#vhs physical store

[mulders-too-large-shirt]

thinking about how mulder loves to get scully a gift, usually terribly heartfelt, even if disguised as something flippant:

the superbowl vhs tape he brings her when she wakes up from her coma in one breath (and her deadpan "i knew there was a reason to live")

tickets for a football game to watch together in irresistible

bringing her flowers to the hospital in memento mori (he lies, saying he stole them from a guy with broken legs to make her laugh)

the birthday keychain in tempus fugit (and when she finds a meaning to it, he claims "i just thought it was a pretty cool keychain")

that is a man who is always thinking about her.

[elfcow]

Dropout should commit to the bit and release Never Stop Blowing up on physical media. Do it, you won't

[bootyful-seventeen]

I am heavily contemplating on buying myself a dvd player soon and buying all the DVDs for a ton of movies and tv shows I grew up watching cuz I miss the magic of dvds

[goobersplat]

Even though I was alive during the Blockbuster era I never went there because ✨ Family Video ✨ was down the street from my house. But still, these clamshell cases are super nostalgic!

If you’re interested in the movie it’s “The Pennsylvania Miners' Story” which was a TV movie from 2002 lol.

Source

[beehindblueeyes]

Time period: Video Cassettes and other home media

This is possibly my last one for a while. Both because I feel like I’m stepping into territory I’ve already mentioned and because I’m fading interests. If you’re new here… these posts are sort of designed for the people who “can’t do time period” I’m basically giving you some cool common facts about the time so hopefully it’s a bit easier. Im a nitpicky person when It comes to my own stuff but I don’t expect you to be the 100% correct fic person either. All posts of this kind are tagged under time period and writing ref so they should be easy to find :)

This seems like a ‘no duh’ but tvs as they are now simply did not exist. No flat screens. They’re CRT or older. They’re HUGE and bulky but also have a relatively small screen at the same time. As we progressed into the 80s the side panel mainly shrank and the screen grew. (Also see, wood! Wood grain. I keep saying it was everywhere. It was everywhere.)

You may hear parents say “oh when I grew up we had three channels” etc which was mainly true. There was a limited number of Chanel’s for YEARS until cable came around and even then it was more a premium service and it was the late 80s , early 90s when it was more widely adopted.

With these big tvs with limited tvs and sometimes faulty service there’s a lot of myths to come with that. Like if you hit it a few times on top stuff with come back, or bending the bunny ears that you still see in some cartoons. Or ‘hey if we flush all the toilets at once…’ (this one’s more of a kid logic thing but the ritual and oh if I stand like this or do that is the same)

Now we come to video cassettes which is the more common spread name for a VHS tape that was still used well into the 90s. I think it’s a much more recent thing that we started just saying VHS, more common names were: Video cassette, video tapes, tapes, home video etc ;

They also do NOT work like dvds. If it’s re wound it should play from the beginning. They’ll be studio logos and a few adds or trailers and then the movie just starts. No menu! This being said movies were also limited to a time so they could fit on tape (this is one of the reasons old movies rarely go over a hour and a half). If they’re two hours or longer there’s double and sometimes triple tapes (once one ends you have to put in the next)

Be kind, rewind. There’s nothing automatic about it you have to manually or stores will fine you— or whoever watches it next in your house will fucking clobber you. It takes forever! (You don’t know the pain of being a kid in the early 2000s waiting for the little mermaid to finish rewinding).

Also this is purely speculatory on my part but I assume the reason renting tapes was a lot more common was because they were pretty expensive at the time. Like $30 (which is half of a video game today, they used to be like $7) someone who was alive at the time please correct me.

Physical media mania, again self explanatory. No streaming. No touch screen. No iPods. You buy records, cassettes, 8tracks, have a machine that plays them. Stereos — big family ones— were usually 3-4 parts (you see the towers or stacked machines in old movies.) there’s personal portable ones like walkmans or big boombox types.

