2View: The Self-Erasing VHS tape hacked with a paperclip

A video tape that erases itself after two views - fascinating, flawed, failed, and mostly forgotten tech.
Another unusual VHS tape is the ‘disposable’ V-Lite I covered in this video • V-Lite: Disposable Lig...
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[@inwalters]

"Your mission, should you choose to accept it is to watch "Coyote Ugly" twice. This tape will self-destruct in 3 hours 22 minutes".

[@AltCutTV]

And this is the lore of why Jim went rogue.

[@ArruVision]

Ah brilliant 😂

[@N-MCMXCIX]

...Good luck Jim.

[@pokehybridtrainer]

Pff, difficult mission.

[@Klockorino]

It's not Mission "Impossible" for nothing

[@spahndirge]

“It looks like you’re trying to bypass the content erase mechanism. Would you like help?”

[@DeathInTheSnow]

The most useful that Clippit has ever been.

[@BillAnt]

Even better, turn it onto a "Two Sided VHS" tape like audio tapes, just flip it. ha-ha (yes I know, it won't work due to the video head).

[@DelinquentSquirrel]

@@BillAnt It would have done on V2000...

[@jooei2810]

Clever! 🤣

[@DeathInTheSnow]

@@colinstu Wanna bet? 📎

[@NxNWhiskey]

The montage of people yelling "woo" is actually the best summary of the movie Coyote Ugly that I've ever seen.

[@JonathanHamlow]

Drily describing Coyote Ugly as "not really my cup of tea" gave me a solid laugh. You don't say.

[@CantankerousDave]

Especially from a guy who’s into early 90s rap.

[@Elberto71]

And the reason I will NEVER visit America 😂

[@Kira_Kovalyova]

When I visited Nashville TN on a trip from my home in Russia to the USA, I remember seeing a bar called Coyote Ugly. I have never seen the movie, but when I saw that bar, it's what came to my mind. I wonder if the movie was even based on this bar? It did seem to be a very popular tourist spot.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

@@Elberto71 The whole country isn't like that. I've actually never been to a place where everyone is going "WOOOOOO!" constantly, but I'm sure they exist. (Also, there aren't people constantly shooting guns at each other. Most police officers never even shoot their guns at anyone during their entire careers.)

[@kennethlee494]

I worked in a video store during most of the 1980's, in late 1986 our store was sent a few screener promo tapes from our distributor that had a very similar mechanism in it. It would allow up to 8 views of the movie before it self erased. Since these tapes were considered disposable we were not required to return them after the two week viewing time that we normally had for screeners. With the store owner's permission I was allowed to keep a few of the tapes and I immediately took one apart to see how it worked. It had a similar mechanism to count plays with a round wheel that had the numbers 1 through 8 on it with a red mark where 9 would be. After the 8th play the magnet arm was tripped, erasing the tape, after that the tape was useless since the magnet stayed in contact with the tape.

[@StevesElectronicRepairShop]

I saw plenty of the later time coded promo tapes but not those with limited plays. Makes you wonder why this company took so long to release them that they were obsolete. Waiting for a patent to run out maybe?

[@alexharker7223]

"A lot of screaming and people going 'woo' all the time." That review quote should be on the box for any future pressings of this film.

[@jimmyzhao2673]

A perfect summary of the movie. lol

[@jrgenjespersen9299]

I love the text on the box 'the party never ends' on a two play only tape. ( I know it refers to the movie, but....)

[@lwilton]

But the movie ended too... 🙂

[@Van_Der_Lay_Industries]

Matt, you did the world a service, turning a video cassete of Coyote Ugly into a blank cassette.

[@wobblyboost]

"Much aWOOOO! About Nothing" was the original title but was changed after it failed marketing surveys. 😁

[@dan_mer]

Couldn't agree more. A terrible, terrible movie. The other 3 were no better.

[@BillAnt]

They should came out with a brand new VHS format, the "Two Sided VHS" tape like audio tapes, just flip it. ha-ha (yes I know, it won't work due to the video head).

[@plateshutoverlock]

Video 2000 is a two sided video tape though you do have to turn the tape over.

[@Dustin2112]

!@@dan_merThree?!!!

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

"The Third Miracle" was actually a film about someone who was able to watch a 2View movie three times due to the intervention of God.

[@3rdalbum]

Okay Mat, you *have* to pin this comment.

[@松本リョウ-g3e]

😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@Bezzer1975]

Was it God, or was it a paperclip!

[@noneofyourbusiness4616]

@@Bezzer1975 Clippy = God Who Actually Asks If We Need Help, Unlike The Other One

[@phranerphamily]

I think you might have won the comments with this

[@Code7Unltd]

>"Now Showing" logo on tape door >"Now Showing" bug on video >Named "2View" on box I wonder if the 2View name was picked at the last minute before the boxes were made? That "Now Showing" spine and bug look too well-crafted to be slapped out that quick, especially for 2002.

[@rezwhap]

Indeed, and the free telephone number 0800-NOWSHOW on the box, presumably set up earlier.

[@nthgth]

My question is, why is any of that in English when it was only in the Netherlands? Don't they have their own language?

[@BoshkoIgich]

Maybe "Now Showing" was the company selling these tapes?

[@robhulluk]

@@nthgth They do, but almost everyone also speaks English pretty well.

[@nthgth]

@@robhulluk but I mean, Dutch first, right? Just strange they'd pick a language besides their mother tongue

[@dustincarpenter1707]

Not all heroes wear capes. Techmoan erases one copy of Coyote Ugly for the benefit of humanity.

[@markhughes2556]

Much to the disgust of fans of the movie. Both of them.

[@BonnibelLecter]

This was fascinating, and I'm so glad you opened up the mechanism to show us. It also reminds me of the later product Alec went over, the self-destructing DVD, but to the 2view's credit t least it's a usable tape after instead of just garbage

[@CptJistuce]

There were several self-destructing video formats. All of them were a really weird value proposition.

[@AaronOfMpls]

