End of an era

[RandyL]

Remember Betamax the first ever device to record or watch TV that was replaced by VHS? It was quickly followed by the rise of video rental stores everywhere. There were the big name stores and mom and pop stores everywhere. Then the stores started offering DVD rentals as the medium changed. You could even rent games at the big stores.

 

But just like drive-in movie theaters the stores started closing as people chose other options like on-line streaming instead. First the mom and pop stores closed then the big box rental stores started to shut down. Change is the way of the world.

 

My grandson is too young to have experienced the drive-ins like I did but at least he was able to get the joy of walking into a store and browsing thousands of titles and if needed a personal shopping assistant. Also included was pop corn, candy, drinks and posters. Almost like a real movie theater but without the extremely high prices. He has taken great joy from these excursions and at great prices.

 

Only 6 blocks from my house I could rent movies from $1.00 to $5.00. I could keep the one dollar movies for 5 days. The newest releases for 2 days. And with all the sights, smell and sounds. My grandson loved this experience even though he is a tech boy.

 

But alas this is to end as the very last video rental store in my city and probably the USA is closing. From now on he will only know video rentals as an on-line streaming experience or mail-to experience which is just not quite the same or quite as cheap.

 

Bockbuster Video is shutting it's doors. No more stores and no more mail-to videos. Only it's streaming movies will remain but I wonder for how long. It's a shame because it was a good experince and my store was doing well but the business as a whole was not doing well. And now we have none.

 

So doing what I have to do I'm getting a WD TV Live Streaming Media Player box so I can rent streaming movies on my TV. It has 30 apps that I can use on my non-internet ready high def TV. More money and higher price movies but what is a person to do?

 

As for older movies that my grandson likes I signed up for Netflix but after doing the costs for both I personally will spend more and all this without the better experience.

 

Change may be inevitable but it is not always better. The end of yet another era.

[KenB]

I have just done a search for "video rental" near my home.

There are still lots of places I can get a dvd or video for rental ( I can't remember when we last did this ???? )

It will come our way eventually :)

[Plastic Nev]

There is a video rental shop not too far away, in fact walking distance, however considering the area, most of the stuff they have is all Bollywood Indian stuff, though the shop seems to do well with folk in there even late in the evening.

Technology wise though things are changing rapidly with not much seeming to last more than a few years. The advent of the mobile devices, starting with just a phone, then very soon after that the ability to send a text messages, rapidly followed by phones with a camera, till now they are a small and complete computer.

As we are seeing here, they are taking over from the desktop and laptop computers, especially for the social website use, with even folks using them to post here about whatever may be wrong with their laptop or desktop.

What the next generation of technology may be, I cannot even guess, as some of the previous things, I wouldn't have thought there could even be such a demand for them.

Who knows what will be round the next corner.

 

Nev.

[KenB]

Here you go Nev ....

 

http://s3.amazonaws.com/values-your-billboards/40714/small/Depositphotos_3855266_M.jpg

[Plastic Nev]

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y282/plasticpig/i5pv9u.gif

 

Drat it, I went too far and missed the turn off.

 

Nev.

[wellies]

Sheer nostalgia for me all this video recorder stuff. What a lovely era it was when video recorders first came out. Every shop or organisation had to have people who repaired them and that, along with repairing B/W and colour TVs, was what I did. Employed by Radio Rentals, I was sent off to stay in Manchester and Birmingham for company-held VHS video recorder training courses. So I was in at the beginning of those.

 

Only later when I went self-employed did I have much to do with Betamax. Then my learning was by hands-on experience along with the help of the local Sony engineer who I was friendly with.

 

I was associated to a number of Video Rental shops. The business relationship usually started if one of their tapes got mangled up by a customer's video player or recorder. It nearly always was the fault of the recorder/player. A worn or shiny pinch-roller was a common cause of tapes becoming crinkled. This would let the tape ride up or down on the tape guides (not good) ...and if the machine had got to the stage, it was always best to change the belt kit too. Also the take-up clutch and the back-tension belt.

 

Spares suppliers sold repair kits with all these part included for just about every make and model of video recorder.

 

There was a whole industry surrounding video recorders and film rental shops. It employed lots of people in the background who aren't needed now. I'm sure there are those who still hang in there (I mended a VHS about a year ago) but think of all those small repair shops that used to be around. They aren't there any more. There were once lots of them in our area and I did some freelance work for nearly all of them on a no repair no fee basis.

 

Good times. I liked my job ..sigh sigh :)

[KenB]

I remember my first VHS recorder cost £350 or there about - it was EXPENSIVE !!

( This was about 25 years ( or more ) ago :) )

[wellies]

My brother had a JVC VHS that cost him £600! I had one the same eventually. All of the rental companies (except for Radio Rentals) used to sell their older or faulty video recorder stock to companies that had huge warehouses full of them. People in the trade used to got to there and buy them in bulk for repair and resale in the second-hand sales and repair shops. I used to buy 10 or so at a time. Then overhaul and sell them along with a guarantee. The JVCs, such as my brother had, eventually got old enough to end up in the warehouses. That's when I had one. :) Edited November 10, 2013 by wellies