No smart boards in the class. We see it in the movie. Teacher would have to get a projector, wheel it in and show the slides from a slide machine or one where you can place work over it. (Only the image isn’t half as crisp as in the movie) but writing on the chalkboard and pull down maps were more common. If a movie was being shown they’d wheel in a movie projector and place it down the middle isle of students. There’s no Disney + for your encanto kids

[thejazzywaffles]

angry about the degradation rate of physical media at 3 AM

Does film degrade under poor storage conditions? Yes. But on the other hand, in OPTIMAL storage conditions, I have 15-year-old DVDs with disc rot. And unlike film degradation, disc rot means the disc is worthless. It either won't play at all or will hang once it reaches the missing data. Completely fucking worthless storage medium. It would literally last longer if it were a fucking CARTRIDGE. Yeah, that's right. The shit you shove into an NES. Movies would last longer in THAT old tech than new-fangled discs... oh? And did I mention? Discs have only been getting worse. CDs last longer than DVDs. DVDs last longer than Blu-rays. I'm a proponent of physical media but holy fuck why did we think this was the storage medium of the future? And why are we still using it??? I'd buy an SD card that's 50% content and 50% security shit to stop most people from copying the content if it meant I could have a physical medium of game/movie/music storage that doesn't degrade in a decade or two.

oh and also books are based as hell I love books you can treat a book like dogshit and your grandkids will probably still be able to read it as long as it doesn't catch on fire or whatever, we got media storage right the first time actually

[theheadlessgroom]

@beatingheart-bride

"She's the only one who'll hire me," Randall shrugged, almost defeatedly; having put up with Minnie and her haranguing for so long, he'd long since moved past being outraged by it and was more resigned to it than anything. "She may bite my head off at every opportunity, but she knows I won't complain because no one else will hire me. She's unpleasant, but at least she pays me."

Funnily enough (in a bittersweet sort of way), Minnie knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of an unwarranted chewing out; having worked her way up the proverbial ladder years prior, she too was often yelled at by her old boss, the previous owner of the haberdashery, a rude and dismissive man who seemed to hate everyone equally, if that was some consolation. After the old man had a heart attack, Minnie bought the place from his widow and took over it completely-honestly, Randall would've thought her experiences under such a harsh boss would soften her up once she made it to the top, but no; she was just as mean as he was.

"Well, at least I won't be working for her for too long," he continued, flashing an impish little smile to Emily, while Dorian was still eyeing the door, still trying to hold his tongue, as Randall continued, "I look forward to leaving her a nice, nasty little resignation letter before we go-I'll be sure to tell her she was a miserable boss, and I hope she has a miserable time finding someone to replace me!"

[monkeymeghan]

This post reminded me of this awesome TikTok account, but I couldn’t share the video on the reblog.

[russburlingame]

B is for Blockbuster

Okay, so this story isn’t about Blockbuster, but it’s about video stores. And for a generation of people – my generation – video stores and Blockbuster Video are inextricably bound together.

This is a fictionalized account -- or at least, the bit about my relationship with "Erin" (not her real name) is. What’s true, what’s not? Doesn’t really matter. The stuff that matters is true, and you get to decide what about this story matters.

I was 21 years old when my heart was broken for the first time.

I had been dating Erin – a friend from high school who turned into more – for a little over a year, and I was sure – absolutely sure – that I was going to marry her. When she got accepted to the University of New Hampshire – a several-hour-drive away – I bought my first car (hers) just so I could go see her on the weekends.

On her birthday, I was waiting for Erin to get back from dinner and call me, to let me know she had gotten home okay. She was on a trip with her sailing club – yeah, apparently that’s a thing at some colleges – and I just wanted to touch base before going to sleep. No, this isn’t a tragic story of somebody lost at sea. She just got drunk and made out with somebody.

Either way, she didn’t call me that night, or until well into the next day. This was 2001, and it wasn’t especially common for people to be in constant contact via text, so sometimes, you just…didn’t know what was up with people you loved. Crazy, I know.

Erin finally called me, tearfully confessed, and I forgave her. I was scared for her safety and glad to find out that she was fine.

We talked for hours that day, but a week later, she called again: she didn’t think she could keep up the distance thing. She needed more than a weekend boyfriend.

I was crushed, and I begged her to hold off on making a decision until we had seen each other again. The summer was coming up, and we were both really excited about seeing Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, so I figured it was worth having one last day out, and a long talk face to face.

