 for a classic episode. And we look back into the 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.920 archives of tech Stuff and the more than one thousand 0:00:29.920 --> 0:00:33.159 episodes that we have recorded, and we pick out the gems, 0:00:33.520 --> 0:00:36.320 polished them up, and serve them up to you, because 0:00:37.520 --> 0:00:39.479 I bet most of you weren't listening way back in 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:43.160 two thousand twelve. That's when this episode originally aired March twelve, 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:46.400 two thousand twelve, is called tech Stuff sets its VCR. 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:50.200 It's time to talk about video cassette recorders. So Chris 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:52.760 Pilette and I sit down chat about it. I hope 0:00:52.760 --> 0:00:56.240 you enjoy today. We're going to talk about the video 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.480 cassette recorder. Why, Chris, why would we ever talk about 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:05.840 the video cassette recorder, a technology that is almost forgotten 0:01:05.880 --> 0:01:10.280 about today. Yeah, that's the problem. Uh yeah. A while back, 0:01:10.800 --> 0:01:14.920 uh my father uh VCR he he had it uh 0:01:15.040 --> 0:01:19.319 plugged in and during a summer thunderstorm or as we 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.560 call it, in the South a week day. Yes, um, 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:29.440 a power surge atomized the transformer inside the VCR. Sadly, 0:01:29.480 --> 0:01:32.240 this did not give the VCR superpowers, where it then 0:01:32.280 --> 0:01:35.360 went on to fight villains and you know, various locations 0:01:35.400 --> 0:01:38.560 around the world. That's what happens in the comics, right, 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:45.039 lightning atomization superpowers. Really real life lightning atomization computers and 0:01:45.240 --> 0:01:49.800 or people don't work very well anymore. Yeah. So, so basically, 0:01:49.840 --> 0:01:53.720 the the power, the thing that makes the power work, 0:01:53.760 --> 0:01:57.200 and the VCR is now gone. And I said, you 0:01:57.240 --> 0:01:59.919 know what, it would be cheaper to get a new VCRY. 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:02.240 It would be to fix this one, which is very 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:04.960 likely true, which is which is often true with electronics. 0:02:04.960 --> 0:02:08.920 So I recycled it. And my my father has a 0:02:08.919 --> 0:02:11.560 lot of old videotapes that he wants to be able 0:02:11.560 --> 0:02:13.200 to watch. I thought, oh, I'm gonna go get him 0:02:13.200 --> 0:02:15.600 a VCR. I'll just go down to the department store 0:02:15.600 --> 0:02:18.040 and pick one up. As it turns out, no, I won't, 0:02:18.280 --> 0:02:22.480 because you can't find them anymore on most store shelves, um, 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:26.040 even even electronics stores. Yeah, they they If you find one, 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:31.200 you're you're not going to have your choice your Yeah, 0:02:31.400 --> 0:02:34.080 I mean, well, one or two maybe, but it's not 0:02:34.160 --> 0:02:36.560 like it was where like say you go look for 0:02:36.639 --> 0:02:41.040 a smartphone, you have a display of smartphones to choose from, 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.919 you have different carriers to choose from. Even even looking 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:45.760 for something like a Blu ray player or even a 0:02:45.800 --> 0:02:48.880 DVD player, there's they're a handful of them to choose from. 0:02:48.880 --> 0:02:51.960 If not, uh, you know, a pretty good sized display. 0:02:52.560 --> 0:02:56.440 But where that used to be the case with VCRs, uh, 0:02:56.480 --> 0:02:58.320 it is not so much the case. And I was thinking, 0:02:58.360 --> 0:03:01.680 he you know, I'm there, so they're so disposable. I'm 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:03.680 sure there's gonna be a tiny little VCR that I 0:03:03.680 --> 0:03:06.360 can I can get. It doesn't have to be Hi fi, 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:10.200 you know. No, now they're gone. And I was started thinking, 0:03:10.560 --> 0:03:13.519 who when did they stop making these things? Because I 0:03:13.800 --> 0:03:16.680 just figured that everybody there are enough videotapes out there 0:03:16.680 --> 0:03:19.360 that somebody would still make one. I mean, hey, they 0:03:19.440 --> 0:03:22.359 do it with turntables, and people don't. People are starting 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:25.400 to collect vinyl again, but you know, it almost disappeared 0:03:25.400 --> 0:03:29.200 for a long time there after the CD became popular. 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:31.000 So I started thinking, and we should look at the 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.840 VCR and see if we can uncover what happened to it. 