no more vicar but a diver instead

[sergebroom]

Last night, I unplugged our ailing and failing VCR. In its place now resides a DVR, which I managed to hook up fairly easily. The only problem was that the TV set would show only static. A call to Comcast's tech support this morning revealed that all I had to do was to switch the TV set th Channel 3. Now, all I have to do is learn how to use this newfangled contraption.

It feels strange to see a technology become obsolete. Of course, having been born in 1955, I've seen plenty of technology come and go. For example, I have fond memories of 8-track tapedecks. And portables tapedecks were my joy in the days before VCRs, when I'd set the deck in front of the TV's speaker and record the whole soundtrack, dialogue and all, so that I could play back my favorite movies as often as I wished.

It's a good thing I still have a TV/VCR elsewhere in the house, otherwise I'd be unable to watch the tapes of those MST3K movies that were never released on DVD.

Comments

[etumukutenyak.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, 8-tracks! My grandmother had, for some reason, decided to invest in an 8-track player and cassettes. Wow. I remember when commercials advertised "LPs, 8-tracks AND cassette tapes, now yours for the low price of $$!"

Of course, I have only LPs, cassettes and CDs, of which only the CDs can be converted to mp3 files. I must find some conversion unit to transfer all my LPs and cassettes to the future.

Now you just need to re-record all your tapes onto DVD.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

It makes me feel old to see all those bits of technology being gone - almost as much as my recently catching parts of Harold and Maude on TCM and finding myself thinking that Ruth Gordon wasn't that old.

As for copying tapes to DVD... I know someone who recently offered to do exactly that. I may take her up on her offer.

[fledgist.livejournal.com]

8-tracks make me think of travelling on rural mini-buses in Jamaica.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

They make me think of the daily drive to college, in the car of a friend.

[sajia.livejournal.com]

Hmph, gramps, get off my lawn. I was recording songs from the BBC to my tape deck as recently as 2000, back in Bangladesh. Because we had a limited CD and cassette selection available in our country, we had stores at Elephant Road in Dhaka where more arty and alternative music was recorded to order from store CDs and LPs onto customers' blank cassettes. Completely illegal, of course, but that's what happens when you overprice your albums and don't make great music available to Third World countries.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

True, tapes are still used, but the decks are quite small. When I was even younger than you, what we called a small portable tapedeck was the size of a hardcover.

As for tellign kids to get off my lawn, I can't. I took the lawn off 3 years ago and replaced it with gravel.

[miltonthales.livejournal.com]

I still own (because I can't bear to throw it into the landfill) a TEAC reel-to-reel deck, and a damned good one it was, too.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I know how that feels. Speaking of obsolete stuff, when they relocated us to another floor at the office, I found a punch card I've carrying along for years as a reminder of how IT used to be. Ah, the joy of spelling a deck of 1000 cards...

[n6tqs.livejournal.com]

I have an Otari reel-to-reel (with both 1/2 and 1/4 track heads), two VCR's with PCM audio recording capabilities, and a DAT machine. At least I never got into mini-disks. And an 8' dish with associated electronics.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

It looks like I'm going to have to replace my plain VCR soon because my cable company is going all digital in a few months. They'll give me one box, which I'll use for the TV itself, and the DVD/VCR already has a digital tuner (I watch most things through that), but I'd have to rent a box for the plain VCR.

Having said that, do you have to pay your cable company for the DVR and does it have a digital tuner?

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

We pay $15 more per month, which isn't too bad, considering that this is more practical than a VCR. And they throw in some music channels.

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

Well, I can buy another DVD/VCR with digital tuner for 10 months of that and I would expect to have it longer, so I don't think I'll go that way. I'm not that fond of Comcast to start with, and they fired Ulrika's husband today, too.

[serge-lj.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about Ulrika's hubby. My best wishes.