hk blues Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 1 hour ago, BFTD said: I remember Ritz being decent - it was our local in the mid Nineties. They'd do a thing where they'd shut down during the holidays and run a deal where you could rent ten tapes for a fiver and keep them for a few weeks; manager told me it was to minimise the stock on the premises in case they got broken into. That sounds like a cracker of a deal. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hk blues Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 On the subject of renting films - the Japanese to this day still hire movies. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GordonD Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 5 hours ago, MEADOWXI said: My dad bought V2000 (it was the other version). Think it was a Phillips/Grundig thing. The tapes were double sided like audio tapes so you could record more in better quality, but never caught on especially for video rental, Video 2000 - Wikipedia Woman in my office had one of those. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Florentine_Pogen Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 3 minutes ago, GordonD said: Woman in my office had one of those. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark Connolly Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 6 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said: My old boy appeared home one day with a top loader from Radio Rentals, hired for the weekend. He had two video tapes in a bag. One video was An American Werewolf in London (so looking online at release dates must have been shortly after June '82), which I watched about 3 times with my sister (I was 10 at the time so a bit of an eye opener). The second video tape, to this day, remains a mystery but needless to say, my folks invited a few of their friends round on the Saturday night to watch it. 2 weeks later, he hired a Betamax and about a month after that, he went and bought a VHS player second hand from somewhere. I'd never seen so many of our neighbours turn up at 10pm on a Saturday night before. ETA: Pretty sure it was one of these bad boys. Recognise the sticky out buttons on the front. My gran had a top loading video with a wired remote control. Her chair was in the middle of the room facing the tv, so if you sat to the right of the tv, you had to hurdle the wire on the way to the door if you needed to go for a pish 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnnydun Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 7 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said: Johnny's Mobile Video van was the go to in Elgin circa 1987. Some tremendous fair to be had from Johnny if you asked kindly. You're welcome. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Blades Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 7 hours ago, Melanius Mullarkey said: My old boy appeared home one day with a top loader from Radio Rentals, hired for the weekend. He had two video tapes in a bag. One video was An American Werewolf in London (so looking online at release dates must have been shortly after June '82), which I watched about 3 times with my sister (I was 10 at the time so a bit of an eye opener). The second video tape, to this day, remains a mystery but needless to say, my folks invited a few of their friends round on the Saturday night to watch it. 2 weeks later, he hired a Betamax and about a month after that, he went and bought a VHS player second hand from somewhere. I'd never seen so many of our neighbours turn up at 10pm on a Saturday night before. ETA: Pretty sure it was one of these bad boys. Recognise the sticky out buttons on the front. Pretty sure the model number of that was 8922. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brother Blades Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 I think the reason VHS took off was because Thorn EMI invested in it & the EMI part owned rights to so many songs on the soundtracks & refused to license them to Betamax producers to protect their investment, might be utter shite, but that’s what I was told at the time. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobbykdy Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 7 hours ago, Craig fae the Vale said: Game rental would never work now, but in the 90s it was brilliant. A new game every weekend, and could usually play them right through if they were that type of game. I loved Global Video, it was a ritual every Friday after school to go pick up a film and a game for the weekend. The days of the Spectrum and Commodore 64 were great, buy a game, get yerself a blank cassette and knock out as many copies as you wanted. Halcyon days. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miguel Sanchez Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 12 hours ago, Bairnardo said: Iv never been pissed at a funeral. Always found it an odd custom and anytime iv seen it starting to go that way, there's an edge to the atmosphere I didn't like. Not for me. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