@@CptJistuce Indeed! I know of two DVD-ish ones priced at a little more than the cost of a new-release rental. They were supposed to be _like_ rentals, but without the pressure/inconvenience of returning the disc by a deadline. Not surprisingly, both flopped, not lasting very long. The one I remember actually being a thing in its day was *DIVX* (pronounced "div-ex" or "div-ix" -- and not to be confused with the unrelated DivX video codec). Released in 1998, DIVX was a proprietary DVD-like format sold at (and partly developed by) Circuit City. It used online DRM to stop you from playing a disc more than a few times; the player used a phone line to periodically dial into your account on DIVX's servers and look up how many plays you had left on your discs. You could pay DIVX more money after the fact to "rent" your existing discs again -- or to "buy" unlimited plays ("DIVX Silver") for about the cost of a DVD. DIVX discs weren't compatible with regular DVD players, and most people were _really_ not comfortable with that level of DRM on a disc. They also got some flack for being semi-disposible; Circuit City did have recycling bins in store for used DIVX discs, but using these bins kinda negated much of the benefit of not having to return the disc. And there was yet more flack from PR dirty tricks, like pro-DIVX websites that didn't properly disclose their relationship with DIVX and/or Circuit City. In any case, DIVX was discontinued in 1999 after little more than a year on the market. To their (partial) credit, Circuit City did offer to exchange DIVX Silver discs for regular DVDs for a while after this. Still, DIVX's servers shut down in 2001, and any remaining DIVX discs became effectively unplayable. And the one Alec from Technology Connections covered was *Flexplay,* released in 2003-2004, and again in 2008. A Flexplay disc was a (mostly) normal DVD, meant to be played in any DVD player or drive. But it came in a sealed package inside the case, and opening that package would make the disc turn dark red/black after being exposed to oxygen for 48+ hours. Flexplay at least didn't have online DRM. But they did get some flack for being disposable, especially since people were used to thinking of DVDs as being more valuable than the discs actoaully cost to make. Flexplay did have a recycling program for their discs to combat this, via in-store recycling bins and an address to mail them to. Flexplay's second attempt _did_ get some traction among long-haul truckers (who often aren't in a good position to return or exchange rented discs), and the discs sold moderately well at truck stops. But still, the appeal was limited. And recycling a disc negated much of the benefit of having a disposable disc, since you had to either take it back to a store (Why not rent from a video store to begin with?) or mail it back to the manufacturer (Why not rent from Netflix's DVDs-by-mail service instead?). In any case, for most people, it still wasn't much more convenient than just renting regular DVDs -- or even _buying_ regular DVDs once some hit the bargain bins at similar or even _lower_ prices. And even for truckers, the spread of Redbox kiosks (which let you return at _any_ Redbox) and online streaming started to limit the appeal.

[@KasumiKenshirou]

I remember DivX. Everyone hated that idea, especially environmentalists, due to the disc becoming a worthless piece of garbage that would end up in a landfill once it stopped playing. I think only one chain of electronics stores (was it Circuit City?) even sold them, and then they went out of business not to long afterwards. (Later on, a video codec would reuse the name DivX for some reason.)

[@CptJistuce]

@@KasumiKenshirou It was Circuit City's format, yeah. They stuck around for several years afterwards, but the Divx fiasco hurt them badly. The video codec seems to have stolen the name specifically to make fun of the faux-rental scheme.

[@crashdoctor]

​@@KasumiKenshirou if memory serves, the video format was actually "DivX;)" with the winking smiley addition

[@Dawwwg]

I'm Dutch and - now I think about it - I can remember seeing these for sale at gas-stations, although I never gave them a 2nd thought at all; always thought they were just 2 movies on 1 tape; as you said, by the time it got released, nobody cared about VHS anymore; only cheap DVD movie deals ...

[@meneerjansen00]

I've never heard of it. ;)

[@runkurgan]

You mean you never looked at them twice?

[@jackmackenzie6721]

​@@runkurgannope, both are correct

[@partyflockske]

also dutch, never heard of these tapes :) it kinda funny seeing a novelty with dutch language on it hihi

[@Danielwatson1993]

Giving them a third thought would have wiped your memory

[@MrAwawe]

What a beautiful piece of plastic clockwork.

[@bewilderbeestie]

Agreed --- good cam design is an art.

[@takanara7]

It actually is pretty smart. Reminds me of some of the mechanisms that Wintergatan is showing off for his new marble machine (He's putting out youtube videos about various mechanisms he might use in his marble machine, some of which are similar to the tracked path thing in this vhs tape)

[@zusurs]

It's almost exactly the same like a mechanism inside the click-button pen. The difference being is that inside the pen after the second click the mechanism goes on a ramp to bring it back to the starting position, so you can push it again, while here it stays in the final position after two "clicks".

[@IAmNotAFunguy]

This tape does have a few anomalies to it: * If you got a new tape, bulk erased it, and then recorded your own content, you would get a single play of the content you recorded before it self-destructed. * If you are able to open the tape after making a recording and reset the mechanism, you'll get the ability to watch the recording you made twice before it self-destructs.

[@billxciii]

That was my first thought.

[@vink6163]

Makes you wonder how they made the tapes. Did they record them in a different shell and move the reels into this shell afterwards, or did they have a mechanism they used to hold back the counter when they made the initial recording?

[@billxciii]

@@vink6163 There's an extra channel in the mechanism that takes into account writing it the first time.

[@beardymcbeardface69]

"If you got a new tape, bulk erased it, and then recorded your own content, you would get a single play of the content you recorded before it self-destructed." I think that would give you zero plays before it self destructed. The first bulk erase would count as a 1st "play" and then the recording of your own content would count as the 2nd "play". Then when you rewound it to watch it back, that rewind process would include the auto erase functionality, erasing your content before you could watch it back..

[@vink6163]

@@beardymcbeardface69 "Bulk erasing" is where you put the tapes through an electromagnet, so the entire tape is erased in a second or two without the reels being turned, so bulk erasing wouldn't count as the first play.

[@no_one_of_that_name_here]

I fondly remember ignoring these. Thanks for making a video about this anomaly, lovely stuff.

[@Jul-66]

At least they let you keep a blank tape instead of becoming a coaster like Flexplay discs.

[@Exarian]

I was just thinking that. it honestly kinda makes me fine with it in theory, its kinda like how some brands of bottled water come in bottles nice enough to actually reuse.

[@AstralPhnx]

Yeah honestly the fact you get a blank tape out of it makes this significantly more neat than Flexplay ever was

[@Lord_zeel]

Yeah, at least it's not a complete waste. But what I think it demonstrates very clearly, is just how much the cost of a movie is the license for the film rather than the physical media. They were selling a more complex tape for less than a normal movie, and this was considered more profitable despite the higher cost.

[@aarontuplin]

When I drove trucks over the road flexplay was pretty damn useful

[@Jul-66]

@@aarontuplin Now _that_ is a good target market for them, one which also kept 8-Track hanging on far longer than it otherwise would have.

[@JohnR_ytbe]

This feels like the perfect TechMoan video! An obscure tape format I've never heard of and a detailed breakdown. Happy TechMoan Saturday everyone.

[@custardo]

I remember those. The price of 12 guilders was pretty much in line with the price of a rental plus the price of a blank tape, so it wasn't unreasonable. Much better than those DivX discs that ended up in the rubbish bin 48 hours after opening

[@Code7Unltd]

There's a difference betwixt these and Circuit City's DIVX, Flexplay, etc. 2View tapes baked a "Now Showing" watermark onto the tape's video to tell the viewer when the magnet advanced. Even without the magnet being set off, I can guess that "Now Showing" bug might irritate some.

[@3rdalbum]

A blank table? I think you mean a blank tyre.

[@AltCutTV]

A Table Erasa.

[@yarly3180]

I guess this is super obscure because I'm Dutch I've asked around and really no one remembers this, my memory on this is 'blank' as well 😋

[@NavyDood21]

My guess is most of these ended up in the trash after the second watching anyway.

[@anschelsc]

That little zigzag path for the pin is absolutely brilliant. Terrible idea, but excellently carried out

[@davidflamee]

Never a truer word. We always rise to a challenge. Manufacturers must still have nightmares about this when bringing out single, or however many use tech. If there's a challenge, someone, somewhere, will find a hack, beautiful demonstration of the human spirit, and determination.

