This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jul/22/death-of-vcr-video-recorder

The article has changed 2 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 0 Version 1
Why the VCR’s clunk-whirrrrr-kra-chump was the sound of freedom Why the VCR’s clunk-whirrrrr-kra-chump was the sound of freedom
(about 1 month later)
Forget birdsong. Forget choirs of angels. If ever I somehow get to heaven, I want it to sound like this: clunk-whirrrrr-kra-chump-zzzssshhhhh-klik-k-k-k. I want it to look a bit blobby and vague, the harsh, crisp lines of earthly life rendered indistinct. After all, wouldn’t everything – everything – be better if we lived in the world we used to live in: the world of the VCR?Forget birdsong. Forget choirs of angels. If ever I somehow get to heaven, I want it to sound like this: clunk-whirrrrr-kra-chump-zzzssshhhhh-klik-k-k-k. I want it to look a bit blobby and vague, the harsh, crisp lines of earthly life rendered indistinct. After all, wouldn’t everything – everything – be better if we lived in the world we used to live in: the world of the VCR?
Compared with the slickness of digital media, VCRs seem oafish. Yet I for one won’t be celebrating their demiseCompared with the slickness of digital media, VCRs seem oafish. Yet I for one won’t be celebrating their demise
It is with heartbreaking inevitability, then, that news reaches us of the death of the video recorder. This is no victory for progress. Nothing will improve as a result. We’ll just get more rootless and alienated and probably end up being controlled by Megacorp Inc, a bit like those poor robot cockroaches. But more of that in a bit.It is with heartbreaking inevitability, then, that news reaches us of the death of the video recorder. This is no victory for progress. Nothing will improve as a result. We’ll just get more rootless and alienated and probably end up being controlled by Megacorp Inc, a bit like those poor robot cockroaches. But more of that in a bit.
Yes, I suppose it’s hard to see the appeal of VCRs these days. Video tapes were ugly, cumbersome things, taking up far more space on your shelves than a series of Just Good Friends ever should. The video machines themselves were absurdly bulky and weighty: I never opened one up, but I can only assume they contained things like buildings and oil tankers. Even the moving parts sounded like they were made up of moving parts, each designed to malfunction in a myriad of ways.Yes, I suppose it’s hard to see the appeal of VCRs these days. Video tapes were ugly, cumbersome things, taking up far more space on your shelves than a series of Just Good Friends ever should. The video machines themselves were absurdly bulky and weighty: I never opened one up, but I can only assume they contained things like buildings and oil tankers. Even the moving parts sounded like they were made up of moving parts, each designed to malfunction in a myriad of ways.
Then there’s the picture they splurted through your cathode ray tube. Pristine, refined, immaculate: it was none of these. To today’s young I imagine it looks pretty much as lifelike as 1920s cine film. Freeze-frames were usually anything but: they’d shudder and bounce like an earthquake had just hit. And yes, I’m talking to you too, Betamaxers. (For the uninitiated, they were the vinyl bores of their day, droning on about the format’s “superior quality” and whatnot). Who would want to go back there?Then there’s the picture they splurted through your cathode ray tube. Pristine, refined, immaculate: it was none of these. To today’s young I imagine it looks pretty much as lifelike as 1920s cine film. Freeze-frames were usually anything but: they’d shudder and bounce like an earthquake had just hit. And yes, I’m talking to you too, Betamaxers. (For the uninitiated, they were the vinyl bores of their day, droning on about the format’s “superior quality” and whatnot). Who would want to go back there?
