These Scotch video tapes are very good. They still play well on my VCR decades after been recorded from another machine. Also back in the early 1990's I had a faulty tape and Scotch replaced it with a new one, so they did what the advert says.
Rumblelows and rediffusion I remember my mum renting a betamax in 83 The first film we watched was silver Streak The guy at our local rumberlows went through a bad splitup with his wife and went a bit nuts as they say He gave all the stock away for £1 each I missed the sale of the century lol He went on holiday for a few months paid for by the government He was a hero lol
My mum got me a second-hand Betamax for my bedroom TV. I set about making copies of of the VHS tapes from our local video rental shop. Had a nice little collection of movies for that machine. Betamax was actually really good quality.
VHS the Future of Video. Phillips Video 2000 with 2 tape decks and 16 day programmable, ironically, VHS was almost completely dead by 2000, DVD took over LOL Intel Pentium 2 ..... Pentium. Windows, Vista .. what's your OS? Dell Amstrad? LOL Derby 2021 ????
My Dad used to get the 'under the counter' tapes from our local video store. The funny thing is he was a police officer. Lots of horror flicks and 'video nasties' you'd never see at Blockbusters. We also had a Grundig 22 inch. It had special touch sensitive buttons. If you blew warm air on the buttons it made the Tv go crazy 😄 My older brother would make me change the channels - the world before remote controls!
We used to hire our TVs from a rental store. I curiously used a ruler to push in all the channel buttons at once to see what would happen. Broke the TV! Got in a lot of trouble with my parents & received some stern looks from the shop repair man.
I just don't remember seeing Blockbuster ads when I was younger, and I'm sure there were none near me until well into the 90s, perhaps even the end of the 90s. Instead, the big chain video shop for us was Global Video, though I suspect there was little between them in style or offerings. But everywhere seemed to do video rentals at some point - the corner shop at the bottom of my road had a handful, there was an independent one about 10-15 minutes walk from my home in one direction, and another about the same distance in the other (and I lived in a small village), plus the Global Video in town. And the local library - one of my earliest memories is my dad taking me to the library to rent Return of the Jedi on VHS. Good times 😄
Had one in our town, but my local was an independent video shop called K Video Center. The wife of the bloke who owned it knocked me off my bike in her car. Fun fact.
I originally intended to include the years of broadcast on the TV display, but the research was taking way too long (time I just don't have to spare), so I decided to go with presenting them as-is.
I'd forgotten "Hello Tosh, got a Toshiba". Also, I used to bulk-buy my Scotch VHS tapes from an ad in the back of What Video magazine. They were my go-to brand, without a doubt. used my dot-matrix printer to print the labels too.
Let's hope one of these featured companies become outraged by the fact their 1980's commercials are being framed by a 1970's peasent style wooden TV and request it be removed. Plastic was king in the 80's and so were Sony and Toshiba. 😁
Funny thing - if I view this on my whizzy all-singing, all dancing 55” screen (full size) it looks just like the 25” DeccaColour I lusted after in my teens. I haven’t measured the viewing area but the proportions seem spot on! Nice one RetroSteve!!
The 'Stellavison' video store in Cradley Heath lasted until the early part of the century. I opened up a rental account with them when I bought a DVD player in 1999. 😀
I used to live about half a mile from a Blockbuster. About four blocks from that was an independent rental place that carried the oddball stuff Blockbuster wouldn't even sneeze at.
Used to love going to the video store with my mates to look at the new titles that were out, many a time we would watch horror films etc we were probably to young to watch.
I used to be fascinated by the horror section in our local video shop but was never allowed to rent them. Films like Chud and Scanners with those cool-looking covers on the big box VHS tapes.
@@RetroSteveUK It was always someone older who would get the 18 rates stuff, especially for our youth club 12-25 year olds , I would crap my self knowing when I had to use the toilet when a zombie film was on or something..🤣
@@stevedickson5853 I would have had to watch them in the family living room, so no chance to watch on the quiet. I really need to get round to watching Chud - always been curious about that film. 🤣
Me and my parents always used to go to Welling Blockbuster Video. Every time I borrowed Faerie Tale Theater's Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Nothing else lol. It was a huge store. Sadly it's now a motorbike showroom
I'm surprised the Blockbuster Video ads weren't redone with British actors. It's weird seeing the acter who played the grandfather character in "Upstart Crow" as a young man. I wonder what Scotch would do now if you tried to get that deal on the new tape since they're all but defunct now. I mean using video tapes, not Scotch.