[@taofanarchy96-renzomaracas14]

Hackers are guided by Dai Gurren principles. #GurrenLagann

[@richardarriaga6271]

That's why Nintendo and Sony have very evil, yet effective lawyers.

[@rickyrico80]

Oh wow this is a blast from the past. Back then I worked at a Texaco gas station in The Haque and we have a machine that dispensed these for a short while. It was barely used and was there for a very short time. It was like a pillar thing so people could do it themselves.

[@rickyrico80]

I believe the price was 10 or 12.50 gulden somewhere in that range

[@keziski]

Like a redbox kind of vending machine?

[@rickyrico80]

@@keziski I had to look up Redbox but yes something like that except it was a cylinder not a box but about the same size. It only had a few movies in it it was absolutely doa

[@CptJistuce]

​@@keziskiAnd just like a Redbox machine, they don't exist anymore.

[@Code7Unltd]

@@CptJistuce Redbox's removal was more an effect of the parent company dissolving. Apparently the big-brained move by Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment of "promise payment, never follow through" didn't work as intended. It also affected Crackle (first everyone was fired, now the site's not loading videos), Popcornflix (site's 404ing now) and David O'Donnel had his movie "Under My Skin" held in deadlock for some time (Filmhub has streamed the movie to Hoopla and Amazon since then, David still isn't paid for the time 1091 Pictures owned U.S. distribution). Now Showing/2view, however, was just Buena Vista's stab at making direct movie rentals (via self-erasing tapes) to the Dutch.

[@runeodin7237]

Aah, this would have been perfect for a puppet sketch - I can imagine that after getting a long and complicated explanation about the system, Dad would answer : "But why not just buy a blank casette in the first place - then you would not have to watch 'Coyote Ugly' *twice*" followed by the usual "flippin' eck" from the son.

[@DrBagPhD]

I miss the puppets, I fucking hate youtube for killing those sketches.

[@lShishkaBerryl]

​@@DrBagPhDhow did yt do that, I missed something somewhere lmao

[@tyttuut]

​@@lShishkaBerryl IIRC, a lot of people would skip them, which decreased view time according to the Almighty Algorithm.

[@AtheistOrphan]

@@lShishkaBerryl- YT classes videos with puppets in as children’s entertainment and the content creator gets no money from them. (Or something like that). Techmoan did a video explaining all that a few years ago.

[@turokforever007]

@@lShishkaBerryl Soft people didn't like them

[@JessicaKStark]

It's kinda hilarious that the tagline is "This Party Never Ends." when it literally ends after you watch it twice.

[@goomygaming980]

the tagline is for the movie I bet

[@JessicaKStark]

@@goomygaming980 I know, it's just a fun contrast for that movie and the tech.

[@triptheroad]

That is such a 90's pre 9/11 00's tagline lol

[@hairypaulmm7wab195]

Thank You @Techmoan for showin us A clever mechanism that missed it's time and vanished into the mists of time. I vaguely remember the paperclip hack turning up on the good old Fidonet massage feeds on my BBS back in the day but never saw a 2view tape in the wild. At that time we were using VHS machines for long audio recordings as they were super cheap due to everyone switching to DVD and punting their VHS machines out to buy movies on DVD.

[@FranklyPeetoons]

By the time this crippled VHS format appeared I was already downloading pirate DVDs online - gleefully, and without penalty

[@SarafinaSummers]

Just remember, statutes of limitations still apply....

[@vergeofapathy]

It's not like I expected a massive amount of interconnected gears and levers in there or anything, but after thinking about different ways to do it before seeing how the magnet is set up in there, I'm amazed how simple this is.

[@cjc363636]

Me, too. I'd imagined the magnet as this huge, circular thing that would fasten itself half around the spool when it was 'time.' That it was this tiny fridge style magnet on a lever/arm amazed me.

[@NiallWardrop]

@@cjc363636 In the days before very cheap electronics this sort of mechanical movement was very common, there must have been a specialism designing them, with an emphasis on simplicity and cheapness. For example "talking" toys which spoke random phrases contained a tiny record player and a purely mechanical mechanism, all in cheap plastic.

[@sonic2000gr]

"This VHS tape will self destruct in two plays" *Dramatic music plays* - *Smoke coming out of VHS machine* - Mission impossible in the video age!

[@Colaholiker]

My thought exactly 😆

[@unitrader403]

Honestly Mission:Impossible would have been the perfect Movie on this :D just add a small smoke charge when the magnet deploys too :D

[@TJ-vh2ps]

I was hoping to see that! 😂

[@whophd]

@@unitrader403I want another KZbinr like Stuff Made Here to build this into a VHS tape that you can buy as a Christmas gift

[@thesteelrodent1796]

funny enough, in the 1980s Mission Impossible series, their missions were delivered on mini-CDs. They completely skipped the video tape between the original series and the continuation

[@ziginox]

That "wooo" cut was amazing. thanks for the Saturday morning laughs, Matt!

[@JeremyBaker-f8z]

One of my new favorite techmoan videos. Crazy simple approach to counter piracy, with an equally simple method to defeat it. I really enjoyed this video Mr Techmoan.🇺🇸

[@Quacks0]

Yeah, I always super-enjoy "beating-the-system hack" reveals like this. :D :P

[@matthewuzulis5016]

Watching this just made me feel very old. I grew up with VHF and remember renting them from Blockbuster or other places. I then remember DVD coming along and taking over... then blu-ray... now it's just streaming / download. I have witnessed 4 variations of watching movies at home in my life time and I'm only 42 years old.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

VHF radios? Still a thing.

[@nthgth]

I still use DVDs and Blu Ray. Who the hell knows where Married With Children or Lord of the Rings will be streaming next month??

[@bubba842]

​@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xxI think he meant VHS.

[@AstrosElectronicsLab]

I think you mean VHS (Video Home System), not VHF (Very High Frequency).

[@markmark5033]

In theory, with ×2 VHS tapes and a recorder, you can play the movie and record it on to a blank tape. Then play the movie twice and erase the original tape. And then re-record the movie back onto the 2way vhs. I miss the 90's

[@fredbloggs5902]

After making a copy of a copy the quality would have degraded quite a bit.

[@belperite]

I would say that most people didn't have 2 VHS machines, let alone a macrovision defeating box, so not too much of a concern for the company at the time.

[@Zeem4]

@@belperite Top-loading machines from the early 80s could be had very cheaply during this period (or slightly earlier at least), making excellent Macrovision-free copying machines. As a teenager during the 90s, I had quite a good sideline buying and selling them. I could buy one for 50p non-working from a local junk auction, service it with new belts and rollers for about £10, stockpile a few then sell them all throughout a weekend for £20-£30 each. None of the buyers admitted it, but I'm sure that many of them knew they didn't have Macrovision and they were buying them to copy tapes with. To this day, I still have fond memories of the Ferguson 3V29 and 3V30 and their JVC equivalents, the HR7200 and 7300.

[@volvo09]

​@@belperite ah Macrovision.... I was trying to remember the name of the copy protection.

[@AltCutTV]

​@@Zeem4 From what I remember there were still many even very late models that did not have it. I suppose some or most of those could have been grey market imports from regions where this circuit was not required though. It's incidentally a bit similar to the digital era copyprotection that some consumer media players and such had. But since nearly all piracy by then was done through things not having that, it's probably not even used anymore. Or if it is, most would be unaware.

