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[TacomaDiver]

What no love for Betamax? Still waiting for Sony to try and bring it back.

When we lived in the Philippines, we had a significant collection of both VHS and Beta tapes. It's too bad Beta didn't get a good foothold in the industry, it is technically a better format.

After I moved back stateside, I'm pretty sure we were the only people with a Betamax machine - I never met anyone who had one, and very few people were even aware of the format

[mhatchett]

I remember TV rentals when I was young. I think it depended on what part of the country you grew up in.

[Ben Staad]

How interesting. Thank you for sharing.

This was in Ireland. Any consumer electronics item was very expensive, and it was typical for most people to rent TVs. We actually used to trade the B&W TV for a Color TV just for the Christmas season It was probably the mid-'80s when my dad actually bought a TV. I think the tax laws changed, and prices dropped.

My friend's father owned the TV store that we all rented from. He was a smart businessman. He had the rental/sales store, and then he saw the VCR coming, and converted half the store to VHS rentals. When he saw the big rental chains coming, he sold off all the VHS tapes and moved to selling computers, etc. When online sales started to rise, he sold the physical store and went into the supply side of the business, running a chain of warehouses. He was very good at seeing trends and not sticking with old business models.

[Dave1442397]

Never heard of renting a TV. I was young but alive in 1980.

This was in Ireland. Any consumer electronics item was very expensive, and it was typical for most people to rent TVs. We actually used to trade the B&W TV for a Color TV just for the Christmas season It was probably the mid-'80s when my dad actually bought a TV. I think the tax laws changed, and prices dropped.

My friend's father owned the TV store that we all rented from. He was a smart businessman. He had the rental/sales store, and then he saw the VCR coming, and converted half the store to VHS rentals. When he saw the big rental chains coming, he sold off all the VHS tapes and moved to selling computers, etc. When online sales started to rise, he sold the physical store and went into the supply side of the business, running a chain of warehouses. He was very good at seeing trends and not sticking with old business models.

[Ben Staad]

Parents owned a laserdisc player but I think they bought it at the tale end of the LD high. Almost overnight -it seemed- everyone else owned VHS players and nobody local rented LD's. They had to drive to the adjacent town just to rent discs. Think we owned it less than a year before switching to a VCR.

[Ben Staad]

Never heard of renting a TV. I was young but alive in 1980.

My neighbor had the first (and only) Betamax on our street back in 1980. Those were the days when almost everyone rented their TVs, and spending that kind of money on a VCR was unbelievable to us.

[Dave1442397]

What no love for Betamax? Still waiting for Sony to try and bring it back.

My neighbor had the first (and only) Betamax on our street back in 1980. Those were the days when almost everyone rented their TVs, and spending that kind of money on a VCR was unbelievable to us.

[Dave1442397]

If you can find a working player, Laserdiscs have some amazing movies that you cannot find on DVD or Bluray. Unaltered Star Wars! Disney had some SPECTACULAR box sets. All of the old Criterion editions So much for film buffs.Finding the working player is the tricky part. I have two (got one for free a while back - which was good because my original player always sounds like it's going to die when the laser flips.)

I must keep an eye out for one. I see a lot of old AV equipment going for pennies on the dollar on Facebook, etc. The unaltered Star Wars would be fun to have

As for westerns, I got hooked on them back in the late '70s/early '80s. BBC2 used to have late night movies starting around 11:30pm, and they went thru a slew of westerns and Hammer House of Horror flicks. No commercials, of course.

[Martin]

What no love for Betamax? Still waiting for Sony to try and bring it back.

[TacomaDiver]

If you can find a working player, Laserdiscs have some amazing movies that you cannot find on DVD or Bluray. Unaltered Star Wars! Disney had some SPECTACULAR box sets. All of the old Criterion editions So much for film buffs.Finding the working player is the tricky part. I have two (got one for free a while back - which was good because my original player always sounds like it's going to die when the laser flips.)

[TacomaDiver]

re: Old Henry - I'll have to check it out! Thanks for the recommendation.

My wife hadn't seen pretty much any old Eastwood western, and admittedly, I hadn't seen very many of them, so we started trying to watch the ones I have on DVD (some of them were still sealed!)

So far we've watched:

• A Fistful of Dollars
• For a Few Dollars More
• The Good, The Bad and the Ugly
• Once Upon a Time in the West (not an Eastwood movie, but still a Sergio Leone movie)
• The Outlaw Josey Wales

Still in my collection:

• Pale Rider
• The Unforgiven

I know we're missing quite a few,but this was a good intro for her, and a good re-introduction for me.