It didn’t really work out that way. She agreed to the idea, but didn’t call me again for the rest of the semester, and it was pretty obvious things were doomed. When she got home from school, she asked if I wanted to come over for an afternoon, and I did – although this was about a month and change early for Kevin Smith.

We hung out, played Scrabble, fooled around, and got into a playful wrestling match. She managed to pin me to the ground, and instead of taking advantage of my helplessness, she kissed me on the cheek and got back up.

Oof.

With a few hours left before her parents came home, we decided on watching a movie.

What movie?

No ideas came. Erin suggested a trip to the video store.

Now, you young’uns don’t understand that the video store was a great place to hang out in the days before the modern internet. I could kill hours there. So, hell yeah, let’s go to the video store. Erin drove, and we headed east out onto the big boulevard where all the stores are. To my surprise, we passed right by Blockbuster. Where were we going?

The local Blockbuster, which was about a half-mile from Erin’s house, was the only video store I knew of on this side of town. To go anywhere else I knew about, it was at least an extra ten to fifteen minutes of driving. Chimney’s, the great video store that had been another mile or so down the road, had recently folded, much to everyone’s collective chagrin.

Erin turned toward Chimney’s, and I figured maybe she was just confused.

“Chimney’s is closed,” I said, bemused.

“Yeah, I know. I’m going to a place my dad likes,” she answered. Another mile, a turn, and…well, damn. There’s another video store.

Emerald City Video was a store with a narrow storefront, but inside, it was cavernous. The store was probably 20 feet wide by 60 feet deep, with a great selection and an adult room hidden in the back corner. Movie props hung from some of the walls – high enough up that you couldn’t take them down and mess with them – including a shield from Spartacus, a costume used in Killer Klowns From Outer Space, and high-end replicas of props from The Mummy and the James Bond franchise.

This. Was. Heaven.

I was so immediately taken with the place, that I barely noticed when the guy behind the register greeted us. I wandered to the “special interest” section – where they had cult classics, documentaries, and anything LGBT-themed – and looked it up and down. A middle-aged woman with short hair and glasses saw me staring, and asked if I needed help.

“Oh – no, I was just checking things out. I’ve never been here,” I admitted. “This is a great store.”

Erin had gone to a more mainstream section of the store to find a movie we could watch while cuddling. It would be the last time, and by this point both of us knew it, so she looked for something sweet and timeless and sentimental. She really went all in on giving this relationship a proper sendoff.

Me? I was sitting in the Special Interest section, talking with…umm…

“I’m Russ,” I said, offering my hand. The woman took it.

“I’m Rita,” she said. “I’m one of the owners.”

I don’t remember what movie Erin and I watched. I don’t remember what Rita and I talked about. What I do remember, is that by the end of the conversation, Rita suggested I should apply for a job at the store.

I had just, days before, started a job at Barnes & Noble. Like basically everyone else, I applied to be a bookseller, and got immediately hired to sling coffees for B&N/Starbucks. I take black coffee, and am very – very – bad at making sweet, frothy coffee drinks. I knew my days were numbered. I took the application. It’s been more than 20 years since I walked into that store for the first time, and as far as I know, there are no extant photos of “Store 1” – the location where I first encountered Emerald City Video. But I can still see it when I close my eyes. It was – ironic, given its name – a magical place.

I would work at Emerald City Video – mostly at Store 2 – on and off for the next 7 years, before moving to New York City to chase down my dreams of being an entertainment writer.

Where was Store 2? Well, we manage to get hold of the store formerly known as Chimney’s. For years, it had been our town’s home entertainment Mecca, and now, ECV was going to restore it to its former glory.

Of course, now it’s split up between a cardio kickboxing place and a laser hair removal center. But still.

I still love Erin. Dating her was good for my personal development, good for my soul. She’s a good person, and the once-in-a-blue-moon when we get to chat, I always enjoy it. And on top of everything else, Erin gets to claim credit for introducing to the place that would change my life.

When I was 24, I first met my (now) wife Cali…at Emerald City Video.