[@RickTheGeek]

This definitely seems like something that Buena Vista - AKA Disney - would come up with.

[@EilonwyWanderer]

I was just coming to the comments to see if anyone else had pointed this out, exactly my thought! Of course Disney would be a) behind the times and out of touch with what actual humans want and b) excessively controlling and greedy at the expense of customers.

[@whitelion7976]

That's why we used to pirate Disney in the 90s

[@joes9954]

Disney had PPV dreams all the way back to the 80’s wanting to do this to all of their VHS releases.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@whitelion7976 I recall prerecorded Disney tapes were the only ones with anti-piracy messages at the start. I always laughed, even at 3 years old, at their simulated "pirate copy" with snow etc. I'd say "mum, that makes no sense. Our copy of Pinocchio off the telly looks great!" and she'd say "oh, that's not what they're talking about" which... true, we weren't dubbing copies off that tape to sell. But we could've! 😅

[@CptJistuce]

​@@EilonwyWandererActually, Disney was ahead of the times. When this came out, they were developing Flexplay-brand self-destructing DVDs. No, really. It's a real thing that happened, and it really was developed by Disney.

[@ManyMannyMan]

0:50 Buena vista are the adult movie branch of Disney, figures they be the ones to try push for a format where they control ownership of the movie

[@riffhammeron]

Might want to clarify what you mean by "adult movie" 😁

[@ZacabebOTG]

I think you mean Touchstone (and later on, also Hollywood Pictures.) Buena Vista was the distribution arm, but that name has been retired for a few years.

[@the_tux]

Buena Vista also showed / licensed “Duck Tales” in Germany. So it’s not just adult movies.

[@ManyMannyMan]

@the_tux didn't know that but now I do. Thanks

[@ManyMannyMan]

@@ZacabebOTG apologies, you're right they did do the disruption. Showing my age obviously

[@MrSatyre1]

Great video! I'd only heard rumors of it because my company (different division from mine) had been approached to produce 2View cassette shells, but nothing on our end ever came of it, and we all promptly forgot about it.

[@Lucas-Zouaven]

Really good slow paced video. First time viewer. I enjoyed it without any technical background.

[@EldritchFyre]

Be very interesting to calculate how much money and how many hours have been spent engineering and planning very ingenious but nearly pointless devices like that erase mech. Brings to mind Ian's famous line from Jurassic Park... "You spent so much time figuring out if you could, and never once gave a though to whether you should". Did serve at least one noble purpose, though - We got another great Techmoan episode out of it anyway. Thank you again, good Sir!

[@dranorter]

It's a bit ingenious sure, but I doubt it took all that many hours, as it's something any mechanical engineer would know how to do.

[@paradiselost9946]

this comment makes me think of christmas crackers... it always blows my mind that someone had the job of designing useless blobs of plastic, AND the machine to make them...

[@laerin7931]

It's possible that when they started working on it, the idea made sense. But it took them a while to get it to market, by which point DVDs have already took over. If it came out in the heyday of VHS and didn't have the easy paperclip bypass, I can see this format carving a niche.

[@DeliveryMcGee]

I once got a one-view ... preview? Focus group? A yet-to-be-aired sitcom with a questionnaire to fill out to decide whether it would go to production VHS tape that, upon disassembling after watching, had a magnet beside one of the screws at the top. If only I'd taken it apart and removed the magnet before watching, 25 years later I could upload that pilot to youtube ... No great loss. I don't remember anything about the show, other than there was a reason it didn't get picked up for production.

[@simonupton-millard]

I had the same but mine was on 2 view am sure even had the blank where the tape counter hole would have been and welded together so maybe they was making a MK2 with no paperclip trick

[@greggv8]

Was the name of the pilot episode "Morning Glory"? It sure looked to me like it starred Richard Masur and Sandra Dickinson (she was Trillian in the BBC Hitchiker's Guide to the Galaxy TV series). IIRC the scenario was about the cast and crew of an early morning TV news program titled "Morning Glory". I still have the tape, I took it apart after the single play, found and removed the magnet before rewinding it so it wouldn't get erased any worse. I bet today's digital magic "AI" could restore it to watchable.

[@LX.M]

​@@greggv8 Would you give it a try? If you put it on KZbin, I promise I will watch it.

[@FatNorthernBigot]

The naivety of the this product's inventor is almost charming.

[@BillAnt]

People were more honest back then, nobody would have dared bypassing the magnet. ha-ha-ha jk

[@paulhillman400]

​@@BillAntThose were the days when we all left our front doors unlocked, and nobody stole our Coyote ugly videos. Halcyon days !!!!.

[@TroyBlake]

I can imagine the small company presenting this solution to the movie studio executives (all wearing ties and expensive suits) as a simple solution to their problem of how to make even more money from VHS sales. I'm 100% sure the execs asked if there was a way to bypass this new two-play system and I'm 100% sure that even if they knew how easy it might be to bypass, the inventor would have denied any knowledge of a way to bypass this new system. The agreement was signed and a test market was selected. Only later, after there was money exchanged, did consumers prove that it wasn't as secure as the executives had hoped. I just hope the team that designed the mechanical system shown in this video was well compensated, because if they didn't get their money up front they would have been ripped off later by the studios anyway.

[@izimsi]

I was actually surprised how hard it was to open, so they clearly made serious effort to make it hard to bypass, yet 'mistakes were made' and they didn't think someone would defeat it without even opening it. On the other hand, even if they fixed it, it would only take one person to open the tape to find out the right place to put a hot paperclip through the cassette to freeze the mechanism anyway.

[@CerdurTV]

I think they could've fixed the paperclip vulnerability by moving the counter, but people would've learned to poke a hole in the right spot to then insert their paperclip

[@derrickj.freeman276]

This video is surprisingly awesome. Great mechanism. Really brilliant. Not needed, but very cool design!

[@BluePrinceThoth]

I miss the puppets. ❤ They've been away so long, surely by now they must have amazing adventures and stories to tell!

[@enp82003]

I remember being in college and broke but I built a DVD collection by free monthly trials of Netflix burning the DVD as fast as I could and sending it back that day so I could get as many as I could in that period of time. I was a bad boy lol.

[@DelinquentSquirrel]

I did something very similar with VideoIsland, ScreenSelect and Lovefilm. Ended up with a collection of around 200 movies in a fairly short space of time. This was 20 years ago - I tried to play one the other day and the recordable disc had become unplayable. Oh well.

[@SVW1976]

I setup an old PC with 2 DVD writers and we did the same.

[@bertcielen8709]

I recall someone telling how he lived at the start of a long street in a city in the USA, and that he had a fast computer and DVD drive etc., and that when he heard the mailman deliver his Netflix discs, he immediately got them from his mailbox, ripped them to his HD, and put them in their return envelopes and in his mailbox, so that the mailman on his way back could pick them up. He also lived close to a Netflix distribution center, so with any luck het got a new batch the next day. But then Netflix caught on to these "super-users" who would go through a massive amount of discs in a month (and cost them lots of money in shipping costs), and their discs would get sent to a distribution center as far away as possible, so that it would take up to a week for a new batch to arrive.

