Celebrate National VCR Day Every June 7
Do you still have a VCR (and the tapes to go in it)? Do you even know what a VCR is? If you do, join us in celebrating this once-revolutionary recording device on June 7, National VCR Day.
Yes, the VCR (videocassette recorder) really was an amazing invention.
Suddenly so many new things were possible.
Tape Television Shows
No longer were we trapped by the TV schedule. Doomed by traffic to miss the first few minutes of Night Court. Torn between accepting an invitation and skipping it because the X-Files was on. Or Miami Vice. Or Magnum P.I.
We could record the show and watch it later!
And the next most amazing thing? Fast forwarding through those annoying commercials.
Nope. TV hasn’t been quite the same since.
Of course, the VCR had some limitations. For one, the tapes only held a few hours worth of shows (6 hours, if memory serves). If you were taping lots of shows, you had to pay close attention to when to put in a fresh tape.
(Actually the very first tapes were only 1 or 2 hours. Longer tapes came out later).
And be very careful not to tape over something you hadn’t yet watched. (or your wedding video … We understand lots of husbands got in trouble for this ;) ). Now, there was a little tab on the box you could remove to prevent taping over on anything you wanted to keep forever. But if you were just reusing the tape after watching your shows, you didn’t want to do that.
VCRs occasionally ate tapes, too. Just like audio cassette tapes (do you know what those are?). Bummer.
Watch Movies on Demand
And movies … Watch them when you wanted to!
Didn’t get a chance to see that movie while it was in theaters? Don’t wait (and wait) for it to come to TV (where it’ll be all chopped up to make room for commercials, anyway). Rent it on videotape.
That’s right. Paying a few dollars to watch a movie, uncut (mostly) and in the comfort of your own home, was once a novelty.
(We didn’t have streaming media or on-demand services).
Can you believe it?
We can hardly believe it and we lived it. :)
Video rental stores were a popular place to start your evening. Yes, you did have to physically leave the house to go get your tape.
The VCR Wars
VCR technology was developed in the 1950s, but it was expensive in those early years.
Affordable VCRs hit the market in the 1970s. In those early years, several different companies were making different VCRs. Tapes used in one machine were not compatible with the others.
The two big players, Betamax (from Sony) and VHS (from JVC) duked it out for several years. Their strengths boiled down to better picture quality on Betamax vs. longer recording time on VHS.
VHS won.
If you had made the wrong choice your whole system became obsolete within a few years. (This was before electronics became obsolete the day after you bought them ;) ). Video rental stores quickly switched to only renting VHS tapes.
Interestingly, although Betamax was the loser in the VCR wars, we may be celebrating its debut with VCR Day. According to several sources (unverified) we celebrate the VCR on June 7 because that was the date in 1975 when the Betamax VCR first went on sale.
For the most part, major movie studios stopped putting movies on videocassette around 2006.
Scroll down for some ideas on celebrating this nostalgically unofficial holiday.
How to Celebrate VCR Day
If you still own a VCR and at least one tape, watch it! (Extra points if you have a working Betamax machine and tapes).
Marvel at the dated fashion and hairstyles you’re watching on your dated electronic technology ;)
If you can lay your hands on a pan of Jiffy-Pop, pop it up and enjoy while watching your VCR tapes. Yep, that was the quick & easy popcorn we made back then. It’s still around, but harder to find. In stores anyway; it’s simple to find online!
If you have any video tapes you’d like to preserve, this might also be a good day to finally admit that the technology is obsolete. Even if you have a working VCR now, it won’t last forever. And those tapes degrade over time.
So consider converting your memories to digital. There are companies that will do that for you, either burning them onto a DVD or storing them in the cloud.
Consider:
Stores that offer photo processing (yes, film still exists!) may also offer analog to digital conversion services. Ask at your local Walgreens, CVS or Walmart, for example.
So will you be celebrating National VCR Day this year?
[…] National VCR Day: If you know what a VCR is, you’ll want to celebrate this day. Do you remember how amazing it felt to do things we take for granted today? …tape something off the TV to watch later … rent a move you missed in theaters … It was amazing! Come to think of it, even if you never experienced a VCR, you should celebrate this day. Because the VCR was one of the 1st stops on the way to the streaming & rental services we enjoy today! […]
[…] National VCR Day: Get nostalgic for the time when recording your shows to watch later was so novel you didn’t even mind that you had to worry about having enough tape left to record the whole show. But you absolutely did mind when someone taped over your show! Or the VCR ate your tape. Ahhhh. Memories. […]