This was during an era where VHS was standard and DVD’s were just brand new at the time (before streaming sites existed). Chains like Blockbuster were booming back then with people renting movies or even TV shows for a fee but have to return them by an expected date, what happens is that in order to “keep” a copy, people would use a PC with disc burning software to burn the contents from that DVD onto a blank one.
Know those blank white DVDs? Basically those were used on storing a “pirated” disc for themselves before returning the rented copy back at the video rental store. When I was a kid, I remember encountering what clearly a pirated copy of The Prince of Egypt (so who ever pirated it kept the rented copy) since the disc art is crappy & low quality (it’s been printed then glued onto a blank DVD used for copying upon peeling it off).
It was not free. You rented for a price, then returned the VHS. The longer you kept it, the more you paid.
My grandma recorded a few thousands of VHS, but she aimed at an historical collection so that was all from the television, dubbing existing VHS needed more equipment and was. Not that easy.
We had a VHS camcorder that didn’t have the anti copy channel on its play head. So you could record commercial VHS with the scrambl copy protection right to any connected VCR. I think at even had S-video for higher quality, but I may be wrong. It’s still in my moms attic because I wouldn’t let her throw it away 7-8 years ago.
But also during the Netflix DVD era I ripped 100s of movies and tv series.
The drives are all dead by now though because burning them to DVD took too long.
My dad had us on the VCR train pretty early on, so we had a model that was from 83 or 84, like whenever they basically first came out for home use. All those scrambl and antipiracy protections they had later on, it wouldn’t pick them up. So if I remember this correctly, as long as you used the older VCR to play the movie, you could copy it on the newer one, and those protections wouldn’t work and it would come out just fine. I even remember, quite vividly, when we discovered that. One of those key moments in our household.
Same. Our camcorder was one of the first that didn’t need to have a separate deck slung over your shoulder. But our VCR (early RCA) still separated so you could use it with a camera.
I think we got it in 84-85 too. I think our basement tv was still black and white at that point. We only ever used it during tornado warnings.
That was Macrovision, which was a signal inserted into the top few frames that weren’t shown on a TV, but which the VCR used to calibrate its black level. I designed a box which removed them so I could make copies of stuff. It was a bit pointless with hindsight, because I very rarely watched the copies I made. I think the enjoyment of getting one over on the man was far more than actually watching the films.
I wasn’t even trying to copy, just trying to connect a DVD player to my RF-cable-jack-only TV.
DVD player -> AV cables -> VCR -> coaxial cable -> TV.
Nope! Not allowed! It’s 2001 and we’re already screaming loud and clear that pirate copies are superior because they just work.
I ended up getting a Voodoo3 3500 TV on clearance sale, and playing movies on the TV through that.
It was definitely a wildly practiced sport for sure. If you had kids like we all were, those tapes got used. But for the adults, yeah it was basically just for sport.
Thank you! I’d forgotten the term. It’s been a solid 30 years since AV class.