[@adamgh0]

I did that too! I have a whole CD binder full of them. The only downside was that most commercial DVD's had a slightly bigger capacity than a DVD-R's 4.7gb. You could get higher capacity discs but they cost too much at the time. I used DVD Shrink to "re-author" and compress the movie and often had to pick and choose what special features got cut (usually all of the foreign language audio tracks) to get a better quality video. They look like crap when blown up on bigger TV's. Lot's of pixels and distortion. If it was a bare bones DVD with very few special features, you could make a perfect copy.

[@DelinquentSquirrel]

@@adamgh0 Most commercial DVDs were dual layer by the time DVD burners became affordable. I tended to re-author the disc, have just the main movie (although I'd sometimes stick a Dolby Digital or DTS trailer on the beginning), strip out all the soundtracks apart from the DTS (if available) or Dolby 5.1 English, and set the 'deep analysis' mode to get the best quality. Then leave DVD Shrink to do its thing for about 45 minutes. I did try playing some of the copies (that still worked!) on my current setup, a Samsung blu-ray player with an LG 65" 4K OLED. They actually look ok if you sit back at normal viewing distance. Not great, but usually no worse than the original DVD in 576i. A lot of the time when you stripped the extras, menus and additional audio tracks, the movie was small enough to fit on a single-layer DVD-R without shrinking, meaning the quality of the copy was identical to the original disc.

[@ntsecrets]

I’d pay more for a tape without coyote ugly on it.

[@ColdWarAviator]

😂

[@FranssensM]

I don’t remember seeing any at the time. Which is odd as since it was launched I’ve been looking for anything without Coyote Ugly on.

[@piratetv1]

So it gets more valuable with play time

[@steviebboy69]

It must be bad then, thankfully I have never seen it.

[@Milamberinx]

@@steviebboy69 don't let other people decide your taste for you. I've not watched it in a long time but I remember enjoying it back in the early noughts.

[@bennnnnnett]

Thank you Mat for being you. Your channel is consistently great.

[@zyzaxxxch]

Well, I liked it. ! Never had heard of this so I was intrigued to see in action. Thanks Techmoan. I think it was pretty cool they had the insight to save the tape and allow it to be reused. So the 2view actually has 3 modes, A count and display mode, an erase mode, and then protect mode. I'm guessing most people just used their new 'blank' tape for just recording TV sitcoms etc rather than recording special stuff.

[@making-memories-nl]

@Techmoan Very nice to see that you review a tape which my team sold by the MEDIA MARKT the Netherlands somewhere around 2000/2001. I remember them especially by the sticker you which was attached to the plastic. :)

[@pennygadget7328]

A friend dragged me to see Coyote Ugly in theaters, saying he wanted to check it out because of the "hot babes". Afterward I said I was surprised he wanted to see a chick flick, which he took offense to and insisted he thought it was about "hot babes". The next week we went to go see Hollow Man... except he bought tickets to Coyote Ugly again, which he said was an accident. When he came out some time later, the man was genuinely confused why nobody in the friendgroup was surprised by the revelation. All of that out of the way: Mat, you are officially the second person I've ever known of to have willingly watched Coyote Ugly twice. Be proud, buddy!

[@stuartmcconnachie]

So much hate for Coyote Ugly. I’m off to watch my DVD copy… 😳

[@fireaza]

It's cute how he assumed that only reason straight men watch a movie is for "hot babes" and this is the reason he should give for wanting the see the movie.

[@spidermonkeynr1]

I wachted it more then twice. It aint bad. People like to complain to much

[@spongerobert]

Coyote Ugly was a classic "gotcha" film. A friend of mine also said I need to watch it because of the hot women but then I asked him what the movie was about except for the hot women and I soon realised that we don't enjoy the same things, which is fine. It's also odd that he had all these "girlfriends" but never really did anything with them except watch Coyote Ugly, presumably.

[@nicholas4839]

He did not watch it 2 times he fast forward thru the 2ed play

[@JosiahGould]

Oh wow, I remember my family getting something similar to these in the US in the late 90's/very early 2000's for reviewing TV pilots - really just testing ads in the show. They were auto-erase on rewind. Extra small tape length to trigger auto-rewind too. Not reusable as far as I can remember.

[@kvetcha]

Such a clever mechanism in service of such a whiff of an idea!

[@wobblyboost]

It's actually borrowed from magnetic relockers for safes and combo locks, after a certain amount of incorrect code tumbles a magnet deadlocked the locking pins, had to be reset with another magnet.

[@kaitlyn__L]

@@wobblyboost I'd heard of auto-relock tumblers, but never looked-into their mechanism of action. Fascinating!

[@wobblyboost]

@@kaitlyn__L Funny part is the Dutch are reknowned for having the largest and most active lockpicker and safe cracker communities in the world, so this device was so doomed 😆

[@JCD87]

I did this when I bought it when it came out. Never watched the movie, but wanted to disarm the wiping mechanism :) And I clearly remember 'heating' the screws out by drilling into them while they wouldnt rotated (thus generating heat) and yank them out just as you did! This took me back, thanks for this entertaining video. And your way of explaining the system beforehand was spot on!

[@eknaap8800]

Dutchman here (born 1961). Interesting mechanism. I've never seen such a tape before. Although an avid Betamax user, I did use VHS later on, as Betamax was on the return. Did switch to DVD as soon as possible, though.

[@SuPerbMusiCFan]

"This party never ends." Well if you watch the film through this VHS it will end after the second time.

[@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx]

The idea of a party that never ends is hell on earth. For me, anyway.

​@@RebeccaTurner-ny1xx Reminds me of the party in the sky bit in one of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy books.

[@LuluTheCorgi]

And were all better off for it

[@davidkent2804]

"Not my cup of tea" - very polite. Bloody horrible - accurate

[@wobblyboost]

Repulsive lame dumpster of a movie, even drunkards and barmaids hated it entirely.

[@Zastrutzki]

Coyote Ugly was a guilty pleasure of mine when I was young. Of course, there was hardly any internet, so nobody told me I should feel guilty about it. About that tagline, seems like the party is supposed to end after 2 viewings. That's irony.

[@dantesg4135]

5:29 this is the first time i've seen (or at least noticed) a cut in the middle of a techmoan explanation

[@YunxiaoChu]

.

[@lusitaniafilms]

I have been working on VCR's for over 30 years, and I have NEVER seen that. WOW Great Video.

[@jimbo573]

A bit less wasteful than the self-erasing DVDs as you could use this as a blank tape.

[@NeungView]

Oh, you are so clever

[@ShockingPikachu]

The self erasing DVDs didn't even work half the time though lol

[@dustojnikhummer]

@@ShockingPikachu Unless they erased them before you watched it, see Technology Connection's FlexPlay

[@radry100]

never heard of self erasing DVDs

[@wobaguk]

@@radry100 Look up DivX, not the codec the disc format

[@Daniel-79]

Wiping the tape after #2 view of coyote ugly. Sounds like slang bathroom humor.

[@rogerszmodis]

This is something that needed to be released in like 1990 to be successful. A year before this they were already putting DVD players in game consoles.

