Fuzzy Memories

Hi All-

I have a fondness for abandoned or orphaned formats, so I'm
trying to track down something I remember from my childhood.
When I visited my local video rental shop, I recall some titles
being offered in three formats... VHS, Beta, and something else.
The "something else" was a tape considerably larger than a
VHS tape. I've been doing some research, and it's possible
that what I was looking at was a U-Matic tape, but it was so
long ago I'm just not trusting my memory.

Now, according to most sources, U-Matic was created much earlier
than VHS or Beta, so I'm not sure if it's realistic to think that
they were ever on the shelf at the same time. This would have
been 1987 or so. Possibly earlier, but I don't think so.

Were there any other mainstream formats at that time, with
a tape larger than VHS?

--

Aaron J. Bossig

http://www.GodsLabRat.com
http://www.dvdverdict.com

"Aaron J. Bossig" wrote:
Hi All-

I have a fondness for abandoned or orphaned formats, so I'm
trying to track down something I remember from my childhood.
When I visited my local video rental shop, I recall some titles
being offered in three formats... VHS, Beta, and something else.
The "something else" was a tape considerably larger than a
VHS tape. I've been doing some research, and it's possible
that what I was looking at was a U-Matic tape, but it was so
long ago I'm just not trusting my memory.

Now, according to most sources, U-Matic was created much earlier
than VHS or Beta, so I'm not sure if it's realistic to think that
they were ever on the shelf at the same time. This would have
been 1987 or so. Possibly earlier, but I don't think so.

Were there any other mainstream formats at that time, with
a tape larger than VHS?

Are you are thinking of the Elcaset? It was an audio format, I think.

Chip

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Aaron J. Bossig wrote:

Now, according to most sources, U-Matic was created much earlier
than VHS or Beta, so I'm not sure if it's realistic to think that
they were ever on the shelf at the same time. This would have
been 1987 or so. Possibly earlier, but I don't think so.

Umatic was a professional broadcast format, so I would tend to think it
unlikely that you saw that format on the self of a video rental shop.

--
Dave
www.davebbq.com

"Dave Bugg" wrote in news:8xpBh.122$iV1.48
@newsfe06.lga:

Aaron J. Bossig wrote:

Now, according to most sources, U-Matic was created much earlier
than VHS or Beta, so I'm not sure if it's realistic to think that
they were ever on the shelf at the same time. This would have
been 1987 or so. Possibly earlier, but I don't think so.

Umatic was a professional broadcast format, so I would tend to think it
unlikely that you saw that format on the self of a video rental shop.

Well, crap. Now I'm really confused.

--

Aaron J. Bossig

http://www.GodsLabRat.com
http://www.dvdverdict.com

"Aaron J. Bossig" wrote in message
...
Were there any other mainstream formats at that time, with
a tape larger than VHS?

Try looking he http://www.totalrewind.org/mainhall.htm

Maybe something will jog your memory.

R

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 22:40:39 -0500, "Rich Clark"
wrote:


Try looking he http://www.totalrewind.org/mainhall.htm

Completely awesome site. Thanks!

A_C

Terrific site. Thanks. The thing that came to my mind first was
cartridgevision which is mentioned on that link. What they fail to
mention was that it involved Sears at that time.

On Feb 16, 4:40 pm, "Dave Bugg" wrote:

Umatic was a professional broadcast format, so I would tend to think it
unlikely that you saw that format on the self of a video rental shop.

It's true that U-Matic found its home in professional, intitutional,
and educational markets. In the museum field, we were using U-Matic as
late as the mid-80s, and in some places they remained in use for
another decade after that.

But many U-Matic decks did find their way into homes. Several were
marketed with home-recording features (timers and NTSC tuners) and
while Sony didn't particularly try to develop a home market, JVC did.

I do not recall commercially released "home video" content in the
format, though it may well have existed. But there definitely were
educational/instructional videos released on U-Matic tapes.

Still, I never saw any in a video store.

R

On 17 Feb 2007 07:23:47 -0800, wrote:

Terrific site. Thanks. The thing that came to my mind first was
cartridgevision which is mentioned on that link. What they fail to
mention was that it involved Sears at that time.

The DVD rewinder was hilarious.

A_C

Agent_C wrote:

On 17 Feb 2007 07:23:47 -0800, wrote:



Terrific site. Thanks. The thing that came to my mind first was
cartridgevision which is mentioned on that link. What they fail to
mention was that it involved Sears at that time.



The DVD rewinder was hilarious.


I caught my Mother doing that one day, God Bless her!
She was sitting in her chair and I noticed a movie rewinding for a long
while,
I quizzed her, Hey Mom whatcha doing? Rewinding the movie for the rental
store......
She got teased about that for a while, because she was a very
intelligent person, a CPA
and retired pilot :-) LOL

A_C



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