[Dave1442397]

You're missing the laserdisc versions!

I have the Criterion CAV version of CEofTK and it's a really good set. Criterion always had the best special features. DVDs used to have some really good supplemental features, but new discs are more and more bare bones today.

I love physical media - I'd rather have it than streaming, especially when it comes to movies. Streaming cannot compare to physical media in terms of quality and bitrate.

When I first started to really appreciate movies, I gravitated towards laserdiscs since they were the only format that offered widescreen. VHS was pan and scan (aka chop and crop) and I wanted the full picture. Nothing quite like watching a 2.35:1 movie ration on our giant 27 inch television . . .

4K UHD should stick around - I don't think we need 8K media. 4K UHD might become niche but it's a great format. Bluray is actually a really format. Heck DVD is great too. We've been watching a lot of old Clint Eastwood westerns that I own on DVD and they still look really good.

Ha, laserdiscs! By the time I heard about them, they were on the way out, but yes, having access to true widescreen versions of the movies was great. I was the only one in my family who would seek out widescreen VHS vs pan-and-scan. They all thought I was crazy to want empty black bars above and below the movie, especially on our tiny 21" TV.

I bought a new 4k UHD-capable TV last year, and upgraded my receiver and Blu ray player to match. The quality of a true 4k UHD movie is just amazing, and I agree, much better than supposedly the same format with streaming services. I was just watching something that's supposed to be 4k UHD on Apple TV, and there was crazy banding in some places, which I never see with physical media. It's even good at upscaling the older DVDs.

Speaking of Westerns, have you seen Old Henry? Streaming on Prime for $2.99 right now. I'm going to watch it later. I saw it recommended by Matt Greaney, who writes the Gray Man novels, so I looked it up. As a Clint Eastwood fan (I am, who doesn't like spaghetti?), I think you'll enjoy it.

[TacomaDiver]

You're missing the laserdisc versions!

I have the Criterion CAV version of CEofTK and it's a really good set. Criterion always had the best special features. DVDs used to have some really good supplemental features, but new discs are more and more bare bones today.

I love physical media - I'd rather have it than streaming, especially when it comes to movies. Streaming cannot compare to physical media in terms of quality and bitrate.

When I first started to really appreciate movies, I gravitated towards laserdiscs since they were the only format that offered widescreen. VHS was pan and scan (aka chop and crop) and I wanted the full picture. Nothing quite like watching a 2.35:1 movie ration on our giant 27 inch television . . .

4K UHD should stick around - I don't think we need 8K media. 4K UHD might become niche but it's a great format. Bluray is actually a really format. Heck DVD is great too. We've been watching a lot of old Clint Eastwood westerns that I own on DVD and they still look really good.

[Dave1442397]

Cassettes seem to be back! I have no clue why. Probably similar to how I keep seeing VHS copies of new horror films on Instagram. I have a hard time imagining that anyone would be interest in these, especially at the prices they charge. Having a very cute spokeperson probably helps. (I have no clue if she's an owner or what . . .) I also kind of question of the legality of these things. As more and more movie studies shy away from physical releases (at least giving them the attention they used to) why VHS?

Yeah, really. Even before DVDs came along, I never bothered buying VHS tapes - I knew the quality wasn't great, and that they'd get worse over time. I can only think of two movies I bought on VHS - Close Encounters, and Terminator 2.

My family didn't even have a VCR until the late '80s, so it's not like we had much of an incentive to buy movies on VHS. They were also crazy expensive back then. I remember Rambo being over $100 when it came out.

I've bought a few of my favorite movies on 4k UHD blu ray, but I'm sure that will be obsolete soon enough too.

Close Encounters is one that I've upgraded every time a new format came out

Close_Encounters.jpg

[Brian861]

Cassettes seem to be back! I have no clue why. Probably similar to how I keep seeing VHS copies of new horror films on Instagram. I have a hard time imagining that anyone would be interest in these, especially at the prices they charge. Having a very cute spokeperson probably helps. (I have no clue if she's an owner or what . . .) I also kind of question of the legality of these things. As more and more movie studies shy away from physical releases (at least giving them the attention they used to) why VHS?

Trying to cash in on the nostalgia I guess. It was always fun when the tape deck or VCR decided it was hungry.