The advent of the VCR, shorthand for video cassette recorder, made the production of videos easier. When they first came out, VCRs were not cheap. Prices ranged from 500 dollars to 1,200 dollars. And these were not the advanced models seen today. They were massively big and extremely clunky. The one my parents bought sported a digital clock, but had a physical counter to mark a particular spot on the videotape used. And if you wanted to switch tapes, you had to manually reset the counter by pressing a button. If the tape wasn’t fully rewound by the time the counter reached zero, then the tape would stop. This meant you had to press the rewind button again, causing all the numbers to go to nine then continue working together for the next countdown to zero.
The rewind button wasn’t the only button on the VCR you had to press to operate it. You had to bend down or sit before pressing the stop, play, record, pause, and fast forward button. Switching channels meant getting up from the sofa or floor and pressing the proper button. A manual switch allowed you to turn on the time recorder in addition to powering the machine. To load or unload a tape, you pressed down on the eject button so the VCR tray would rise up. Pushing down on the tray would close it. Of course, as later models arrived on the scene, remote controls were added. The loading trays were also removed in favor of a design which allowed you to simply push the tape into the machine.
If VCRs were big and clunky, they were nothing compared to video cameras. The camcorders were huge, not as large as the tape recorders but just as heavy. They had to be propped on the shoulder and balanced with the upper arm. Panning of the camera was done by body movement and the wrist. The hardest part was gripping the front of the camera while at the same time pressing the right buttons, not to mention the heavy pressure on the shoulder. The video tape was inserted the same way as the VCR. The buttons for zooming, recording, rewinding, and other functions were located on the right side of the camera while the lens was on the left, meaning you had to feel for the buttons and hope you were pressing the right one. Others may have been different, but this was the model which my parents used. I was not allowed to touch it until I was in my teens.
The tapes used for the VCRs and camcorders had three different speeds : SP, SLP, and EP. What the letters actually stood for didn’t matter to me. All I knew was that you always recorded in EP mode because it allowed you to tape an astounding six hours of video. SP mode, on the other hand, only allowed for two hours of recording. It was supposed to provided better quality, but who cared about quality when you knew that the footage would be taped over within a week or two. SLP was considered the middle-ground with four hours, resulting in it never being used. In essence, SP was for high-quality recordings intended to be kept for a long time and EP was for everyday recording. Using the later, my family taped televised shows, movies, and specials. The amount of tapes we collected was staggering, taking up a lot of shelf space. And this was just the stuff we recorded off the television.
The rewind button wasn’t the only button on the VCR you had to press to operate it. You had to bend down or sit before pressing the stop, play, record, pause, and fast forward button. Switching channels meant getting up from the sofa or floor and pressing the proper button. A manual switch allowed you to turn on the time recorder in addition to powering the machine. To load or unload a tape, you pressed down on the eject button so the VCR tray would rise up. Pushing down on the tray would close it. Of course, as later models arrived on the scene, remote controls were added. The loading trays were also removed in favor of a design which allowed you to simply push the tape into the machine.
If VCRs were big and clunky, they were nothing compared to video cameras. The camcorders were huge, not as large as the tape recorders but just as heavy. They had to be propped on the shoulder and balanced with the upper arm. Panning of the camera was done by body movement and the wrist. The hardest part was gripping the front of the camera while at the same time pressing the right buttons, not to mention the heavy pressure on the shoulder. The video tape was inserted the same way as the VCR. The buttons for zooming, recording, rewinding, and other functions were located on the right side of the camera while the lens was on the left, meaning you had to feel for the buttons and hope you were pressing the right one. Others may have been different, but this was the model which my parents used. I was not allowed to touch it until I was in my teens.
The tapes used for the VCRs and camcorders had three different speeds : SP, SLP, and EP. What the letters actually stood for didn’t matter to me. All I knew was that you always recorded in EP mode because it allowed you to tape an astounding six hours of video. SP mode, on the other hand, only allowed for two hours of recording. It was supposed to provided better quality, but who cared about quality when you knew that the footage would be taped over within a week or two. SLP was considered the middle-ground with four hours, resulting in it never being used. In essence, SP was for high-quality recordings intended to be kept for a long time and EP was for everyday recording. Using the later, my family taped televised shows, movies, and specials. The amount of tapes we collected was staggering, taking up a lot of shelf space. And this was just the stuff we recorded off the television.