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:36.320 Um but I think first we sort of need to 0:03:36.320 --> 0:03:38.960 get it back into the technology. And uh, it's something 0:03:38.960 --> 0:03:43.320 that again, uh is something that I thought if it 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.800 went back to a certain point maybe in the early eighties, uh, 0:03:47.080 --> 0:03:51.280 mid seventies, but it really goes back, uh decades before 0:03:51.480 --> 0:03:55.120 into the nineteen fifties. Really. Yeah, Now to really set 0:03:55.120 --> 0:03:58.720 the scene back at this time, the way that that 0:03:58.880 --> 0:04:02.480 you would capture images was using film. Oh yeah, and 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:04.680 we've talked about film quite a bit in this podcast 0:04:04.720 --> 0:04:08.640 even recently, where we talked about, yeah, to use using 0:04:08.680 --> 0:04:14.080 a chemical reaction where exposing a a a film that's 0:04:14.120 --> 0:04:17.920 coded in chemicals to light activates those chemicals. You then 0:04:18.080 --> 0:04:22.920 process that film with other chemicals to make a negative image, 0:04:23.080 --> 0:04:26.039 not one that is you know, bad or ugly, but 0:04:26.120 --> 0:04:29.520 as negative in this anyway you've heard those podcasts so 0:04:29.520 --> 0:04:33.839 so negative. Right. So even capturing film, motion picture film 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:36.000 was done through this way. And the way you would 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:39.880 capture sound, as you would use through various means a 0:04:39.920 --> 0:04:43.599 magnetic tape, and in the way motion picture film was 0:04:43.640 --> 0:04:46.440 working was that you would have a strip of magnetic 0:04:46.480 --> 0:04:49.599 tape that ran down the side of the film that 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:53.440 was arranged in such a way so that the sound 0:04:53.520 --> 0:04:56.160 you were hearing and the images you were seeing were synchronized. 0:04:57.560 --> 0:05:00.680 So someone came up came up with the idea and said, hey, 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:05.320 wait a minute, we were putting sound on magnetic tape. Yes, 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:09.560 what if we put pictures on magnetic tape too? And 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:13.679 that became the quest to create the the what would 0:05:13.720 --> 0:05:16.320 become the VCR. But really at first it was just 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.960 getting video onto magnetic tape. And there were a lot 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.600 of challenges associated with that. Yeah, one of the big 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:28.360 ones being that that video information, the the image information, 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.839 took up a lot more space than audio information did. 0:05:31.880 --> 0:05:35.000 So you had to find a new way to encode 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:37.320 that information and put it onto tape so it wasn't 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.840 going to take up too much space. Otherwise what you 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.400 would have is a mile long tape that would be 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.000 maybe oh a couple of minutes worth of video because 0:05:47.040 --> 0:05:49.800 it had it required so much space to record all 0:05:49.839 --> 0:05:53.600 that information. Well, people shouldn't be too terribly unfamiliar with this, 0:05:53.600 --> 0:05:56.080 this problem. I mean, uh, we deal with that every 0:05:56.160 --> 0:05:58.960 day in the internet. Uh, you know, broadband connections can 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.400 give you full motion video. You can uh play games 0:06:03.480 --> 0:06:06.760 with very low latency where you can count on being 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:08.680 able to round a corner and get a shot off 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:12.200 at your opponent before uh, you know, you you freeze 0:06:12.240 --> 0:06:14.599 and then find out that you died because there wasn't 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:17.599 anything you could do. Um, we have the same we 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.640 have the same problem with uh, well, with DSL connections. 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.760 You know that the voice uses a certain amount of 0:06:23.760 --> 0:06:27.560 of the uh telephone line's capacity and that's how they 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:32.159 use uh, the telephone mine to carry the Internet is 0:06:32.160 --> 0:06:35.640 is there's this unused capacity and that's how um, that's 0:06:35.640 --> 0:06:40.000 how DSL works, and you know, and kind of simplified. Sure, um, 0:06:40.040 --> 0:06:42.960 you know, but anybody who's looked at an audio cassette 0:06:43.680 --> 0:06:46.880 and a video cassette knows can see exactly what you're 0:06:46.880 --> 0:06:51.040 talking about, Jonathan, because uh, an audio cassette is uses 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.479 a much narrower piece of tape um than a video 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.279 