Those kids are all grown up with teen kids by now! How times have changed. Bless VCRs for letting us record all those shows that were neither on prerecorded VHS or DVD/Blu-ray yet. I still got me some VHS tapes and I'll keep em as long as my VCR/DVD combo lasts.
I remember one commercial with William Conrad. Elvis got some early VCRs from RCA for late night viewing, including non family fare. Jay Leno wrote that he bought one to tape his first Tonight Show appearance in 1977. He said that the belts and tapes were huge. I still have a lot of VHS tapes too. I even sell some online. Many parents still consider them more kid friendly than DVDs. How sad that we can't find standalone VCRs anymore! Now some repair places won't work on them either.
I was a kid when my family bought one of these huge machines. They were the first VCR's back then, and everybody had to have one. I recall its cost somewhere about $300, which was a lot of money back then. I think it weighed nearly 30 lbs.!
SelectaVision is now a nickname for all CED Systems in the Philippines, because RCA was respectively sold by the Philippine Record Industry DYNA Products, Inc.
Advertising this on 1977, then trying to launch the CED in 1981, it was clear fail, at least IMHO. Nice Panasonic VHS there. Shame CED didn't come before 1977, by 1981 it was obsolete, and just the RANDOM access was the major feature to fight VHS, which had RECORDING capabilities, and that was a BIG deal sure.
@THX1205 VCRs were expensive even in the 1980s. For example, when my parents bought their first VCR around 1984 or 1985, they paid close to $500 for it and it was a floor model that originally cost close to $900.
at about 15, that was around the first time "copyright" bullshit was put in our face and treated us like animals. "record this movie, and we will come to your house and break your legs". that was how it was like. and that's still how it's like.
The vhs format was invented by jvc in 1976, unlike Sony, jvc allowed other people to build and brand the format after their company, so this is JVC, just branded as RCA
@ 0:13 "Caution: The unauthorized recording of television programs and other material may infringe the rights of others." ha ha. But not after Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. in 1984.
BirmimghamRewound, verrrryyyyyy innttteeerreesstttttiinnnggggg ( I imitating Arte Johnson)...lol...when I was 15 in '84 we got a VCR like that but it was a VHS and was a Curtis Mathes not a RCA a top loader..it lasted 10 years til '94 good huh????...great commercial..always like to see old commercials here on RU-vid......I 42 now almost 43 and got a VCR/DVD combo a Sony good brand huh???.. I on my own now have been for 15 years