[@AROAH]

Yeah, the PS2 really was VHS’s killer, just as the PS3 killed the DVD.

[@bubba842]

​@@AROAHThe DVD was never killed. DVDs still outsell Blu Rays. What killed the DVD was streaming. All in all, Blu Ray was a collosal failure. Sony wanted it to be adopted like the DVD player was adopted. It never did.

[@MizukiUkitake]

I love the idea of using this mechanism to create super creepy single-watch movies like in The Ring.

[@baasmommel]

I'm from the Netherlands, we've rented/bought quitte a few VHS back in the days; NEVER ever heard or seen this 😅

[@marktubeie07]

Who else was _dying_ to see what was inside this cassette ??!!

[@CTimmerman]

Most organisms partially die to stay alive, so every human viewer, at least.

[@9852323]

Me too even though I already knew it was a mechanism with a magnet of some kind.

[@wright96d]

12:20 I'd be interested to see you look at the tape again with a different capture system (or just on a TV). The tape isn't completely blank, at least not right at that moment, it's just so noisy that the capture software is deciding to blank it out instead of showing you a bunch of static.

[@johngaltline9933]

It's not the capture software, it's the VCR. You'd have to find an old, entirely analog, VCR from about the mid 80's or before. Anything after that typically shows a blue screen when the noise is too high or there's no sync.

[@j0hnf_uk]

@@johngaltline9933 Yeah, 'modern', TV's, i.e. those in the 80's and beyond would blank out signals that dropped below a certain fresh hold, despite there still being some signal. They were useless for doing TV-DX, for example, where you needed to be able to see any strength of signal in it's entirety. A blue screen with the patronisingly obvious, 'no signal', was no good for such a use.

[@wright96d]

@@johngaltline9933 Either is possible. If there is a blue back on the VCR, the capture software is blanking THAT out. And if it’s blanking that out it could be blanking more.

[@johngaltline9933]

@@wright96d Went back and looked and you could be right. There's a green bar or something on the software that my brain thought was the "Play" that shows in the corner of a lot of VCRs. If it was showing the word that the capture would have to be working, but it was just the software there. who knows.

[@myprofilenameis]

Coincidentally I found some of these tapes sealed at a thrift shop earlier this week, very cool to see one in action and how the paperclip trick works :)

[@PeteOfDarkness]

I feel like Coyote Ugly is perfect movie to view not once, not twice, but exactly zero times.

[@mattiasjohansson7718]

In Sweden they did the opposite in the 80s. you rented your movie with something called a movie box . a vhs player with a timer system that made the vhs player unusable after the renting time has passed.

[@ZGryphon]

As James May once said about a completely different thing, "It's an ingenious solution to a problem that never should have existed in the first place." All those silly self-destructing physical media things were stupid, cynical ideas, but this one was probably the most ingenious stupid, cynical idea. :)

[@damonappel]

Personally, I liked the sheer consumerist, landfill-fodder ingenuity of DivX: "Just throw the disc away after you're done watching!" 😅

[@TheLastPhoen1x]

Companies had to invent all those self-destruct technologies, but now they can just remove the shows from your digital library with one click. What an amazing progress.

[@uselessDM]

The blank tape aspect makes this more acceptable to me. To be honest, I bought movies that I probably only watched once or twice and now sit on the shelf collecting dust. Selling them isn't really worth the effort, so being left with something that I can actually reuse would be preferable. If I like a movie so much I want to watch it more I can always buy a regular DVD/tape at the end of the day.

[@FlnSkr]

like single use phone battery chargers

[@borjesvensson8661]

Agree ​@@uselessDM

[@ericjenkins2737]

It’s unbelievable that this would come out well after the monumental failure of DIVX.

[@CptJistuce]

In fairness, it addresses one of the problems of DivX. It works in a normal VCR, where DivX needed a special DivX-capable DVD player.

[@williamhaynes7089]

@@CptJistuce plus the recycling issue was solved as its good to record somthing else

[@CptJistuce]

@@williamhaynes7089 On paper, at least. I suspect most of them wound up in the trash after use anyways.

[@ntsecrets]

A great idea had it come out in 1982 when tapes cost quite a bit more.

[@ryanortega1511]

I'm shocked they didn't think of it sooner.

[@borjesvensson8661]

Problem was it would not make sense until tapes became cheap. After all it was the astronomical price of tapes and specially pre recorded tapes that made vhs rental a big industry. The major part of that price was the production cost. It was not untill late in the formats life that licencing became the major cost

[@ryanortega1511]

I'd think it would still have worked then, maybe in the 1990s.

[@johngaltline9933]

@@borjesvensson8661 Late in it's life, but still well before any practical replacement existed. By the early 90's the cost of blank VHS had fallen to the same $2 per tape it would remain for the next 10 years. I've got about 4000 VHS tape sitting in boxes in my basement if you want them.

[@takanara7]

The problem was back then actually manufacturing and recording the tape was kind of expensive on it's own. Something like this probably got to be cheaper over time to the point where it was economically viable.

[@jonothanthrace1530]

14:41 It always drove me up the wall when DVD rolled around and suddenly "video" meant specifically VHS.

[@mick0905]

That mechanism is a work of art despite how easy it is to defeat.

[@Quacks0]

Yes, I was really admiring of the exceptional ingenuity of its inventor.

[@spiritrulez]

I AM from the Netherlands and I had no idea this existed. I'm from '83 and I was always in to media and tech but I never came across this. Could be that I also already switched to DVD's and never really came in contact with it. Looking at the sticker I think it was sold by Free Record Shop (wich is stupid because nothing was free ;).

[@davidmcgill1000]

While it may be a stupid product, I do like the spring-loaded maze that gets navigated by a roll of tape. It's a cool concept.

[@AltCutTV]

Maybe there could be space enough for a ThreeView©mechanism version. Something for competitors to consider.

[@bornach]

One could 3D print this and have a VHS tape be like a combination lock in an escape room puzzle. The secret key won't be revealed in the little window until you played to a certain point and rewound it.

[@RCAvhstape]

@@bornach If you have to watch Coyote Ugly twice to escape, you'll just die of starvation before you can get the key.

[@jayschafer1760]

​@@bornach That would be a really cool concept for an escape room hint.

[@DJStrobe]

This guy is one of my favourite KZbinrs by far. The way he can make something not interesting at all, intriguing. Genius

[@jooei2810]

Techmoan is great, the content is always spot on!

[@bojcio]

Dude a watch twice self erasing VHS tape IS interesting.

[@jeremymurray-wakefield8011]

Tapes erased through fixed magnets can spell bad news for the machine playing it. In this case hopefully the AC erase head of the VCR would neutralise any residual magnetic bias before it magnetises any heads or guide pins.

[@Quacks0]

Yeah, I wondered about stuff like this, too. I would even worry about just having a magnet inside a VCR, since it might wreak havoc with the magnetic parts.

[@5Detective]

Hey there, I know there's a low chance you see this, but I remember you had a video where you talked about where you got your foam replacements for cassette repair. I can't remember the video, and I was hoping to try and track down the same material. I know you said the business you got it from is long gone, but I thought I'd give it a shot anyway.