cassette can. But there are other challenges to I mean, uh, 0:06:58.560 --> 0:07:00.960 it sort of depends on how much video you want 0:07:01.000 --> 0:07:04.880 to capture. A video cassette can be recorded in a 0:07:04.960 --> 0:07:09.760 number of different quality levels and to fit when once 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:13.160 you've standardized on a cassette size, uh, and then you 0:07:13.160 --> 0:07:15.040 start adding time to it. Oh, well, this one can 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:17.480 do eight hours instead of six hours. If you recorded 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:19.600 at the correct quality, then you start having to talk 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:22.760 about the tape's thickness, because the tape won't fit in 0:07:22.800 --> 0:07:25.280 the cassette, won't fit in the machine if you leave 0:07:25.360 --> 0:07:27.400 the tape at the same size, and it won't work 0:07:27.440 --> 0:07:30.600 the same way inside the cassette. So something has to give. 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.120 But we could talk about the mechanics of that in 0:07:33.120 --> 0:07:34.920 a moment. We were going to talk about the history 0:07:35.000 --> 0:07:38.559 and so back in the nineteen yes, yes, and before 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:41.960 that of course, uh as as pretty much everyone knows 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:46.320 we have live TV. Um you know, you burps and 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.120 gaffs and things that fall over and all. You might 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.840 have a a famous Hollywood actor think that what he's 0:07:53.880 --> 0:07:56.640 doing is a walk through rehearsal instead of the actual, 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.640 uh the actual program which did have been with I 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:03.960 think it was a Lawn Cheney Jr. Really yeah, he 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:08.920 was supposed to apparently, Um Mr Cheney was somewhat the 0:08:08.920 --> 0:08:13.000 worse for wear because he had had a little had 0:08:13.040 --> 0:08:16.200 a little little drinking pooh and thought that he was 0:08:16.240 --> 0:08:19.240 going in for a rehearsal for something that he was doing, 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.560 and there was a fight scene and in the fight 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:24.000 scene he's supposed to pick up a chair and it's 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:27.200 breakaway chair slamming across the back of someone and knocked 0:08:27.200 --> 0:08:30.320 them unconscious. He, thinking it was rehearsal, not realizing it 0:08:30.360 --> 0:08:33.280 was going out live, picked up the chair, went through 0:08:33.320 --> 0:08:35.120 the motion as if he was going to swing the chair, 0:08:35.760 --> 0:08:38.360 then very gingerly set the chair back down where it 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:41.680 was supposed to be. And I actually have this on 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:43.920 DVD somewhere, so I'll have to see if I can 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:46.400 dig that up. But anyway, yeah, it was live TV. 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:49.439 It wasn't It wasn't something that people could mess with 0:08:49.840 --> 0:08:52.760 and edit things out, and uh, you know, it went 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.360 out warts and all. Well. A couple of guys working 0:08:56.360 --> 0:08:59.160 for AMPEX, which is again a familiar name for people 0:08:59.200 --> 0:09:03.400 who've worked with National Recording Equipment UM, named Charles Ginsberg 0:09:03.480 --> 0:09:07.800 and Ray Dolby UH worked on the first commercial real 0:09:07.840 --> 0:09:11.800 to real video tape recorder, and that would be UH. 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:14.880 It looks very similar to a real to real audio recorder. 0:09:15.000 --> 0:09:19.199 This was around nine six, and UH completely revolutionized the 0:09:19.240 --> 0:09:23.079 TV industry because at this point you could record a 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:26.720 TV broadcast to be played at a later time. So 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.560 if you had something like um Mr Mr Cheney's gaff, 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:34.600 uh happened and you know, you could go back and 0:09:34.640 --> 0:09:38.240 do it again if you needed to. UM. But before 0:09:38.280 --> 0:09:41.920 that everything was live and this this really changed things 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.840 for the industry. Of course, these machines were were not inexpensive. Uh, 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:51.120 they were not tiny as they later became. UM. And 0:09:51.400 --> 0:09:56.720 so it was really sort of the exclusive world of uh, 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:00.240 you know, professional TV people who are using the kind 0:10:00.240 --> 0:10:02.480 of equipment and that would that would