How popular were these VCRs in USA during the 70's?

[Funky Dude]

I've recently became a real enthusiast of old formats of video tape recorders and I've been looking at a few rare 70's American formats of VCR that were around prior to the Betamax and VHS, and I was wondering how popular were these formats and have you's seen these formats around. The ones I'm talking about are:

Sanyo Vcord:



Quasar VCR:



AVCO Cartrivision:


And there was a fantastic looking VCR from around 1973 that never took off called the RCA Selectavision MagTape which I guess would have been the world's first front loader VCR while the other VCRs of that time were top-loaders. Here's a pic of this format:


And in UK, Europe and Australia we had the Philips VCR format that uses square cassettes with one spool on top of the other:


Because of costs this format wasn't that popular in the average consumer's home.

[nrgbeat]

I think VCR's really caught on in the US in early-mid 80's.

The first VCR I had was a Beta and within a couple of years none of the movie rental places were renting Beta movies.

[Ricardo_Mata]

Hi! I don't know if you are interested in this bit of information but the first two video recorders you show in the photographs were pretty common in Venezuela in the mid- 70s. In fact I remember we had both of them at one point or another in my house.

[Mixmachine]

Funky, I never saw any of those VCR personally, the first one I saw was around '75 it was a big and heavy Sony that played tapes similar to VHS, It was used in HS presentations, my first VCR was a Sanyo Beta in '78, by the way today in the news a big US chain (circuit City)anounced they are droping VHS tapes from their stores,this is the beginning of the end for video tapes.

[Funky Dude]

Ricardo_Mata wrote:
Hi! I don't know if you are interested in this bit of information but the first two video recorders you show in the photographs were pretty common in Venezuela in the mid- 70s. In fact I remember we had both of them at one point or another in my house.

That's actually very amazing because in Australia a VCR in a household in the mid 70's is very rare. The only 2 VCRs around in Australia around 1975. One was the Sony U-Matic which were for schools, colleges, universities and other professional applications only. The other was the Philips VCR that uses square cassettes with one reel spool on top of the other, this VCR costed according to people I've talked to somewhere around $1000 which is a 1/30th the cost of a new house back then, so it's really rare to find one of these VCRs in someone's household in the mid 70's. I've done some work experience with a bloke who has been fixing TVs for 40 years and he said he's been in nearly everyone's household in the Illawarra region (where I live) and he's never ever seen a Philips VCR in anyone's home. I have two of these machines a N1500 from about 1973/74 and a N1700 long play from about 1978, I got these old VCRs from the back shed of a scrap yard for $50. Here's a picture of my N1500 and N1700:



Anyhow some questions, how much did those VCRs cost in the mid 70's in your country? And how do you rate the quality of the recordings on these machines in comparison to a Betamax or VHS?

[Ricardo_Mata]

Hi Funky! Sorry it took so long to answer; I have been away for a few days with tons of work to do.

VCRs were very popular in Venezuela and almost everybody had one because back then the economy was in great shape --money came easily-- and the prices were considered "cheap." I'm not sure how much VCRs were at that time since it was my dad who bought them but I guess they must not have been very expensive.

I do remember that when BETAMAX came out everybody, and I mean EVERYBODY, got one of those because they were cheap. In fact, I remember visiting friends and relatives who had several of them. Households with four or five machines were not uncommon!

In terms of quality, I think Beta and VHS are about the same. In Venezuela all the tapes were usually bad copies of 20th generation masters so all of them were bad! The only way to get good tapes was to come to the States, tape some TV shows or movies and then take those tapes back home.

Just a bit of history...

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ricardo_Mata on 2002-06-26 13:31 ]</font>