VHS and the evolution of HOME VIDEO | 30 years of greatness!

[@NerdCrave]

what’s your favourite VHS memory?

[@iiqulo]

@NerdCrave possibly my parents renting a VTR in 1983 and my 5 year old self watching He-Man, rewinding it, and watching it again forever. It was a top loader VCR.

[@TheWarrrenator]

We always inherited old hand-me-down furniture and tech from my uncle whenever he and my cousins would come to visit and they bought newer stuff like VCRs and housewears back in the city.

[@tgif1345]

I have so many great VHS memories because my family couldn't afford to go to the movie theatre very often, and I was also in the hospital alot growing up, so watching VHS tapes was the best way to kill time between tests and medications and the nurses doing their rounds at shift change, and other things that made up daily life as a hospital patient. One of my favourite VHS memories though is being frightened out of my wits by Batman Returns. I was in the hospital and my roommate wanted to watch the movie, so his mom put the tape on for us. Up to that point I was used to Batman from reruns of the 1966 TV series starring Adam West. So when the Penguin bites the nose of some random guy that scared the crap out of me. Lol. I loved going to Rogers Video on a Friday afternoon with my mom (and occasionally my dad), my brother and my sister and picking out one VHS tape for each of us, while Mom would get a movie for her and my dad to watch after my siblings and I went to bed.

[@NerdCrave]

Great memories, man I have so many as well. I mentioned the time I rented the Little mermaid and all dogs go to heaven, but I remember so many other times renting movies that became my absolute favourites that I never would have known about if it wasn’t for the rental stores.

[@tgif1345]

@@NerdCrave I know right? Like we rented the 1985 Sesame Street movie, Follow That Bird on VHS when I was a kid and it was one of my favourites, but I would never have known about it if we hadn't rented it from Rogers Video. I also remember renting The Little Mermaid sometime in 1990, not long after it had been released. We actually owned All Dogs Go to Heaven. I also had a lot of Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes on VHS as well. My grandmother bought them for me from Kmart, AND I had two of the Columbia House TNG VHS releases too.

[@femtrooper]

Fun video!!! Really enjoyed this. I miss rental stores so much!

[@NerdCrave]

Me too! I understand why some collectors want to build a blockbuster in their basement!

[@iiqulo]

You know i love VHS as well, but I give DVD the win for the easy menu use, and the incredible special features we had access to. Special features like commentaries, extra movies/shorts, and even games!

[@NerdCrave]

DVD retrospective coming eventually

[@TheCompletionist]

I think the VCR is one of the most valuable pieces of technology that a person can hold onto and my wife and I still have a vcr that we'll never get rid of. I think one of the reasons why the vhs is so important is there is so much media out there that has only ever had a vhs release and has never been released on any other type of physical format. My favorite cult classic canadian film has only ever a physical vhs release and it's never been released on any other format. Sure many cult films have made the transition to streaming but there are a lot of people that would love to have a physical copy of that cult film. VHS has ultimately protected the physical legacy of many obscure cult films that may never see another physical release. The problem with streaming is many of these films will be removed from streaming service with no notice whatsoever and it truly showed that in the world of vhs especially in the 80's any and all ideas in the world of film no matter how obscure or ridiculous they were, were entertained and I firmly believe that a lot of these films should never be lost to time. Some of my treasured memories as a kid were renting videos from the video rental store and even to this day I have memories of certain films that I still to this day have no idea what they were. Renting vhs tapes on a weekend was a magical experience because even though I was born in 1980, we didn't get cable television in our community until 1989. I always looked forward to renting vhs tapes regardless if it was a cartoon I never saw before or it was the newest ultra violent r rated action movie that I had no business watching when I was a kid but I absolutely enjoyed it.

[@NerdCrave]

We had a pretty similar experience you and I I’m a couple years older than you, but we lived in the country and never had access to cable TV even up until the early 2000’s it was just the three or four channels that would come in over the airwaves that I had access to, so I was very dependent on VHS. We eventually got a satellite in the middle 2000’s But I never gave up my physical media

[@iiqulo]

Okay... now ya gotta tell us what this Cult Classic Canadian (CCC) movie is.

[@TheCompletionist]

@@iiqulo The moment I said it's never had another physical release besides vhs. A company is actually releasing it in October of this year. I suppose if you give a company enough time. You'll eventually get a physical release of a film you love. This film is called heavenly bodies. This is the trailer. It's on of those so bad - it's good movies - awesome soundtrack and a pretty cool competition at the end of the film. kzbin.info/www/bejne/iIK8mX-mpJJ3qrc

[@iiqulo]

Selectavision is the ONLY way to watch movies.

[@TheWarrrenator]

Hot take: VHS looks better on modern HDTVs than DVDs do. DVDs caught on in popularity because they looked hi-def on standard definition TVs plus they were more convenient (viewers didn’t have to be kind and rewind a DVD).

[@NerdCrave]

While I love the way VHS tapes look, I think better might be a stretch