remain the case 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.520 for decades. Yeah, I mean in uh, it was ninety 0:10:06.600 --> 0:10:10.240 nine when Sony came up with the first inexpensive VCR. 0:10:11.240 --> 0:10:16.400 Expensive again meaning industry not consumer. Yeah. In nineteen seventy one, 0:10:16.520 --> 0:10:20.480 Sony had the umatic system right right, U M A 0:10:20.600 --> 0:10:24.120 T I C. And that was almost exclusively restricted to 0:10:24.120 --> 0:10:27.120 commercial use. Yeah. They used the wider tape and had 0:10:27.400 --> 0:10:30.680 had the advantage of being very high quality. UM. But 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:35.079 it was it was much larger than what we use today. Uh, 0:10:35.120 --> 0:10:38.800 you know those of us who still have working videotape players. UM. 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.360 But it was it was really the mid seventies when 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:44.920 the equipment became inexpensive enough. Yeah. Yeah, I actually have 0:10:45.000 --> 0:10:47.080 something kind of fun fun to say before we get 0:10:47.080 --> 0:10:51.960 the mid Yeah, in ninete, this is the first time 0:10:52.000 --> 0:10:55.320 we have a consumer video cassette recorder of this is 0:10:55.360 --> 0:10:59.440 not VHS or BETA right, it's it's using the same 0:10:59.480 --> 0:11:04.280 basic technology but different format. So the very first consumer 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:09.040 VCR from my research was a Phillips Model fifteen hundred, 0:11:09.600 --> 0:11:12.160 which came out in the United Kingdom, of all places, 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:14.520 in nineteen seventy two. Well, Phillips is a British company. 0:11:14.520 --> 0:11:20.440 Our pals in the United Kingdom. Do you get that? Pal? Ah? Nice? 0:11:20.600 --> 0:11:24.200 Thank you. There's nothing you can do with NTSC. No, no, 0:11:24.320 --> 0:11:27.080 we'll talk about that in a minute. But yeah, they 0:11:27.480 --> 0:11:29.640 managed to get their hands on one in nineteen seventy two, 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:35.720 and it cost the princely some of six hundred forty 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:38.520 nine pounds in nineteen seventy two. And I know what 0:11:38.600 --> 0:11:43.280 you're thinking, Chris. You're thinking, gush, Jonathan, how much would 0:11:43.280 --> 0:11:45.720 that be in today's dollars? So you would have to 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:49.959 convert pounds into dollars and then used an inflation calculator. 0:11:50.400 --> 0:11:53.000 Who has time to do that, will, sir? I tell 0:11:53.040 --> 0:11:55.640 you I had time to do that this morning. Anyone 0:11:55.760 --> 0:11:58.239 with Wolf from Alpha, which will do it for you automatically. 0:11:58.240 --> 0:12:01.400 I didn't use Wolf from PA. So the answer Wolf 0:12:01.400 --> 0:12:03.280 from Alpha gives may be different from the one I have, 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:09.520 but based upon the historical currency conversion website, sixty nine 0:12:09.559 --> 0:12:13.199 pounds in nineteen two would be equivalent to nine thousand, 0:12:13.440 --> 0:12:18.960 eighty seven dollars today. So just shy of ten grand 0:12:19.240 --> 0:12:25.760 the very first consumer video cassette recorder. Meanwhile, Chris is 0:12:25.760 --> 0:12:28.720 is looking at Wolf from Alpha as we record this 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:32.439 to see how how far apart the two conversions are. 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:37.559 Do you have an answer from Wolf from Alpha? Why 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:42.760 did I get? Okay, sixty nine? That's good radio right here? Oh? 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:45.040 I know it is. Well, that's the thing, is it? 0:12:44.840 --> 0:12:48.520 It shows you how expensive this device was at the time. 0:12:48.640 --> 0:12:50.640 I mean, it's not something that everybody had in there, 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.440 no tin grand to drop on a VCR. Yeah. Um, 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.920 do you have an answer? No, because I did it wrong. 0:12:58.000 --> 0:12:59.839 So all right, we'll just have to ignore it. I'm 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:03.160 or some listener will be very helpfully let us know anyhow. 0:13:03.559 --> 0:13:07.880 So um, so, yeah, it wasn't until the mid seventies 0:13:07.960 --> 0:13:12.040 when VHS made its debut. Yeah. Actually, uh, in well, 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:14.400 in Japan it came out in seventy six, but in 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.520 the United States we had to wait till seventy seven 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.040 before it came over here. And before that Sony had 0:13:19.080 --> 0:13:22.840 come out with a competing standard, the Beta standard. Yes, 0:13:23.320 --> 0:13:26.160 so Beta had been on the market for a year 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:29.600 before VHS managed to come to store shelves. UH. And 0:13:29.679 --> 0:13:32.079 so there were there was the