Golden Days of The Video Cassette Recorder (VCR)

Remember the one’s days of the 80s and early 90s when our favorite forestall in the neighborhood marketplace will be the “Video Library” that succeeded in delighting us each time we went there. The era that became ruled and ruled via a gadget cherished by means of all and sundry, antique or young – the Video Cassette Recorder or extra normally the VCR.

The 80s became a time whilst cable tv had a ways from reaching India in any form. It becomes a time where just one tech become to polish – the Video Cassette Recorder. As it so befell, the human beings had no choice by any means in watching programmes on the Television as the most effective channel available turned into the Doordarshan (greater popularly DD) and later the DD Metro which in fact regarded a massive bonus! It seemed just a really perfect setting for something like a Video Cassette Recorder to make its presence felt and counted.

The Video Cassette Recorder spread out to the Indian humans an entirely new international of leisure that changed into unknown previous to this. From looking just the news or documentaries sprinkled in moderation with a pinch of weekly serials, the not unusual man now had the luxury of playing movies on the consolation of his bedroom – right from the vintage classics to the modern day flicks of Bollywood.

Video Cassette Recorders used removable videocassettes (videotapes) which used magnetic tapes to document films on them. What this supposed became, not only could one watch prerecorded cassettes for movies but they might also document shows and broadcast from the television that might be played on later! This turned into pure magic!!! Of path, there was on provide a cheaper variant of the VCR which we known as the VCP – Video Cassette Player – that may most effective playback the cassette however not document.

The creation of VCRs in India gave a super opportunity for the enterprise inside the form of “Video Libraries” to flourish! Every neighborhood market had at a minimum 2 to a few libraries to boast of, all of whom may want to with ease survive no matter t opposition because the call for much overdid the supply via a huge margin. I nonetheless do not forget our very very own “Micky Video Library” and the “Lords” library which has been such warm spots in the one’s instances, the primary one ironically being positioned in a small slender lane was just a tiny little room with a group of a few hundred videos. The latter becomes a much greater dignified a place with a far larger series of both Hindi and English films and an air-conditioned keep to flaunt! But to be sincere it hardly ever mattered, as what became crucial turned into to get that contemporary launch on the primary danger – rattling if it became pirated or if you needed to shell out a few more bucks!

The early VCRs have been pinnacle loading fashions wherein you inserted the cassette in a slot that popped out from the top of the VCR on urgent the “Eject” button. It changed into later accompanied via the more sleek and stepped forward versions of VCRs that had been the front loading, had a extra attractive and current sense to them, now not to overlook the constantly stepped forward functions being brought One such characteristic I don’t forget turned into the provision of a “Timer” wherein you may definitely set the time at which the VCR could begin recording!

It changed into not simply Video Libraries that flourished. Video Cassette Recorders furnished a brilliant opportunity for small time technicians and engineers with so lots of those “Video Repair” stores that sprung up. The VCR functioned with a revolving “Head” with a small little pin which studies the magnetic tape at the cassette. As become predicted, with the dust and physical contact, continually you’ll be faced with a state of affairs in which your “Head” went grimy and also you wished both a “head purifier” sprayed on it to get it cleaned, or in excessive instances, you needed to take it to one of those restore stores.

The VCRs also ushered in an age of many ones of a kind and new types of entertainment revolving around the Television. Besides simply films, in addition, they opened up doors to the Pakistani Plays which are remembered even until date. It delivered to our houses a few lovable characters from plays consisting of Dhoop Kinare and Tanhaiyan that became part of our lives and live with us even these days. And then there were the ones “Film Magazines”. I am no longer speakme about the Fimfares or Star Dusts. The VCRs added inside the idea of video magazines consisting of “Leheren” which have become a household name. They had been basically around one hour suggests that gave you the news from the Hindi Film Industry – some thing that present day channels are full of and has now emerge as any such taken with no consideration factor! At the one’s instances, such video magazines have been your handiest resupply to simply get live snippets into the lives of movie stars or to watch the shooting of a film! Such an exciting factor it used to be!

A thing maximum harking back to those times become the first-rate of video that you obtain to look at – what changed into in the commonplace language known as the “print” of the cassette. So regularly did you have to go back a video as “the print” became so terrible! So unlike the CDs and DVDs of these days in which there aren’t any issues with the excellent which you get to observe. But come what may, remembering it these days, one somewhere in his coronary heart needs for those little nick-nags that modern over-ideal world has completely removed:(

And how can one forget that “Counter” you had in the one’s days at the VCRs. It was a small three digit counter with revolving dials that confirmed numbers 0-9 on each dial to represent the duration of the video that was performed:) Starting from 000 it went directly to 999 and became this kind of easy and a fantastic display of how a primary little idea could be put to such pertinent use! It was later changed via a digital counter with the advent of more improved and improved VCRs which supplied a digital show. Again it’s far one of those things that make you wonder – will we actually need all this development! Why have we forgotten to preserve matters simple:

How can one ever overlook that sound of a video cassette “Rewinding” and that awesome “thud” with which it stopped or while you pressed that “Stop” button! My coronary heart goes out to those times:oops: It’s without a doubt is this type of high reliving those moments from the beyond. I recollect how the summer damage meant such a lot of movies at the VCR, day by day visits to the video library – which had even commenced home transport and the telephone offerings – some even going as some distance as offering a published listing of movies they had in their keep! I even bear in mind that as kids we used to get an additional VCR on hire for a few days as you can interconnect them together with your VCR with a cable and in fact, make copies of the cassettes. To think of it now, how did I ever take that lots of hassle to document a cassette! But then, that becomes the magic of these instances.

One simply is compelled to think – why does generation have this kind of crab mentality where it desires to drag someone down that allows you to climb up:( Why does each new era should kill its predecessor. Why cannot the antique and the new coexist? Why can’t we have the vintage with the brand new? I am best thankful and experience privileged to have experienced and used these winners of the past.