Poll – What was your first? Beta, VHS, other?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by cgw, Mar 23, 2021.

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  1. cgw

    cgw Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Upstate NY
    Which did you get first?

    When did you get it?

    Do you still have a player and media?
     
  2. cgw

    cgw Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Upstate NY
    I went Beta. It had to be 1983-84, my first year working after school.
    I have a Beta and VHS player up in the attic (in case I need to watch the wedding video).
     
    musicfan37 likes this.
  3. OnTheRoad

    OnTheRoad Not of this world

    Never had a VCR in the day, got my first DVD player in 2003 after having acquired a handful of DVD discs. Then as I started seeing all these old VHS tapes at Goodwill for 49 cents each, I got a really decent VCR for $3.99 (2014) and collected about 100 VHS's then got rid of all the tape stuff and player. I still have a couple of DVD players and a blueray too and about 600-700 DVDS.

    I love discs and care nothing about streaming and all that goes with it. I'd rather seek out discs, many of the shows and movies which I don't believe would be available online anyway. I can't say I like having most everything at your fingertips....it cheapens the experience IMO.
     
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  4. Andy Smith

    Andy Smith .....Like a good pinch of snuff......

    A Betamax machine. Loved it. At that time there was plenty of choice at the many videotape rental shops. All faded in the space of 2 years.
    Still have a video player. It's (VHS) Sony.
     
    Frank Discussion likes this.
  5. andy749

    andy749 Senior Member

    VHS - bought an old Lugosi flick, The Human Monster before I even owned a VCR. Was really surprised to see it in a budget rack. It's a fave. 1985ish.
     
  6. maclen

    maclen Senior Member

    Betamax. I know I had it in 1980. I taped a lot of concerts and music related shows. I still have most of my tapes and still have my player. Just this past weekend I was cleaning out things and found a still sealed blank beta tape. I should plug the player in and take a trip down memory lane.
     
  7. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    [​IMG]

    Uglier than I remember.
     
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  8. Warzawa

    Warzawa The Starman

    VHS for me never had Beta
     
  9. Oatsdad

    Oatsdad Oat, Biscuits, Abbie & Mitzi: Best Dogs Ever

    Location:
    Alexandria VA
    My family got our first VHS VCR in early 1983. What a revelation!

    Never had Beta. I went LD in 1991, DVD in 1998, BD in 2009 and 4K in 2017.

    I still have a VCR and plenty of tapes!
     
  10. Monosterio

    Monosterio Forum Resident

    Location:
    South Florida
    VHS

    I’m fairly certain it was 1980. Ah, the great scenes I watched on that thing. Rewind and play buttons got a heavy workout... :winkgrin:
     
    Karnak likes this.
  11. Yawndave

    Yawndave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Santa Clara CA
    VHS -- My first unit was a portable recorder with a camera that I lugged around to various events--even took it to NYC and dragged it around for a week. After awhile I got tired of carrying it and had the realization that I was experiencing things through a tiny viewfinder. I ended up selling it off to a friend, who came to same realization after about a month and became rather resentful that I had unloaded it on him.
     
  12. StillFlying

    StillFlying Forum Resident

    Location:
    Oklahoma
    VHS - circa 1985. I want to say it was an RCA model. It was a top-loader. I was 10 or 11 years old, and I definitely took to it more than anyone else in the family. In my young eyes, it was just about the greatest thing ever. I still have most of the tapes I have collected and compiled over the years. Sadly, I've had 2 VCRs die on me in the past year. That includes one that I had used frequently for 20+ years:cry:
     
    93curr likes this.
  13. Hanglow

    Hanglow Forum Resident

    Location:
    Saratoga New York

    What was the problem?.....you were hip,man!....walking around NYC with this getup? .....they'd spot you a mile away :biglaugh::biglaugh:
    [​IMG]
     
  14. Hanglow

    Hanglow Forum Resident

    Location:
    Saratoga New York
    I didn't see an "other" box.........my "first"time? :rolleyes: there was no VHS or Beta....I remember recording part of a Star Trek TOS episode with this......would that count?[​IMG]
     
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  15. nosticker

    nosticker Forum Guy

    Location:
    Ringwood, NJ
    I actually remember the date- 5/1/1978 and it was a Sanyo Betacord, top-loading, with a rare-at-the-time built-in timer. We held off adding VHS as long as we could and got one in 1982, a Sharp, which ironically had a dull picture and visible head switching way up into active video. Shortly thereafter, we got one of the first-ever camcorders, the Sony Betamovie and Beta Hi Fi VCR, with a VHS Hi Fi right after that. LD followed in 1988 along with 8mm video. I'll quit while I'm ahead.