Cali was a customer, and she had a crush on me. I was in another relationship, and entirely oblivious to her interest. My obliviousness was taken as disinterest, and nothing happened for a handful of years, before we finally bumped into each other while single. But it’s funny to think about how the first girl to really, truly break my heart, was the one who brought me to Emerald City Video. She put me in the right place, at the right time, to meet the person who still makes that heart swell every day.

In 2021, I fulfilled a life-long dream and published my first book. For a variety of reasons, I went the self-publishing route. The name of my publisher? ECV Analog. The logo: a modified version of the old Emerald City Video logo. Rita and her husband Jim, the owners of Emerald City, joined me at a movie theater nearby to celebrate the book launch.

[rigginsstreet]

Maybe it’s because I never gave a shit about the scoops troop plotline so it doesn’t have an affect on me but why does stranger things marketing still use that years later like it was such a minor set in the show and it’s completely irrelevant in my mind like I don’t care about your ice cream

[papas-majadas]

Recent additions.

[dream-thief-forever-amen]

The worst is all the lost movies that never migrated to DVD. Or got real obscure. You had your VHS copy of Judas Kiss with Alan Rickman faking a Texas accent and flirting with Emma Thompson also faking an America accent… you had Until the End of the World and its dreamscapes and stellar soundtrack… you had Close My Eyes (Alan Rickman again!) with its incest romance… or Edward II, My Own Private Idaho, or Hal Hartley movies like The Amateur featuring an ex nun who is a self proclaimed sex addict though she’s never had sex. Good luck finding Gregg Araki’s Splendor on Netflix. And all those odd little indie cult horror movies… the Troma darlings… even the more popular indie movies like Cronenberg’s Crash or Existenz are difficult to find now.

I worked at a massive independent video store for six years. We had over 40K titles… boxes and boxes came in every week (endless shrink wrapping of the cover cases in the back room) - always a huge overstuffed bin of titles being sold out. People would rent 3-5 movies at a time, we’d usually see them back within a week, but more often than not within a few days.

It’s important to remember the browsing experience was crucial. There were a lot of sections and subsections but everyone wandered around everywhere. You’d spend maybe half an hour, looking at titles and covers, reading the short description on the back. Sure there were the big budget hits we had multiple copies of but it was perfectly normal for people to try out all kinds of films out of curiosity. You’d go home with The Point of No Return, Schindler’s List, True Romance, Cool Runnings, and Return of the Living Dead 3 and that was average.

Pros and cons though. Personally, I would never give up the internet to return to the days of physical media. But I am glad I got to fully experience both.

i will never be against piracy ever but i also need physical media to remain

[fozmeadows]

the older I get, the more the technological changes I've lived through as a millennial feel bizarre to me. we had computers in my primary school classroom; I first learned to type on a typewriter. I had a cellphone as a teenager, but still needed a physical train timetable. my parents listened to LP records when I was growing up; meanwhile, my childhood cassette tape collection became a CD collection, until I started downloading mp3s on kazaa over our 56k modem internet connection to play in winamp on my desktop computer, and now my laptop doesn't even have a disc tray. I used to save my word documents on floppy discs. I grew up using the rotary phone at my grandparents' house and our wall-connected landline; my mother's first cellphone was so big, we called it The Brick. I once took my desktop computer - monitor, tower and all - on the train to attend a LAN party at a friend's house where we had to connect to the internet with physical cables to play together, and where one friend's massive CRT monitor wouldn't fit on any available table. as kids, we used to make concertina caterpillars in class with the punctured and perforated paper strips that were left over whenever anything was printed on the room's dot matrix printer, which was outdated by the time I was in high school. VHS tapes became DVDs, and you could still rent both at the local video store when I was first married, but those shops all died out within the next six years. my facebook account predates the iphone camera - I used to carry around a separate digital camera and manually upload photos to the computer in order to post them; there are rolls of undeveloped film from my childhood still in envelopes from the chemist's in my childhood photo albums. I have a photo album from my wedding, but no physical albums of my child; by then, we were all posting online, and now that's a decade's worth of pictures I'd have to sort through manually in order to create one. there are video games I tell my son about but can't ever show him because the consoles they used to run on are all obsolete and the games were never remastered for the new ones that don't have the requisite backwards compatibility. I used to have a walkman for car trips as a kid; then I had a discman and a plastic hardshell case of CDs to carry around as a teenager; later, a friend gave my husband and I engraved matching ipods as a wedding present, and we used them both until they stopped working; now they're obsolete. today I texted my mother, who was born in 1950, a tiktok upload of an instructional video for girls from 1956 on how to look after their hair and nails and fold their clothes. my father was born four years after the invention of colour televison; he worked in radio and print journalism, and in the years before his health declined, even though he logically understood that newspapers existed online, he would clip out articles from the physical paper, put them in an envelope and mail them to me overseas if he wanted me to read them. and now I hold the world in a glass-faced rectangle, and I have access to everything and ownership of nothing, and everything I write online can potentially be wiped out at the drop of a hat by the ego of an idiot manchild billionaire. as a child, I wore a watch, but like most of my generation, I stopped when cellphones started telling us the time and they became redundant. now, my son wears a smartwatch so we can call him home from playing in the neighbourhood park, and there's a tanline on his wrist ike the one I haven't had since the age of fifteen. and I wonder: what will 2030 look like?