videotape wars, which I 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:34.240 think we've actually talked about in a previous episode we have, 0:13:34.400 --> 0:13:36.800 and and of course Beta short, as someone else will 0:13:36.840 --> 0:13:40.679 point out, as short for Beta max UM and UH, 0:13:40.840 --> 0:13:44.160 but you really didn't compete for for quite a while. UM. 0:13:44.200 --> 0:13:47.880 Of course UH. Beta max is still used or or 0:13:48.040 --> 0:13:51.679 was used for a long time in um TV work, 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:54.960 even after it failed as a standard that you would 0:13:54.960 --> 0:13:59.120 see on the h store shelves at your local video 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.800 rental place. Right. The biggest differentiator between the two, at 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:08.800 least early on that size, was that well it Beta 0:14:09.040 --> 0:14:13.360 had a slightly better resolution than VHS, but only slightly. 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:17.600 I mean, the difference wasn't as dramatic as say VHS 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.320 to DVD, but it was there. It did have a 0:14:20.360 --> 0:14:24.240 higher quality image and also they could only record up 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:27.160 to two hours, and VHS the big thing about that 0:14:27.200 --> 0:14:29.840 was they could record up to four hours, so that 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:34.320 that really helped push VHS over Beta, even though since 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.240 Beta had been on the market for a year they 0:14:37.240 --> 0:14:39.800 had managed to bring their prices down, so when VHS 0:14:39.880 --> 0:14:45.120 first launched, it was actually more expensive, right right, Well, um, 0:14:45.200 --> 0:14:48.080 here again, the the average consumer is is going to 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:50.160 look at it and go, well, I can I can 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:54.640 buy blank video cassettes for a VHS machine and record 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:59.120 more video on it, uh to allow me to record 0:14:59.200 --> 0:15:02.200 more myself, and therefore this is a better value for me, 0:15:02.280 --> 0:15:05.320 even though the marginal difference in quality might make me 0:15:05.360 --> 0:15:08.120 think about a Beta max machine. And the VHS standard 0:15:08.200 --> 0:15:11.640 was introduced by j v C. Yes, and that's also 0:15:11.680 --> 0:15:13.480 going to be important in a little bit. But j 0:15:13.640 --> 0:15:16.040 v C the first model they introduced in the United 0:15:16.040 --> 0:15:19.960 States was the hr Dash thirty three hundred, which cost 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:25.160 one thousand dollars in nineteen seventy, which in today's money 0:15:25.840 --> 0:15:29.640 three thousand, five fifty five dollars. Yeah, that's a that's 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:32.480 a healthy chunk of change to drop on the v 0:15:32.600 --> 0:15:35.240 C R. Yeah. And it's it's amazing too because a 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.960 lot of these machines were top loaders. I remember that. Yeah, 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:42.280 you'd topped the door open, slide the cassette in, and 0:15:42.280 --> 0:15:46.000 then pushed the top of the door down back into 0:15:46.240 --> 0:15:48.760 the video play. I had one of those. Yeah, and 0:15:48.800 --> 0:15:52.000 this was you know, it's interesting to think of that 0:15:52.040 --> 0:15:54.200 because I think the last time I actually went shopping 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:56.200 for a v c R, I was just looking for 0:15:56.200 --> 0:15:59.200 for one to because I've got tapes I wanted to 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:01.240 be able to play them. This was years ago, but 0:16:01.320 --> 0:16:03.680 I remember running across models that were like thirty or 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:06.520 forty dollars. So to think of it as being almost 0:16:06.560 --> 0:16:11.160 well thirty bucks in today's money back then, Uh, that's 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:15.240 kind of kind of mind blowing right there. And of course, uh, 0:16:15.320 --> 0:16:18.200 you might say, okay, so what happened between nineteen fifty 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:23.440 six and nineteen seventy six, Uh, well, one of the 0:16:23.440 --> 0:16:25.080 there were there were several things that happened. Of course 0:16:25.120 --> 0:16:28.960 that like all technology, it seems like people find out 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.480 better ways to achieve the same effects. So you know, 0:16:32.680 --> 0:16:35.720 gradually these machines are getting smaller, they're getting lighter, Uh, 0:16:36.200 --> 0:16:38.760 the qualities going up, They're getting more affordable as as 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.320 people can mass produce them in greater quantities. There was 0:16:41.360 --> 0:16:44.760 also something else that that is common with this kind 0:16:44.800 --> 0:16:47.280 of technology, and there were people that just didn't want 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:53.120 VCRs on on people's home entertainment shelves. Are you talking 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:57.960 about organizations like the Motion Picture Association of America. Yes, yeah, 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.680 so you've got these organizations that were legitimately concerned that 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.760 home access to this kind of technology would mean a hit. 