When Did Everyone Get Their First VHS/Betamax Player?

[shstrang]

Originally Posted by waltchan

Did you mean to say that your 1984 Mitsubishi VCR stopped working in 1 year? How shocking, but no surprise.

Roughly a year after buying it the unit began to have audio problems with severe flutter at all speeds including SP. It was not a HIFI machine so any instability in tape speed was very obvious in the audio. I cleaned it and even had it serviced by the store from which I purchased it. Then it slowly went mad with the unit locking up randomly requiring that it be unplugged and plugged back in. By now it was out of warranty and I had it serviced by a local TV station engineer that was fixing VCR's on the side. Eventually I gave up on it when the loading carriage stopped half way through the loading process and I was unable to get a tape out.

The unit did not appear cheaply made. It was heavy and seemed to be of substantial build which is why I bought it instead of a Panasonic or RCA at the time.

[dieseljeep]

I never was that crazy about Mits VCR's. It was supposed to be a higher end product. AFAIC the Panasonic and clones were a lot less grief. Even later on, I still prefered top load units. Right now, I'm using a Panasonic-built Curtis Mathes I bought for $2.25 at a thrift store.

[Captain Video]

The first VCR my family had was a Panasonic G9, bought in 1986.

Later in 1993 I bought another Panasonic, I believed it was model PV-4210.

Then in the late 90's or early 2000's my mother bought a Sharp VCR.

None of those are working anymore, but I still have them, except the PV-4210 which I gave to the brother of my ex-girlfriend.

Around 2004 or 2005 I bought another VCR, a Semp ( Brazilian brand ) with the sole purpose of having a working VCR to transfer my VHS tapes to a DVD recorder. But this unity has not seen use for quite a long time... I still have tapes to transfer to DVD, but I need to clean them before I can play them.

[tvcollector]

in the mid 80s we would borrow our aunt and uncles JVC top loader, you know the model with the red and blue colored buttons, My Step Dad finally got our first VHS VCR back in 1988, it's was the newer slim OSD GE, Panasonic made VCR, I remember looking at the remote and seeing all the functions, and remember thinking to myself, never seen anything like it, pretty high tek. Mother got divorced at the end of 1991, the VCR stayed with my step father, and I moved with my mother to my grandmothers until we found an apartment. Back then being only 13, I always wanted one of my own, I would tell my step dad, he said well I'll probably give you this one for your birthday. I still went to the same middle school and would walk to the house we moved out where dad still lived, and mother would pick me up, and I mentioned to her that dad said he was going to give me the VCR, So while he was still at work, I took the VCR, and months later my dad hid the JVC cassette deck my mother owned until the VCR was returned. My mother bought the cassette deck in 1986, and she still has it hooked up to this day, which still works, and never was in the repair shop... My dad had the GE VCR up till the mid 90s. I don't know what happened with it, I think he mentioned it quite working. We found an apartment and the move in date was on Jan 1 1992. I kept begging mother for a VCR for my birthday coming up. We went to a pawn shop and found a 1986 GE she put on layaway.

This model to be exact



It lasted up to the late 90s when the Power supply went dead, and had it sitting around up till last year when i finally took it to the road. I found another at a thrift and decided to get it.

We moved out of the apartment back in late 1992 when my mother had to go in for a hysterectomy, we moved back in grandmas, dad found a girlfriend and moved out of the house in January of 1993, we than moved back in that house, and my mother bought a JVC VCR, and I remember the VCR started eating tapes not too long after it was purchased brand new.

[Blast]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

The first VCR I ever had was a Panasonic-built GE top-loader. Bought it new in 1984 for $400

That was my first, too. They hit that 'magical' number about then.

[Trance88]

My first VCR was a 1991 RCA unit that I got in 2006.
My parents always had a VCR ever since I was born. It was sold under the name "Thomas" which seems to be a very obscure off brand from around 1987. It came with an entertainment center under the same name (19" TV, stereo system and VCR), probably made by Funai.

[jstout66]

My parents got their first VCR in 80 or 81. A Zenith Beta top-loader. I can't remember the model, but it could record up to 5 hours. I got my first VCR in 91. An RCA 2 head mono unit. I remember mom gave me a $200.00 check for my birthday, and I shoped around and that was the lowest price I could find. Circuit City, $249.00. I still have it, but it hasn't been in use for years.

[Tom Biddle]

My first VCR was a Betamax (not a Sony but can't remember the manufacturer at the moment)...silver with a WIRED remote! I used it principally to record rented CED (!) Videodiscs! That was my first movie library! Wow, that was a long time ago (1983, I think).

[MIPS]

I had a Zenith or something like that in 2003. It worked fine even though it was mono until I bought the SL-2700 in 2005 and used it until 2008 when the loading gear broke and it's been sitting in an unuseable state ever since.

Got my first VHS in 2003 as well. Slowly upgraded various off-brand models until I was at the Sony deck I have now.

[Electronic M]

My first VCR was a Sharp mono VHS unit that was a birthday gift around 1996 IIRC. It could sort of be called my second one though since the one that I unwrapped (a different make model) ate a rented library tape right out of the box....It got returned for the Sharp. I still have that sharp VCR, and last time I ran it a few years ago it was still working good....

The folks did have a VCR for a good part of my child hood, but once I got a garage sale 80's Emerson for my room I wanted a VCR for it.

[Olorin67]

My first was acquired second hand when I was a college student about 1990. It was a NEC front loader that had a mirror inside the tape compartment so you could watch the tape movement as it played and see how much tape was left. Lent it to a friend for a bit, and he wrecked the heads because he would re-wind tapes without pressing stop first.

[rca2000]

Around August of 1985..first Beta player. I think in november--first VHS Hi-Fi. Replaced beta with Super beta the following year--STILL have it--though it currently is not running--needs an idler, maybe more.

[Jon A.]

My first VCR, a Citizen-branded VHS, was given to me for my sixth-grade graduation in 1993. I broke something in it by using visual rewind way too much and had it repaired, but it never was the same again. There was an older Sears VCR in the main room before that, and it just ran and ran and ran. We eventually "upgraded", which we quickly regretted because the replacement quickly broke. I now have a Sears VCR that is slightly older than what we had before, I think it just needs belts. I have two more VHS VCRs, including a notorious idler-eating Fisher FVH-530.

[maxhifi]

Family got an NEC front loader in 1988.. was a pretty deluxe machine at the time, hi-fi stereo, etc. it worked for about 15 years to the end of the VHS era. I gave the idler tire the MG chemicals rubber renue treatment a few times.

[wa2ise]

Back in 1982, after a year or so working for the RCA Smirnoff Labs, I bought an RCA VFT456 vcr. The industrial version of the VFT450, had a 3 prong power plug. Also got a videodisc player. Then I decided I needed a TV set, so I got an RCA CTC101, the one with the infamous flyback, and a line comb filter.