Hacker News Reader

Another good one.

My impression of the VCR is not too many people managed to use it for DVR-style rescheduling live TV. Although it did have that feature. We mainly used it to watch movies that we had already been in the theater.

But, for sure, another fracturing. We weren't all talking about the nine movies in the theaters, but whatever we had rented and watched on tape instead.

View on HN

My family used it to capture programming we couldn't normally be around for, especially late night BBC content on PBS. Pretty much all we used it for was DVR style recording.

My neighbor's house was awash in PBS recordings! https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/ https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/

My recollection was that the VCR's main selling point was the ability to record TV and play it back later, and I can say anecdotally, that that was the primary way my family used ours in the early 80s. Only later did the idea of Blockbuster and "using VHS merely as content distribution" take hold.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com