welshbairn Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 11 minutes ago, Brother Blades said: I think the reason VHS took off was because Thorn EMI invested in it & the EMI part owned rights to so many songs on the soundtracks & refused to license them to Betamax producers to protect their investment, might be utter shite, but that’s what I was told at the time. Betamax had twice the resolution and much better sound quality, but you couldn't record as much on a tape, and the VHS machines and tapes were cheaper. Sony kept selling the machines until the early 2000s and the cassettes till 2015, so it wasn't as much of an overnight defeat as I thought. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cosmic Joe Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 I can mind when Blockbusters went bust. Went to return a video and the place was shut, no warning. Got to keep the video. Cannae mind what it was. Was probably shite. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melanius Mullarkey Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 59 minutes ago, johnnydun said: You're welcome. Fair play. That’s quite a trek from Aberdeen to Elgin every night wi a van load of soft porn 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melanius Mullarkey Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 1 hour ago, Brother Blades said: Pretty sure the model number of that was 8922. Looks like it. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/296197807357 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DA Baracus Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 20 hours ago, BFTD said: People getting nostalgic for Blockbuster Video. Blockbuster was a terrible chain that killed off the original local video rental shops, then the smaller chains. All had better prices and a more interesting array of films, especially the older and more obscure ones. Blockbuster just kept a lot of stock of the latest releases and gradually narrowed their selection to the most recent and popular titles, eventually bumping their prices up to a silly degree as they had no competition left. They also refused to stock films that didn't fit with their Christian values, and insisted on being supplied with their own edits of films which cut out scenes they didn't like. There were a few years the Blockbusters beside East End Park (now an Aldi) had some great deals. They were pretty much trying to shift as much stock as they could, so they were putting DVDs for a fiver which then became three for a tenner and, right at the end, most stuff was even cheaper. They also did PC games for a bit. Me and my pal went down oke lunchtime from school for him to get Heroes of Might and Magic 3 for £5. 14 hours ago, Bairnardo said: Iv never been pissed at a funeral. Always found it an odd custom and anytime iv seen it starting to go that way, there's an edge to the atmosphere I didn't like. Not for me. Likewise. I mind being asked a few times at my maw's funeral why I wasn't drinking, as if it was an odd thing to be doing. 8 hours ago, hk blues said: On the subject of renting films - the Japanese to this day still hire movies. As in physical rentals? Amazon do online rentals. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oldbitterandgrumpy Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 (edited) 3 hours ago, Mark Connolly said: My gran had a top loading video with a wired remote control. Her chair was in the middle of the room facing the tv, so if you sat to the right of the tv, you had to hurdle the wire on the way to the door if you needed to go for a pish That was our first experience of remote control. Needless to say, the cable didn’t last very long. Two days if I remember. It was pretty cutting edge technology for the time. Cutting edge but somehow fatally flawed. Edited August 22 by oldbitterandgrumpy 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BFTD Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 I'd no idea about video rental shops still being popular in Japan, but random internet link says there are still more than 2,000 of them in operation, although their number has gradually dropped by about a third in the past decade. In a way, they still exist here - have a think about how many charity and pawn shops are in your town, and most of them will sell films for much less than rental would've cost by now if Blockbuster et al still existed. There are more branches of shops like CEX than ever now too. The only real difference is that you're unlikely to get new releases. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbaxters Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 3 hours ago, Mark Connolly said: My gran had a top loading video with a wired remote control. Her chair was in the middle of the room facing the tv, so if you sat to the right of the tv, you had to hurdle the wire on the way to the door if you needed to go for a pish Aye a neighbour of ours had one. It was in the days of only BBC1, BBC2 and ITV so the remote ws one big light switch type button that went through the three channels consecutively on each press/click. 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimbaxters Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 1 minute ago, BFTD said: In a way, they still exist here - have a think about how many charity and pawn shops are in your town, and most of them will sell films for much less than rental would've cost by now if Blockbuster et al still existed. There are more branches of shops like CEX than ever now too. The only real difference is that you're unlikely to get new releases. Oh, I don't know. Depends if particular scenes have been rewound and replayed too much. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bert Raccoon Posted August 22 Share Posted August 22 Our first VHS had a remote with a wire, pretty certain the first video we rented was Ruthless People featuring Danny Devito and Bette Midler. I also have a vague memory of having a portable tv in my bedroom as a youngster. It was black and white and had a dial to get the four channels but was better than f**k all I suppose 0 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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