[nobody-nexus]

The Condemned Digital Archives

-MASTERPOST-

-HUMAN Sheets-

-ENTITY Sheets-

-Full Images of Cast-

The year is 2003. Canyon City, a place too big to be a town but too small to be a considered an actual city, lives a woman. Paloma Shutnik, a 25-year-old accountant who works for an insurance company known as C&A Paloma loves to collect old notebooks and especially VHS, DVDs, and the like. She discovers a thrift store selling a LOT of these kinds of things and decides to get them. This was back in 1999 Now, 4 years later, she is sadly unraveling the truth that she is in the center of a practical breeding ground for creature even she can't properly comprehend... She needs to learn not only how to stop these beasts of insanity, but also, she has to figure out who knew before she did ---

The monsters are referred to as "Entities". Entities refers to any creature that doesn't apply to how normal nature and physics and stuff like that work. There's plenty of kinds, most of which people don't understand, but it can be put into three categories

---

Entity Type 1: Enigma These entities are ones who only somewhat apply to logic that one could understand. An understandable ENOUGH thing, but not enough for it to be considered "normal" in any way

Entity Type 2: Hallucination These entities are ones that very much strive away from reality, but not enough to make you go insane at first. They usually have more mental and emotional abilities and less likely to be understood

Entity Type 3: Abstraction Completely incomprehensible, even if they have a physical form. These ones are needed to be stayed away from BY ALL MEANS due to how they can mess with you in every way you could think of and more

Enigmas are the most common, Abstractions are the most rare

================================================

Hope you like this new and improved Analog AU! I'm SUPER proud of this new version! If you have any questions, please ask away! And have a happy halloween!

[marzipanandminutiae]

thinking about Life Before Widespread Internet Access, as part of the last generation to experience that, is so weird

because like. one, it wasn't really; I was just a small child in a lightly Luddite household. there was indisputably Internet in the late 1990s

and two...I don't really remember what it felt like?

I can say "things came from stores or from catalogues, and if the latter, they took what felt like months to arrive [probably actually 2-3 weeks, I'm guessing]. if you wanted to see a new movie, you checked the newspaper for times at the three nearest local theatres. if you wanted to see an older movie, you went to Blockbuster for a VHS or bought it from the bookstore. music came on CDs, also sold at the bookstore or a specific Music Store (which usually sold merch, too, and sometimes nerd things like action figures). if the physical bookstore didn't have a book you wanted in stock, you ordered it from them and it took like three weeks to arrive. you made new friends exclusively in person, through friends you already had, or maybe through penpal ads in magazines- though kids weren't usually allowed to do that for Safety Reasons"

I remember doing those things

but what it actually felt like to not just be able to look things up if you had questions, look up directions (even on MapQuest), shop online, have the constant hum of awareness in the back of your mind that you could at any time access this vast knowledge base/community/commerce arena-

I don't remember

isn't that strange?