Off Topic Star Wars fever

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I remember Star Wars appearing on TV for the first time at the end of the 70s and recording it on my first video recorder, the next day WH Smith had reduced the video from £54.99 to £12.99. It never ceases to amaze me how much we paid to hire or buy videos in the crap VHS format in those early days of 'home entertainment'. Still, it could have been worse, one mate of mine had a load of the Phillips 2000 system which was vastly superior in quality and had tapes you could turn over and record on both sides, sadly, it never caught on and died the death within a few years...
I bought a Sony Betamax recorder for £600, must have been mad!
 
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I bought a Sony Betamax recorder for £600, must have been mad!

Wow, the Betamax. I remember in the early to mid 80's as a young lad everyone getting video player/recorders.

My Dad thought being a HiFi buff and being duped by a very good salesman that the Sony would be the better or more advanced option. All my mates parents got VHS and had loads of fun hiring films from the local video hire shops (remember them).

Anyway this is the model my father got...

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It looked good for 1983/84 I think but my mates often used to take the pee as we had Betermax. The local video hire shop was 90% VHS and the Betermax section was only two shelf's with about 20 films you had already seen about three times<laugh>:headbang:
 
This was the model I had.
Apparently the Betamax was better quality than the VHS and the tape cassettes were smaller, but once the video hire shops favored VHS it signaled the end for the Betamax.
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This was the model I had.
Apparently the Betamax was better quality than the VHS and the tape cassettes were smaller, but once the video hire shops favored VHS it signaled the end for the Betamax.
You must log in or register to see images

Yes, apparently the video boffins often said it was better. I think at the time of my dad buying our 1st family video player it was a case of very good shop assistant and hard selling the Beta as the VHS had already won the format battle. He must have been on a bonus to shift the Betermax stock collecting dust in the stock room!

I will give it credit, I was hoping it would break down and get the VHS all my mates had as the replacement but it was underneath our TV until about 1993<steam>

It recorded stuff off TV very well but going down the video hire shop was a non event...<laugh>
 
Just seen it with my little boy. It is lazy, rehashed, formulaic crap. Most disappointing. Sadly, most of the pre-film ads, of which there was 30 mins worth, were all for new versions of existing franchises, X-men version ???, Independence Day Again etc. such a lack of creativity or perhaps just a safer bet for the film financiers.