• SonicDeathTaco@lemm.ee
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      4 months ago

      My family was pretty poor growing up, but we had cable. Back in the day there would occasionally be free weekends of Disney Channel, HBO and the like. Whenever there was one of those free weekends, my parents would buy a super long blank VHS tape and record hours of random movies. So for years every movie that I watched had an 800 number that would pop up every few minutes asking you to call and subscribe.

      • BakerBagel@midwest.social
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        4 months ago

        The more things change, the more they stay the same i guess. Sounds like just anout every streaming service out there today.

        • mindbleach@sh.itjust.works
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          4 months ago

          Tape speed / recording quality. Frames on VHS are diagonal stripes from one edge to the other. At lower tape speeds, those stripes get shorter and closer together. The horizontal resolution is unavoidably reduced. Color information gets muddy, because that’s some deep magic in a black-and-white signal. Adjacent frames can bleed into one another. Worst of all, you’re more likely to get tracking problems, where the ridiculous wheels-in-wheels of the diagonal / helical read mechanism get misaligned with the stripes, and the whole picture can drop out.

        • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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          4 months ago

          I think we used a different term for it, so maybe that’s a regional abbreviation. But I’m thinking they were talking about the recording quality/speed. I remember there being two options, one gave you twice as many hours but the quality was lower.

          • HomerianSymphony@lemmy.world
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            4 months ago

            From memory, SP was standard play, LP was long play, and SLP was super long play.

            You could get 6 hours on a tape with SLP, but only 2 hours on SP.

    • doingthestuff@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      This is the movie I thought of also. My copy was also from TV, but I did have it all on one tape with the exception that we were missing the first three or four minutes of the movie. Even today when I catch the beginning of the movie, I smile a little thinking of all the times I didn’t get to watch that.

      Hey you guys!!!

  • Xanthrax@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I had the same thing with video games. My dad got a free promotional copy of Morrowind from Fry’s. I didn’t have a computer/ laptop, but every summer, my dad would let me use his on our road trips. That game made me want to learn so much about anthropology, biology, history, mythology, etc… I played for hundreds of hours and never even came close to finishing.

    • PrimeErective@startrek.website
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      4 months ago

      Morrowind is one of my favorites of all time. I was into nag champa incense at the time, and so that smell will always remind me of Morrowind. Singing about the ambiance of Morrowind was kinda incense-y anyway, so it was the perfect combo

      • Xanthrax@lemmy.world
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        4 months ago

        I love nag champa! The og smells so sweet, and the ashes are pretty/ easy to clean. I always think of headshops, though lol. They taught me the bottle trick, though. I like to use a key ring to hold the insence upside down in a glass bottle. It’s super clean.

    • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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      4 months ago

      never even came close to finishing.

      It is an Elder Scrolls game, you don’t finish those, the existence of the main quest is merely a theoretical thing from myth and legend.

    • Soup@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      My dad got a PS2 when I was six. There was Jak and Daxter, and there was Colin McRae Rally. Later I also ended up with Sly Cooper.

      I didn’t have many friends to compare with so that was what I played. Everyone else played Crash Bandicoot, Pokémon, Mario games, etc. and I was like “have you heard about Ratchet and Clank”? Those series eventually got more popular but no one I knew had them at the time.

  • DickFiasco@lemm.ee
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    4 months ago

    The Craft. I’m pretty sure Fairuza Balk is responsible for awakening my goth fetish.

    • Hobo@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      When I was a kid I wanted to grow up to be uncle Buck. Unfortunately my brother took that position (down to driving a shit car that randomly backfires) and I’m just a normal dude 😕

      • rmuk@feddit.uk
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        4 months ago

        Yeah, being the slightly dangerous uncle is a pretty sweet gig, NGL.

  • Evrala@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    Short Circuit and Flight of the Navigator. Had them both on one tape and I’d sit down and watch it all in one sitting.

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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    4 months ago

    And I’m actively trying to go back to that. I ripped all of our old DVDs and Blurays and cancelled most of our streaming services. I told my kids that we can buy pretty much anything they want (so they don’t miss out), provided it’s not an exclusive.

    The net result is that my kids really like Clue (1985) and Avatar: The Last Airbender (2005-2008).

    • nomous@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      my kids really like Clue (1985)

      One of the best movies ever so that speaks pretty well to their tastes.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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        4 months ago

        Yup, Jellyfin. Unfortunately, my youngest kept watching even after I said no, so it’s locked behind a passcode. But when it’s watching time, I unlock it and let them pick. We have some Pokemon seasons, Studio Ghibli animations, and a bunch of other kid-friendly shows and movies for them to choose from.

        • The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.worldOP
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          4 months ago

          That’s awesome. This is my next project. I want my kids to have a library of movies/shows that I’ve personally curated, instead of letting them loose on a handful of streaming services.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            4 months ago

            Do it! It’s a bit tedious to rip everything, but you can always “rip” things by looking up whatever you need on the internet from less… copyright approved sources, which can help to seed the collection.

            We happened to have a bunch of movies and shows, so I went ahead and ripped everything, and I ended up buying a Bluray drive and flashing open firmware onto it to rip those properly as well.

            • The Picard Maneuver@lemmy.worldOP
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              4 months ago

              I’m planning to combine this project with learning how to set up a Linux machine (thanks Lemmy) as the media server and local backup storage for pictures/videos. Might as well learn how to do some safe sailing at the same time, I suppose.

            • virku@lemmy.world
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              4 months ago

              Do you by any chance use AppleTV to watch jellyfin media? If so what app do you use? I couldn’t get the only jellyfin app I was able to find to install for some reason.

              • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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                4 months ago

                No, just the app on my smart TV (LG). I’m considering getting a “dumb” TV to replace it, at which point I’ll probably use a Raspberry Pi instead.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      My daughter liked both of those a lot.

      But then she also really loves Forbidden Zone and Killer Klowns from Outer Space.

      She’s a weird kid. Like her mom and dad.

    • nepenthes@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      And the beginning of films were cut off. Big Trouble in Little China starts at the poker table for me-- I never realized Jack Burton (😍) had a monologue at the start.

    • Chekhovs_Gun@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      My dad would pause the recording when commercials started and resumed recording when the commercials ended. It was funny when he was 15 sec late on both accounts lol.

  • ansiz@lemmy.world
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    4 months ago

    I had an aunt with the Disney channel and HBO that recorded almost everything. It was like a home video store at her house, probably hundreds of tapes that she let friends and family borrow. She have me a spare copy of the Disney animated Robin Hood with all the animals and I must have watched it a hundred times.

    • Chekhovs_Gun@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      My “rich” aunt (relative to my family) had a laserdisc player. I would watch the Disney Robin Hood, as well as Star Wars and Star Trek The Motion Picture.

    • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      My great aunt had 101 Dalmations. Just that film. Every time we visited, we would just sit there for an hour watching it. Over and over. It was great.

    • candybrie@lemmy.world
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      4 months ago

      Yeah. My VCR TV would automatically rewind and start playing again. I have no idea how many times some of those tapes were played but it definitely broke 100.