There used to be a blockbuster 10 minutes from me. I'd be renting games all the time. Ahh good times loved it there as I got a discount because they knew me so well lol
He was right when he said 'Ordinary video stores don't even come close to Blockbuster video'. Yep, locally run small video shops just couldn't compete. I used to visit one quite often and went there one evening to find it had closed down not long after a new Blockbuster opened nearby, sad really. I went and joined up with the masses, renting average films as all the big ones were usually out 🤣
Spot on! 🤣 You'd go out for the latest film and all eight copies they had were sold out, so you'd come back with some random duff you'd hope was good and watch it regardless because you'd paid the money.
Block busters was great, but as a kid I always preferred my small local video rental store. Although it helped that it had a small arcade room in the back. That always worked for me. Plus blockbusters didn't open here until 1989 and I'd been enjoying my local since the mid 80s when my dad first took me in there to rent poltergeist and the terminator. Gave me nightmares for months. 😂
Blockbuster never opened up near us, our local independent stayed in business because of that, they were awesome,but often only had one copy of the latest hits
I wonder how many of my 000s of pre-recorded VHS tapes will now play. Some of the earlier blank tapes I played earlier this year (recorded from 1984 onwards) play fine - but others from the late 90s and early 00s have deteriorated. It can only be down to cheap quality mass-produced tapes (a lot were Maxell). Earlier Scotch / TDK / BASF / Kodak seem ok. Great collection - so let's go: I know that bald chap in the Duracell ad but can't recall his name. IBM sounds like Anton Rodgers. Toshiba - Ian Drruy (without his Blockheads) - the ad was titled 'EFT' and first aired in 1984 and through to 1985. The lyrics were adapted from Alexei Sayle's novelty single 'Ullo John, Gotta New Motor?' My first VCR was a Philips and it was a cracker - only recorded one programme though. Can't be certain as my hearing's way down 9to one ear) right now but sounds a bit like Richard Briers doing the Grundig ad. I recall I had a Polaroid camera but don't recall taking more than a couple of pictures - maybe too expensive? Richard Branson like a right **** in that suit. 9:33 - Toshiba 'Digital Video' from 1987 / 1988 - and I think the last in this series of commercials. The Radio Rentals ad is from 1984 and titled 'Love Scene' and was directed by Barry Myers. Voiceover appears to be by Roy Kinnear. I remember the BT Phone card ad - 'Bare Essentials' from 1984. This is another ad directed by Myers. Not much use now are they? Best ad here is the final one from Scotch - an unforgettable series. This ad ('Skeleton') first aired in 1983. This is the 1984 version as identified by the opening sentence. Anyone remember the Rediffusion shops?
They had city centre shops too - selling TVs and records. I remember we had one here in Nottingham in the 70s and they had some discounted records downstairs. Those were the days. of course, Rediffusion was also a TV channel in the early days. This from Wiki: Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion, was the British ITV franchise holder for London and parts of the surrounding counties, on weekdays between 22 September 1955 and 29 July 1968. It was the first ITA franchisee to go on air, and one of the "Big Four" companies that between them produced the majority of ITV networked programmes during this period. Rediffusion lost its franchise in 1968, but merged with another franchisee to form Thames Television, which continued to hold the London weekday franchise for another 24 years. And here's the shop - think it must have closed down sometimes in the late 80s? www.britishrecordshoparchive.org/rediffusion-nottingham.html
Yes - lovely history - there's a link online which i looked at a few years back detailing record shops in most areas of the UK - also pictured some of the range bags and the odd shop frontage. In Nottingham we had: Fox's Music Centre / Bradley's Records / Rediffusion / Co-Operative Store / Boots / Woolworths and at least 2 (I think I just saw there were three but don't recall this) Selectadisc shops - now there's a story in itself. There were also some other independents like Arcade Records / Music Inn plus the usual megastores - HMV (2 stores!) - and this was before Virgin came on the scene. I think those *astards drove many of the others away. This doesn't include the second-hand record stores! Right now I can only recall two of those and one is still there.