[@Born2Rune]

The trusty Paperclip proves its versitility yet again. Interestingly, the Nintendo Switch security was defeated by a Paperclip.

[@regametro8517]

And wii with a pair of tweezers 😮

[@GigaWhatt0]

Well... not a really. A bug in the Tegra X1 bootrom defeated the Switch's security. The paperclip was only needed to put your Switch in RCM (recovery) mode.

[@dustincarpenter1707]

It also gives you access to OBD 1 trouble codes.

[@bobroberts2371]

@@dustincarpenter1707 Unless you have an early Mercedes in California where there is a push button and LED under the hood to access OBD 1 codes.

[@punker4Real]

NES DRM was defeated by a pair of wire cutters

[@maicod]

1:32 Mission Impossible would be a good movie title. This tape will self destruct in 2...1.. plays

[@juanca3087]

Hahaha a very good one hajaha

[@MarkSkidmore-g6y]

Reminds me of those disposable DVDs that fortunately failed to take off.

[@bulkhungry]

They actually take off very well if ypu put them in a clay pigeon thrower .

[@MarkSkidmore-g6y]

@@bulkhungry PULL!!

[@aaronlane8276]

Flex play

[@MoreEffinCowbell]

Claims he didn't watch the movie because it's just a bunch of people screaming... ...then proceeds to go through the entire film to cut out a clip from every scene of people screaming, just to create a montage proving there's a lot of people screaming in this movie, so we would understand why it's not a movie he'd care to watch. Point taken, Sir. You're a true artist. As unnecessary as it was to include such a (long) montage, I do commend you for showing such dedication to your craft. 😆

[@Tomsonic41]

I have heard so much about these tapes, but never seen one. Always wanted to know how they worked - and along comes Techmoan to show us!

[@WilliamHaisch]

15:48 I enjoy a nice mug of _“film nog”_ at Christmas. 😂

[@bland9876]

"Film nog" is a good synonym for "Christmas movie"

[@bezare9728]

I like the idea, that that kind of tape could be used as a blank tape afterwards. Other systems leave a lot of unuseable waste.

[@redkf]

I was ready for disappointment when you mentioned rivets, I really wanted to see how it worked on the inside. Very clever mechanism

[@plateshutoverlock]

Basically a very simple mechanical computer with conditionals (how much tape is on the spool and "if X amount, advance mechanism" and "if count > 2 engage magnet"), an accumulator (the counter) and a "program" (wait for >2, engage magnet, park magnet away from spools permanently)

[@sporkafife]

I remember a Technology Connections video a few years back with a self erasing DVD concept for the rental market. That was arguably even worse because you weren't left with a blank tape you could re-record, you were just left with plastic junk you had to bin

[@Balthazare69]

That movie has a great song Can't Fight the Moonlight" by LeAnn Rimes

[@scottlp2323]

This is one of those charming analogue/mechanical copy protect devices that was a delight to try and defeat back in the day. The paperclip 'cheat' is superb. I guess without this knowledge, if I had one of these, I would have just destroyed the case, without damaging the tape reels and just put them into another standard blank cassette which cost less than a pound, or free if you have them all over the place like I did. :)

[@NiallWardrop]

You wouldn't even have to. Just pull out the tape, cut it and splice it to the leader of a blank or trashed tape in place of its tape, spool it onto the "new" shell and splice the end. You have to defeat the flap latches and the spool locks on the tapes, but everybody knew how to do that. Obviously the paperclip trick is easier but it shows that a more complex erase mechanism would be pointless, they can't avoid giving you the content in a form that can be removed from the trick shell without erasing it otherwise it couldn't be played.

[@DZ-X3]

I was half expecting a light-sensitive trigger mechanism that douses the tape reels in acid if you try to open the case.

[@NiallWardrop]

@@DZ-X3 "Tape dissolved my VCR. Would not buy again 0/10".

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

@@NiallWardrop It's a "rule of thumb" in copyright that, if something can be accessed at all, then it can be copied. All that copyright protection schemes do is to make it harder for the ordinary user to access the content, making the copyrighted material far less attractive and pushing consumers into getting equivalent free products instead of your paid product. The more copyright protection you add, the more of a factor this becomes.

[@fixins]

In the US, they had a DVD version of this with a special player which had to be connected to a phone line (IIRC). I worked on some demos for the DIVX system which almost immediately failed as it was a stupid idea.

[@volvo09]

Yeah DIvX I remember that. Huge flop.

[@dyter424]

Over the years I've owned at least three LG DVD players from the mid 2000s and all of them, for some reason, have a DIVX menu with a code in it. They were built for the PAL market years after DIVX was abandoned and have no way to connect to a telephone line, so the feature is entitrely useless and I don't know why it was included in the first place. EDIT: turns out it's not that DIVX, but a form of DRM for the actual DivX codec which came out later. Still, I've never seen any DivX VOD disc on sale, so it must have been just another failed idea.

[@MrArgus11111]

A self erasing format is perfect for a "film" like Coyote Ugly. Subjecting someone to it more than twice would violate the Hague Convention.

[@tcpnetworks]

You win the Internet today... Harsh, brutal, bloody funny...

[@MarijnRoorda]

It's the Geneva (Switzerland) convention. The court is in the Hague (Netherlands).

[@floyd0604]

There are Hague Conventions too. Two of them, held in 1899 and 1907​ about rules of war, war crimes etc. @MarijnRoorda

[@igrim4777]

​@@MarijnRoordaGeneva conventions are about treatment of prisoners of war and civilians, The Hague conventions have a lot about limitations on weapons and prohibiting devices intended to more grievously cause suffering so I'd say the original comment is correct in its use.

[@KaeYoss]

Den Haag conventions? Fitting for this uniquely Dutch product

[@chrismoffat3481]

I was one of the millions of people that abandoned VHS immediately after I got my first DVD player in 2002, but weirdly I still get a nostalgic rush from old videotapes. I can't count how many videos I rented back in the 80s and 90s, and they were my education in movies. Plus, all rental tapes had a bunch of trailers at the start, so you'd sometimes be exposed to good films that bombed at the box office, or strange curios that you may not have otherwise considered watching. Oh, and to anyone born after 1995 - VHS tapes could often look great, you just needed to have the video connected to a decent CRT telly. Flat screen TVs have crappy decoders that make analogue video look like arse.

[@AstrosElectronicsLab]

That's because in reality, VHS is 480p and does look like arse.

[@chrismoffat3481]

@@AstrosElectronicsLab Well, back when VHS cassettes were the only way to watch movies at home, I watched them on a CRT set, which was interlaced, not progressive scan. And a well-recorded tape played back on a decent 3-head machine on a good TV looked perfectly good. The format wouldn't have lasted as long as it did if that wasn't the case. Analogue media quality is dependent on the recording and playback equipment. It's the reason a cassette recorded on a Nakamichi machine will sound vastly superior to something recorded on a no-name boombox, and why a VHS played back on a TOTL Sony deck will look (and sound) infinitely better than it would on a mono Alba deck connected via an RF cable.