    Dan
     
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  16. Yawndave

    Yawndave Forum Resident

    Location:
    Santa Clara CA
    Ha! I was much cooler than that...I had the recorder unit in a backpack! And as far as being spotted a mile away, there was one incident when I was filming while walking in Times Square and someone took exception to being on camera as I passed by. He shouted some choice obscenities at me and gave me a good shove and I hurried on my way. I guess I'm lucky it didn't escalate into something more serious.
     
  17. Alan G.

    Alan G. Forum Resident

    Location:
    NW Montana
    1981, a Quasar VHS machine with a heavy spring-loaded door on the top. Wham! $650 and I had to drive to get it. At the time, blank tapes were $20. My first VHS film was “King Kong”; $60. My first rental, “10”, was $10/night!

    That was livin’!
     
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  18. Electric Warrior

    Electric Warrior Senior Member

    Location:
    Germany
    I grew up with Video 2000.
     
  19. jbmcb

    jbmcb Forum Resident

    Location:
    Troy, MI, USA
    Really funky Fischer VHS deck, probably mid-80s. The front control panel popped off and became the remote control. You had to manually tune the channels using a bunch of knobs and dials on the top of the unit. Then, in front, there was a transparent strip you would pull out and place see-through numbers, and a series of lights would shine through the numbers to let you know what channel you were on. The tape-inserted indicator was physical - where you loaded the tape a flap would come up with a picture of a tape letting you know there was one in there. The only digital display was a vacuum-fluorescent clock. It broke a long time ago, but it's so weird I kept it.

    For a long time we only used it to tape stuff. PBS would play Dr. Who at 12:00 at night, so I'd record it and watch it the following day. My mom would tape figure skating. Every once and a while we'd get free premium cable channels, so I'd record a few movies. That's how I got Caddyshack, Aliens, and Weird Science. The first pre-recorded tape I bought was The Hunt for Red October.
     
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  20. Wigru

    Wigru Forum Resident

    Location:
    Belgium
    Video 2000 also
     
  21. LeBon Bush

    LeBon Bush Hound of Love

    Location:
    Austria
    Damn!

    Running these values through an inflation calculator, I now start to get why my family never cease to shake their heads in disbelief when I tell them how cheap DVDs and BluRays have become these days...

    Referring to the OP, my first format was VHS - I wore out mom's tapes of "Yellow Submarine" and "Seven Years In Tibet" and used to record formula 1 races and children's shows off the air :) also, shortly after I was born, we got a PC with a DVD drive. That was SO cool back then! A few years after that, around 2002 or 2003, it was my sister who initiated the family's switch to DVD for good, indirectly kicking off a collecting habit of mine that lasts to this day.
     
    Last edited: Mar 23, 2021
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  22. mmars982

    mmars982 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Pittsburgh, PA
    I had a beta player, and at one time I had a huge collection of beta tapes after all the video rental places sold them off cheap since everyone else had VHS. I still say beta was better
     
  23. musicfan37

    musicfan37 Senior Member

    We had our wedding video converted to DVD. :)
     
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  24. ssmith3046

    ssmith3046 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Arizona desert
    VHS the size of a suitcase for something like $1200 when they first hit the market. I think it was Curtis Mathis.
     
    Chris DeVoe likes this.
  25. Rigoberto

    Rigoberto Forum Resident

    Location:
    USA (UT)
    Around 1979.. my first tape was probably '10' for $59.95 and then Clockwork Orange $75. I wish I'd kept those. They came in large display boxes. First Beta VCR was Sony 5400. Came up missing after a move, but they didn't get the wired remote. I still had it years later but now it's gone too.
     
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