Remember those days of the 80s and early 90s when our favorite stop inside the nearby market will be the “Video Library” that succeeded in delighting us each time we went there. The technology that becomes dominated and dominated via a machine loved by way of every person, old or young – the Video Cassette Recorder or more normally the VCR.
The 80s was a time when cable tv had a long way from reached India in any form. It was a time where simply one tech changed into to polish – the Video Cassette Recorder. As it so passed off, the humans had no choice in looking programs on the Television as the best channel to be had the Doordarshan (more popularly DD) and later the DD Metro, which in truth appeared a huge bonus! It is regarded as just a 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 people an entirely new world of amusement that was unknown before this. From watching simply the news or documentaries sprinkled sparsely with a pinch of weekly serials, the not unusual man now had the luxury of enjoying films in the comfort of his bedroom – proper from the vintage classics the brand new flicks of Bollywood.
Video Cassette Recorders used removable video cassettes (videotapes), which used magnetic tapes to report movies. This supposed was now not handiest should one watch prerecorded cassettes for movies, but they could also file indicates and broadcast from the tv that could be performed later! This becomes natural magic!!! Of direction, there has been on providing an inexpensive variant of the VCR, which we knew as the VCP – Video Cassette Player – which can best playback the cassette but now not report.
The introduction of VCRs in India gave the enterprise a perfect opportunity inside the form of “Video Libraries” to flourish! Every local marketplace had at a minimal 2 to 3 libraries to boast of, all of whom could conveniently continue to exist notwithstanding t competition because the demand lots overdid the supply with the aid of a huge margin. I nonetheless recall our very own “Micky Video Library” and the “Lords” library, which had been such hot spots in the one’s times, the primary one mockingly being located in a small slim lane become only a tiny little room with a set of some hundred films.
The latter becomes a much more dignified area with a far larger series of Hindi and English movies and an air-conditioned save to flaunt! But to be sincere, it hardly ever mattered, as what becomes crucial turned into to get that state-of-the-art release on the first hazard – damn if it changed into pirated or if you had to shell out a few extra bucks!
The early VCRs were top-loading fashions wherein you inserted the cassette in a slot that popped out from the VCR’s pinnacle on pressing the “Eject” button. It changed into later accompanied using the extra smooth and improved variations of front-loading VCRs, had a extra appealing and cutting-edge experience to them, now not to forget the continuously stepped forward functions being brought One such function I remember to become the supply of a “Timer” where you may truly set the time at which the VCR could start recording!
It became not just Video Libraries that flourished. Video Cassette Recorders furnished an incredible opportunity for small-time technicians and engineers with so many “Video Repair” stores that sprung up. The VCR functioned with a revolving “Head” with a small little pin that studies the cassette’s magnetic tape. As became expected, with the dirt and bodily touch, perpetually, you would be confronted with a scenario in which your “Head” went grimy. Also, you wished both a “head cleaner” sprayed on it to get it cleaned, or in severe instances, you had to take it to 1 of these restore stores.
The VCRs additionally ushered in an age of many special and new varieties of leisure revolving around the Television. Besides simply films, they also opened up doors to the Pakistani Plays, which can be remembered even until date. It delivered to our houses a few cute characters from plays along with Dhoop Kinare and Tanhaiyan that have become part of our lives and live with us even these days. And then there have been the ones “Film Magazines.” I am no longer speaking about the Filmfare or Star Dusts.
The VCRs added in the concept of video magazines, which include “Lehren,” have become a household call. They have been basically round one hour indicates that gave you the information from the Hindi Film Industry – something that contemporary channels are full of and has now turn out to be this type of taken-for-granted aspect! At those times, such video magazines were your most effective resource to genuinely get snippets into the lives of film stars or observe the shooting of a film! Such an interesting aspect it was once!
A component most paying homage to those times was satisfactory of video that you acquire to watch – what changed into in the not unusual language called the “print” of the cassette. You frequently need to go back to a video as “the print” changed into so bad! So in contrast to the CDs and DVDs of these days wherein there are no issues with the exception that you get to observe. But someway, remembering it nowadays, one somewhere in his coronary heart desires for those little nick-nags that latest over-best global has eliminated:(
And how can one neglect that “Counter” you had in the one’s days on the VCRs. It turned into a small 3-digit counter with revolving dials that showed numbers 0-9 on every dial to represent the duration of the video that was played:) Starting from 000, it went directly to 999 and became this simple and high-quality show of the way a basic little idea may be placed to such pertinent use! It became later changed through a virtual counter with the advent of greater superior and stepped forward VCRs that offered a virtual display. Again it’s far one of these matters that make you surprise – can we really need all this advancement! Why have we forgotten to hold matters easy:(
How can one ever overlook that sound of a video cassette “Rewinding” and that distinct “thud” with which it stopped or while you pressed that “Stop” button! My heart goes out to the one’s instances:oops: Its surely is any such excessive reliving those moments from the past. I recollect how the summer season destroys meant such a lot of films at the VCR, daily visits to the video library – which had even started home transport and the telephone services – some even going as far as imparting a published list of movies that they had in their shop! I even consider that as children, we used to get an additional VCR on rent for a few days as you could interconnect them along with your VCR with a cable and, in reality, make copies of the cassettes. To consider it now, how did I ever take that a lot of trouble to report a cassette! But then, that changed into the magic of those times.
One is pressured to assume – why does era have this crab mentality where it needs to tug a person down, which will climb up:( Why does every new technology ought to kill its predecessor. Why cannot the old and the new coexist? Why can’t we’ve got the old with the new? I am only thankful and feel privileged to have experienced and used these winners of the beyond.