[@AstrosElectronicsLab]

@chrismoffat3481 well, most "boomboxes" were DC recording biased, where the Nak would have been AC biased; which obviously would have lower noise. There's nothing special about the Nak deck compared to a rack-mounted Teac C-3 3-head machine back in the 80's (it was 3 head as it had recording monitor playback). My dad had one, and was considered back then "superior" (main issues with it was the recording level pots became noisy over time); but it played/recorded Type-I, Type-II, chrome and metal tapes.

[@chrismoffat3481]

@@AstrosElectronicsLab Well, that's very interesting, but not exactly relevant to the point I was making; simply that the quality of analogue media depends on the equipment is was recorded and played back on.

[@AstrosElectronicsLab]

@chrismoffat3481 and the quality of the tape and the source material. As my dad always said, start off with crap, end up with crap.

[@Mechanical_Turk]

Thanks for this little nugget. I have a weird fascination with the engineering magic that's inside the last generations of analog media tech

[@cageycretins]

"The point of no return" idiom makes sense here.... :) Great video and one really odd item which I never seen!

[@danieladmassu941]

Ah....Saturday afterrnoon where I am....and here comes Techmoan. A highlight of the week, really. Just one question.....Ever plan to review vintage Soviet era HiFi stuff? Nothing would make me happier.

[@ssgtmole8610]

Did anyone ever smuggle that out of the Soviet Union in an attempt to black market it in Europe? Wasn't that all the other way? Euro chic instead of Trabant chic? Or am I wrong about that? Was there a Moog of the Soviet Union? Like Theremin, only more adopted in the West than him. Granted Theremin was a bit of a boon to Hollywood movie sound effects. 🎶

[@MarvMavro]

send him some.

[@danieladmassu941]

@@MarvMavro 😁 I wish I could. I just saw a few people reviewing them on YT (The soft-control cassette decks) and wondered what Matt would make of them.

[@mariolover2222]

I was kinda expecting something completely different... Like a tape you send to a loved one or something that automatically erases so no one else could watch it...

[@webchimp]

I mean you could buy a new film and record something over the film without watching it, and that would count as your first watch. Then send them that.

[@melkiorwiseman5234]

@@webchimp If you could get into the tape to reset the mechanism after viewing the video twice, then you could both view it and record it so that it would erase after a single viewing. The real trick would be to record enough material so that it would reliably trigger the magnet at the right time... and finding a way to re-seal the case.

[@cliffhulcoopofficial8075]

@@melkiorwiseman5234 You would not need to do any of that at all. You would get it brand new (like the man did). Then you would cover the "write protect" with sellotape. something then you would record on it. (It would need to be very long) making sure to record the rest as blank to erase the rest of the film. To the mechanism this would count as the first viewing. Then rewind it. Take off the sellotape. Then give it to someone. They would then be able ot view what you did once before it self erased upon rewind. Obviuosly as shown here you would need to put some rubbish at the beginning before what you wanted them to see. All that without altering or tampering with the mechanism at all.

[@pablocristian7266]

Funny thing... When my family got our first DVD player our TV did not have the AV connection, we used the casset player, it had AV, to pass the image to the TV.

[@thomaslgrice]

All hail the mighty paper clip! The home terminals for Warner Qube (launched in Columbus, OH in the late 70's), the interactive cable service where subscribers could respond to polls, play games (trivia), home shop, watch pay-per-view movies, etc. using their cable box, could be hacked by prying open the right side of the case and inserting a straightened paper clip into the fourth brass grommet from the top. The hack allowed you to receive pay-per-view movies without being charged. I doubt whether you could find one of these terminals or simulate the service to demonstrate the hack, so I guess you'll just have to take my word for it. :)

[@gormondprecursor3525]

I got a DVD player in 2000 when I got a PS2 as I expect many people did, which wouldn’t have helped a format like this in 2001.

[@vanCaldenborgh]

I think, when it comes to tech, The Netherlands was a little behind those days, I noticed that living near to the German border buying almost all my stuff over there.

[@R.Daneel]

I came in thinking this was offensive "manufactured for the landfill" plastic, but you get to keep the blank tape... dependent on the price, this is actually not a bad approach. Reminded me of this mostly unrelated trivia - Didn't the Nigerian (?) "Hollywood" start with a blank tape seller putting home-made movies onto his tape supply to improve sales - and it was so popular it started a huge industry.

[@mattBLACKpunk]

Ugandan Hollywood, I think

[@MarcelTransier]

@@mattBLACKpunk Or the plot of "Be kind, Rewind"

[@stevendobbins2826]

Yes, you're thinking the film "Living in Bondage." A Nigerian got hold of an enormous amount of blank VHS tapes from Taiwan, and to sell them decided to make his own movie to put on them.

[@LatitudeSky]

The idea that info on hacking a VHS was circulated ON the internet as we know it just highlights how much the emerging technology was already overwhelming the legacy technology. This was perhaps the last time anybody bothered discussing VHS on the web, because chatter moved on to hacking DVD players. Anyway, this concept of "limited views unless you pay again" is still the wet dream of Hollywood. They would LOVE to charge each and every person for every view of every media they consume. No more buying a movie to own it. You pay forever. Streaming is where they want to go next, if they can ever figure out those pesky expiring content licenses...

[@negirno]

And sadly, they seems to be winning, due to most people only having a streaming box at their home nowadays. I remember when Jeff Geerling posted a video about "making your own streaming service with a raspberry pi", a lot of commenters dissmissed it outright claiming it was "not convenient". Of course most of them could have been bots, but that also highlights the sad fact that most of the internet is controlled by megacorps and they're successfully surpressing any attempt at piracy, just look at what Nintendo does with emulation... Not to mention that kids today are less computer-savvy than our parents were...

[@vink6163]

@@negirno I think part of the issue is that a lot of consumers today haven't experienced losing access to their favourite songs and movies (although that's starting to happen with streaming service infighting). It's the people who've had to go without because they couldn't afford media back in the day, or couldn't find a place that sold it, those are the ones who value having a copy they control themselves. I am sure that in the future more people will realise that it's no fun to lose access to something you really wanted to listen to or watch again, and then maybe ideas will change. But also some younger people just don't listen to the same stuff as often as older people used to (instead switching to something new all the time), so they may not get the same attachment and nostalgia as we used to either. So maybe they just don't miss their music and movies because they don't remember them as well as we used to, since we ended up watching and listening to the same stuff over and over because that's all that was available.

[@dieseldragon6756]

I've known about these for a while and always wondered how they worked! *Thankyou* for the teardown and for reverse engineering this! 📼❤👍 As far as _Single use formats_ go this is still a darn sight better than _FlexPlay._ At least with 2View you can have that second playback months or years after the first, and you're then left with a *reusable* blank VHS cassette afterward! A *lot* less wasteful than FlexPlay ever was! ♻

[@Waccoon]

"It was a different time, wasn't it?" No, things never change. Thou shalt not own anything. Back in the 90's I had to pirate most games I already bought legally, and today it's still the same.

[@no1DdC]

I remember replacing the executable of every game I owned so that I could play it without having to insert the disc into the drive.

[@750kv8]

**Nods and looks at Microsoft**

[@CTimmerman]

*Looks at Xbox 360 with dead optical drive, discontinued online service, and games that aren't supported by Xbox One*