Compared with the slickness, crispness, lightness and precision of digital media, VCRs may well seem oafish. And yet I for one won’t be celebrating their demise. Some of that is down to nostalgia, of course: the thrill of getting our first in 1985, making the dream of 24-hour Paul Danielsathons a reality; the placing of sticky tape over the broken tab on videos you weren’t allowed to tape over; the curiously satisfying way the machine would appear to inhale the video as it was inserted; the delicate tap of the flap once the process was complete; and, of course, the visits to Blockbuster.Compared with the slickness, crispness, lightness and precision of digital media, VCRs may well seem oafish. And yet I for one won’t be celebrating their demise. Some of that is down to nostalgia, of course: the thrill of getting our first in 1985, making the dream of 24-hour Paul Danielsathons a reality; the placing of sticky tape over the broken tab on videos you weren’t allowed to tape over; the curiously satisfying way the machine would appear to inhale the video as it was inserted; the delicate tap of the flap once the process was complete; and, of course, the visits to Blockbuster.
This was a temple of promises that would often end up making you feel like the face in Knightmare as your very life force was sapped on the ceaseless traipse from aisle to aisle, trying to find a film that a) you hadn’t seen; b) your friends hadn’t seen; and c) was any good/fitted the mood/wasn’t rated any lower than a 15/starred Bill Murray/Sharon Stone etc.This was a temple of promises that would often end up making you feel like the face in Knightmare as your very life force was sapped on the ceaseless traipse from aisle to aisle, trying to find a film that a) you hadn’t seen; b) your friends hadn’t seen; and c) was any good/fitted the mood/wasn’t rated any lower than a 15/starred Bill Murray/Sharon Stone etc.
Related: Blockbuster set to disappear from high street with loss of 1,200 jobs
But there’s more to it than that. With the VCR, we were in control. The technology would yield to our will. We could record what we wanted, wherever we wanted to on the tape. There was no interface to negotiate; it was a direct, raw and relatable medium. We sort of knew how it worked, how to manipulate it and hack it. As technology has developed, so has the power corporations wield over us, locking us into operating systems, making us conform to how they want us to do things. Today, we often feel naked and vulnerable without having tech somewhere on our person, but the VCR was gloriously immobile: unless you were particularly determined or socially perverse, you couldn’t very well watch a video on the train.But there’s more to it than that. With the VCR, we were in control. The technology would yield to our will. We could record what we wanted, wherever we wanted to on the tape. There was no interface to negotiate; it was a direct, raw and relatable medium. We sort of knew how it worked, how to manipulate it and hack it. As technology has developed, so has the power corporations wield over us, locking us into operating systems, making us conform to how they want us to do things. Today, we often feel naked and vulnerable without having tech somewhere on our person, but the VCR was gloriously immobile: unless you were particularly determined or socially perverse, you couldn’t very well watch a video on the train.
And as for picture quality, well, did that really bother us? Watching those films we rented, I bet none of us ever thought we’d like them more if the image had 1,080 blimmin’ lines of vertical resolution. The myth of high fidelity is used constantly to make us buy more stuff. But the seven-year-old me watching Star Wars for the first time would have been no more enraptured had it been on a 4K TV screen.And as for picture quality, well, did that really bother us? Watching those films we rented, I bet none of us ever thought we’d like them more if the image had 1,080 blimmin’ lines of vertical resolution. The myth of high fidelity is used constantly to make us buy more stuff. But the seven-year-old me watching Star Wars for the first time would have been no more enraptured had it been on a 4K TV screen.
From Be Kind Rewind to the cover of Hadley Freeman’s Life Moves Pretty Fast, it’s clear there’s a residual cultural fondness for the VCR age. But I think it represents something else, too: a time when our relationship with technology, and the corporations that make it, was simpler and healthier. So before the video recorder is ejected from our culture, perhaps we could pause for a moment of respect, dust off the old beast and give it one last play. Clunk-whirrrrr-kra-chump-zzzssshhhhh-klik-k-k-k: let’s go.From Be Kind Rewind to the cover of Hadley Freeman’s Life Moves Pretty Fast, it’s clear there’s a residual cultural fondness for the VCR age. But I think it represents something else, too: a time when our relationship with technology, and the corporations that make it, was simpler and healthier. So before the video recorder is ejected from our culture, perhaps we could pause for a moment of respect, dust off the old beast and give it one last play. Clunk-whirrrrr-kra-chump-zzzssshhhhh-klik-k-k-k: let’s go.