• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Any one remember this?

Page 2 - Seeking answers? Join the AnandTech community: where nearly half-a-million members share solutions and discuss the latest tech.

Do you remember the car VHS rewinder?

  • Yep, remember that

  • Nope, never seen one


Results are only viewable after voting.
remember when dvd's first came out and scammers tried to sell dvd rewinders?
IMG_1291.jpg

You cannot be serious...
 
Yeah, there was something lost when we moved from VHS to DVD. The whole tape experience just felt more..."organic" I think is the word I'm looking for.
 
Yeah, but there were no User Prohibited Operations. If I want to pick up the needle off of my phonograph and go to the second track well then no one is going to stop me! And, get off my lawn!
 
Were they to save wear and tear on the VCR or were they to keep in your car in case you discovered you forgot to rewind the tape on the way back to the rental place? Most of those places charged a fee for tapes returned without being rewound.
 
I still have my old JVC SVHS deck in a closet. Its such a nice unit I can't bear to throw it out...yet I don't own a single tape! If I recall correctly, this sucker rewound tapes faster than the rewinder my dad bought. When you hit rewind it would start out a moderate speed, ramp up to a much faster speed and slow back down right before it was finished to reduce the chance of breaking the tape. I love stuff like that! Shows that some real engineering and though went into its design.

Ah the old days, when having a jog dial on your VCR remote was big shit!
 
We used to mess with rewinding tapes (just about all of 'em) with little air motors that could spin at 100s of 1000s of r/min! Destroyed a lot of tapes doing that. Probably the funniest thing was getting the reels moving super fast then putting the brakes on the hubs with a reversing valve. Problem is hubs stopped instantly but that momentum had to go somewhere! That tape shot all over the place. Imagine a truck running over a catsup bottle.

Now do that in front of a 10,000 hp wind tunnel blower cranked up to about 120 meters/sec and it's insane.

This comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVEGCEvS58Y

:biggrin:
 
I grew up in a small town. All the porn at the video store was Beta tapes and the only beta machine in town you had to hire from the store. Well it was one long fucking waiting list for that Beta machine.
 
I grew up in a small town. All the porn at the video store was Beta tapes and the only beta machine in town you had to hire from the store. Well it was one long fucking waiting list for that Beta machine.

I'm guessing that they made the tapes because a popular story about the failure of Beta to VHS was that there was no porn available due to Sony's over-bearing influence on the format.
 
Yup, it sat right next to my de-scrambler which never really worked and made all of my copied tapes look like this:

tumblr_lgdeb2ZQNj1qgx029o1_500.jpg
 
Those were the fucking dark ages.

I feel bad for you old bastards that had to deal with those really worn parts of certain movies caused from too much play, rewind, and pause sessions. :sneaky:

I bought my own VHS movies thank you very much...Hell, I even bought widescreen vhs, some movies come in two tapes.
 
Last edited:
We used to mess with rewinding tapes (just about all of 'em) with little air motors that could spin at 100s of 1000s of r/min! Destroyed a lot of tapes doing that. Probably the funniest thing was getting the reels moving super fast then putting the brakes on the hubs with a reversing valve. Problem is hubs stopped instantly but that momentum had to go somewhere! That tape shot all over the place. Imagine a truck running over a catsup bottle.

Now do that in front of a 10,000 hp wind tunnel blower cranked up to about 120 meters/sec and it's insane.

This comes to mind:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVEGCEvS58Y

:biggrin:

You wax nostalgic about the craziest Mythbusters-type nerd stuff. We need your life on video.
 
I'm guessing that they made the tapes because a popular story about the failure of Beta to VHS was that there was no porn available due to Sony's over-bearing influence on the format.

Dunno. No internet back then. Just VHS and Beta porn and a town full of wankers with 1 Beta machine
 
that wears the vcr...

When I was really little, we got an electric garage door opener. For a little bit, us kids liked to exit the house through the garage because having the automatic opener made it convenient. Our dad then told us to stop using the garage door as a main door because the opener only had a "limited number" of times it would open and close before we would have to replace it.

He failed to mention that the "limited number" was something like 3 billion. 😉 (When my parents moved out of the house 30 years later, it still had that same opener.)

Same thing with the "rewinding will wear out the heads on the VCR". I venture to guess that you would have to rewind a tape a few billion times to have any effect on the innards of a VCR, if at all.

MotionMan
 
Never heard of wearing out a deck from rewinding.
Have heard of a LOT of tapes breaking due to cheap winders though. Better ones will slow down as the leader approaches and have a gentle stop.

If you had one deck and needed to rewind while the other tape was in the deck playing a winder made sense. (in broadcast biz, for example)

For home it was mainly a novelty item.

Just look at all the "audiophile" accessories they have to "improve" sound. D:
 
When I was really little, we got an electric garage door opener. For a little bit, us kids liked to exit the house through the garage because having the automatic opener made it convenient. Our dad then told us to stop using the garage door as a main door because the opener only had a "limited number" of times it would open and close before we would have to replace it.

He failed to mention that the "limited number" was something like 3 billion. 😉 (When my parents moved out of the house 30 years later, it still had that same opener.)

Same thing with the "rewinding will wear out the heads on the VCR". I venture to guess that you would have to rewind a tape a few billion times to have any effect on the innards of a VCR, if at all.

MotionMan

not true...

<--- lived in an electronics part store/mid level supplier.

we sold tons of vcr heads to repair shops, everyone of them said people should just buy a rewinder...
 
Back
Top