Video Shops, Are They Also Extinct?

A feeling of nostalgia.

From what I've heard (!) it used to be a projector and movie reel back in the days of when Bob was young. Rather cumbersome to say the least but a cheaper way for a family to see the latest flick.

As a teenager the next wave of popularity was the video shop. A video tape which might be a foreign concept for the twenty somethings, was often the highlight of a rainy Sunday afternoon. With luck, you could get two for the price of one at the rental shop but those freebies tended to be an old Bud Spencer western...

The older the tape the greater the chances of not seeing all of it. Either it wouldn't play at all or even worse it would get stuck in the video tape recorder. We soon learned the trick of using a pencil to rewind a stuck tape.

There was a nice routine to the business of renting out a movie which started with the divine task of choosing a movie among the many available and hoping that your choice was still available for that day. The routine ended with dropping the tape off the next morning through a slot in the door.

Can you also remember those few selfish customers who didn't return the video before the required 11 am, when the next renters were already waiting with ill disguised irritation and angry comments. Especially if it was a new release! I think I was guilty of it once or twice.

When the DVD replaced the video tape it took a while to get used to it. Provided one had forked out the money for a DVD player which in the beginning weren't always as cheap as now.

Of course now one chooses films online and it all has a hint of Starship Enterprise about it. Somehow a whole movie is carved into bits that are shunted through a fiber optic cable only to be reassembled and streamed on your television or computer. A bit spooky if you ask me.

Even though the new technology is convenient, it doesn't compare with the wonderful times we spent walking up and down the isle of a video shop trying to find the right movie while perhaps bumping into friends or even meeting your future spouse in it.

Soon there will come a time where we needn't step a foot out of our homes and that image has all the online dating agencies frothing at the mouth..

Biggi