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:10.439 It would take the organization, organization would take a hit, 0:17:10.480 --> 0:17:12.960 the whole movie industry would take a hit, as people 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:17.080 would refrain from going out to the movies and instead 0:17:17.119 --> 0:17:20.199 watch things from their homes. Same sort of concern was 0:17:20.320 --> 0:17:24.000 from the television industry. If you didn't require people to 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:26.920 be at a certain place at a certain time, then 0:17:27.040 --> 0:17:30.960 how can you guarantee that your advertisers are spending the 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:36.600 right amount of money for advertisements during that slot on TV? Oh? Oh, 0:17:36.640 --> 0:17:39.680 but what but what? But what happens I ask you 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:42.640 when when your favorite one of your favorite movies comes 0:17:42.680 --> 0:17:45.440 on on the local station, you could record it yourself 0:17:45.520 --> 0:17:48.960 and then never have to go see it again. You 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:51.480 could watch it again any time you want it. Yeah 0:17:51.640 --> 0:17:55.080 that's not cool. Yeah, So these were real arguments that 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:56.800 were brought up against it. That was one of the 0:17:56.880 --> 0:17:59.000 reasons why it took a while for this stuff to 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:01.360 get to market, which because there was a big resistance 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:05.639 on the part of the content providers. So it seems 0:18:05.680 --> 0:18:08.679 like that happens every time there's something that's one of 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.680 these revolutions in technology. If this episode we're all about 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.600 digital video recorders, it would be the same story. Yeah, 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:19.600 or audio cassettessettes. Really any any time you get to 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:24.960 any kind of medium where you're permanently putting something down. Yeah. Yeah, 0:18:25.000 --> 0:18:27.639 there there are people who are saying, wait a minute, 0:18:27.640 --> 0:18:29.680 how are we going to make money now? Well? Yeah, 0:18:29.720 --> 0:18:33.840 I mean that it gave rise to uh to these industries. 0:18:33.880 --> 0:18:35.600 They were able to record it the first time, and 0:18:35.600 --> 0:18:37.760 then they could show it to you or play it 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:40.919 for you any other time for a fee. Yeah, they 0:18:40.920 --> 0:18:44.000 were had. They were losing their money. Two major industries 0:18:44.160 --> 0:18:46.800 popped up because of this. You had the rental industry. Yes, 0:18:47.080 --> 0:18:50.680 so companies like Blockbuster and all the other rental agencies 0:18:50.680 --> 0:18:53.080 out there that could rent out videotapes. They would not 0:18:53.160 --> 0:18:56.399 exist without this. And then secondly, you had just the 0:18:56.520 --> 0:19:00.760 home theater market industry. People who were purchased seeing tapes 0:19:01.760 --> 0:19:04.560 so that they could own these movies that they loved 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.960 in a more permanent fashion instead of being like, oh, 0:19:08.040 --> 0:19:10.560 I saw this great movie in the theater five years ago. 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.280 It's called Star Wars. I really wish that I could 0:19:13.280 --> 0:19:15.480 watch it again, but no theater is showing it, and 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.600 there's no I mean, why would a theater release it again. Well, 0:19:18.600 --> 0:19:21.440 suddenly this created a whole new market for these old films. 0:19:21.480 --> 0:19:25.000 So once the industries realized this, they started they reverse 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:28.639 their decisions. Oh now I get it, and they made 0:19:28.960 --> 0:19:33.720 stupid amounts of money on this. I remember buying UH 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:37.920 movies movies when they first came out on video cassette. 0:19:37.920 --> 0:19:41.679 They were exorbitant eighty dollars for a film. Well, and 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:44.000 in a lot of cases that was because those movies 0:19:44.040 --> 0:19:47.199 were priced for rental agencies, so that you would have 0:19:47.280 --> 0:19:49.880 a company like Blockbuster. I always use that one because 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.240 that's the one that most people are familiar with. But 0:19:52.280 --> 0:19:55.560 Blockbuster would say, all right, we'll pay a hundred dollars 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:59.960 per uh copy of this film, and then we'll make 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:02.919 get up by renting it out to X number of customers. 0:20:03.000 --> 0:20:06.080 And so it will take us, you know, a certain 0:20:06.160 --> 0:20:09.240 number of times before we make our money back. But 0:20:09.280 --> 0:20:11.919 after that, it's all profit as long as that tape 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:14.000 is undamaged, you know, as long of that tape is 0:20:14.240 --> 0:20:18.600 is is lendable. Yeah, so uh yeah, there were a 0:20:18.640 --> 0:20:21.359 lot of videotapes that never went on sale for a 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:25.919 price that the average consumer would consider reasonable because it 0:20:25.960 --> 0:20:28.480 was never meant for the mass market. It was meant 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.840 for the rental agency market. One of the movies, there's 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.600 a movie that I talk about among my friends all 0:20:33.600 --> 0:20:37.359 the time called Blood Salvage. The tagline is if Jake 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:40.600 can't fix it, it's been dead too long. It was 0:20:40.640 --> 0:20:45.879 a gothic Southern horror movie about a a guy who 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:50.719 runs a wrecking facility. He Um. He has drives an 0:20:50.720 --> 0:20:54.880 old tow truck and he um salvages parts from from 0:20:55.000 --> 0:21:00.520 vehicles and people. Anyway, I was an extra in this film. 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:02.480 Don't even bother trying to find it if you want 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:04.439 to look for me, because you first you don't know 0:21:04.480 --> 0:21:06.560 what I looked like when I was twelve and two. 0:21:07.040 --> 0:21:09.360 You would have to have eagle eyes and your hand 0:21:09.400 --> 0:21:12.720 on the pause because it's gone in a flash. But anyway, 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.040 I wanted to copy this movie because I actually enjoyed it. 0:21:16.040 --> 0:21:20.120 It's a goofy horror movie, can't be tongue in cheek 0:21:20.960 --> 0:21:23.399 kind of gross, you know, right up my alley, right, 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:28.280 So I went looking for it's the only place. Finally 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.640 I got it on eBay when someone got it from 0:21:30.640 --> 0:21:34.360 like a fire sale from some rental company. But yeah, 0:21:34.400 --> 0:21:38.800 that's why those those tapes were that expensive. So all right, 0:21:38.840 --> 0:21:40.760 So the VHS has been on the market for just 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:46.439 four years or so. In VHS made up seventy of 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:50.680 all video cassette sales by then Beta had dropped down 0:21:50.720 --> 0:21:55.560 to and it was all VHS from there on out 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.919 until really the late ninety nineties, and it didn't really 0:22:00.320 --> 0:22:02.480 start dropping off until the two thousand's. But we'll get 0:22:02.480 --> 0:22:05.840 into that after we talk about how this stuff works. Yeah, 0:22:05.960 --> 0:22:08.480 I mean, that's that's one of the important things too, 0:22:08.560 --> 0:22:11.640 is UM in general, these machines all kind of work 0:22:11.720 --> 0:22:15.480 the same. We're talking about Beta max and uh uh 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.280 you know three quarter for the television industry, UM three 0:22:19.320 --> 0:22:24.119 quarter inch UM for VHS. They're basically they're all a 0:22:24.400 --> 0:22:27.040 reel of magnetic tape inside a cassette. And that's one 0:22:27.040 --> 0:22:30.840 of the cool things about video cassette recorders is that 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.280 these devices, I mean, and I talk about the cassettes, 0:22:34.320 --> 0:22:38.120 the cassettes themselves are designed to protect the tape, which 0:22:38.160 --> 0:22:42.919 is necessary because uh, certain young people I know would 0:22:43.080 --> 0:22:46.040 gladly reach in and grab the tape and pull it 0:22:46.119 --> 0:22:47.720 right out of the cassette, if it was possible to 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:49.960 do so easily. Um, it is if you know what 0:22:50.000 --> 0:22:52.760 you're doing. But it's got protections on it to keep 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:56.280 it from getting stuff spilled on it or getting cooled 0:22:56.560 --> 0:23:00.000 on something by accident. Um. So it was very wide 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:03.479 of the people who made these cassettes to build in 0:23:03.560 --> 0:23:05.440 some protections. It's got a little door and if you 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:09.560