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| 33 minutes ago | | I loved buying movies then . |
| 38 minutes ago | | In 1983 a customer of the video shop I worked in bought The World At War series on Betamax, one tape per month until he had all 26 episodes. That's about £4500 in today's money. Crazy. |
| 51 minutes ago | | ...and why not |
| 1 hour ago | | The Elephant Man came out on Betamax in 1981 for £39.99. |
| 1 hour ago | | 2:09 Spot-on prediction there by modern day mega- global corporation, Ritz Video Film Hire. |
| 1 hour ago | | 3 pounds to rent a video in the 80s??? Hahahahaha British prices are a riot! |
| 1 hour ago | |  imaging saying Rain Man has no rewatch value lol |
| 2 hours ago (edited) | | I used to buy arthouse and indie movies on VHS and display them in my bedroom to impress the ladies.
I never watched them.
Nowadays i just read the synopsis on Wikipedia. |
| 2 hours ago | | Incredible to think I’ve never seen rain man, when according to these men it’s merely a case of whether I should have bought or rented it ; due to the marketing spend it’s inconceivable that I won’t have seen it, only the way I’ve acquired it is in question. |
| 2 hours ago | | Barry Norman was the very best balanced movie reviewer in TV history always watched him every week Barry passion for movies got me into movies in a big way much missed 😊 |
| 2 hours ago | | I bought a hardcore German adult movie in 1985 for £69.99. It’s streaming free now under the vintage category! |
| 2 hours ago | | "and why not?" |
| 2 hours ago | | I can remember Terminator 2 coming out in VHS rental and all the local stores had it in one night rental only due to demand! |
| 2 hours ago (edited) | | First movies on DVD were releaased in 1997, so VHS lasted a lot longer than expected. Music CD's were around since the early 80's.... |
| 2 hours ago | | My grandfather paid £99.99 for the Ten Commandments in 1987 ish he was so happy at time |
| 2 hours ago | | To summarise: yes they will Barry. |
| 3 hours ago | | 50 pence for a blu ray, gosh |
| 3 hours ago | | I hope physical media never dies! If you buy a blu ray or 4K disc there are special features on there that no streaming service offers, for example behind the scenes features and interviews with the cast and crew to name just a few! |
| 3 hours ago | | It was Christmas 1989 when I owned my first VHS movie: Batman. |
| 3 hours ago | | Still not watched rain man 😂 |
| 3 hours ago | | I find myself nostalgic for snap case DVDs these days 😂 |
| 4 hours ago | | Odd, that nowhere did anybody in this clip refer to them as movies, but films, yet the BBC had to use the Amercanism movie in the title of this upload. Even the show that Barry Norman presented was called Film (followed by whatever year it was).
I'm off to shout at some clouds (or should that be yell). |
| 4 hours ago | | Never saw Rainman, never will. Tom Cruise has never been welcome in my eyeballs! Even his front teeth are off center---just like him! |
| 4 hours ago | | How long did it take to get these films in widescreen rather than pan & scanned |
| 4 hours ago | | FYI, while Batman and Rain Man may sound similar, they are very different characters. |
| 4 hours ago | | £14.99 in 1989 was a lot... |
| 4 hours ago (edited) | | The first ever VHS I bought was Return of the Jedi at WHSmith in Chester. I think it was around £8 or £9 and my dad was furious that I bought it, he thought it was a waste of money! Can't remember which year I bought it, but I was still in school so it would have to be before 1991, the year I left school. It may have been towards the end of 1989, judging by this clip.
I still have it in the loft and I also still have a working Philips Stereo VHS player to play it on. I doubt the picture will be great on my LCD TV and it will be the Pan and Scan version by CIC Video, not the Widescreen Version that was released in the 90's. The second video I owned was Willow, but that was a present from my sister Sharon, again it was the pan and scan version and only saw the wide-screen version when I bought the DVD in the early 2000's. |
| 4 hours ago | | 2025 answer: We shouldn’t had. |
| 4 hours ago | | I miss Barry Norman |
| 4 hours ago | | Yep and now people just go to Pirate Bay and pay nothing 🤣 |
| 4 hours ago | | People did buy VHS for home entertainment yet it wasn’t until DVD that drove the masses to start their own library. I worked in a retail store selling VHS in the early 1990s and business was good. Worked in video distribution in the early 2000s and it was night and day. DVD were sold everywhere… even at the checkout at supermarkets. |
| 4 hours ago | | £15 in 1989 is equivalent to nearly £40 today- you can see why streaming took off with prices like that! |
| 5 hours ago | | I rented Hairspray (1988) from the video shop so much that my sister talked them into letting her just buy it off them for my birthday. Still got it. It's in one of the larger rental cases. |
| 5 hours ago | | Don't see it catching on to be honest... whatever next, movies on demand sent down your telephone line to a computer? |
| 5 hours ago (edited) | | I remember back around 1987/88, buying pirate copies of "Die Hard" and "Top Gun" in Terry's 'Alpha Club' (It's now called the "Crofton Park Tavern" ) in Crofton Park, Brockley back in the day! a tenner a pop! ha ha!
I even remember watching the first Superman movie on pirate tape back in 1983 in Crofton Park.... them was the days for a young Irish bloke! |
| 5 hours ago | | We had this but Alex Cox’s Moviedrome and Arena were where the cool kids were |
| 5 hours ago (edited) | | In 1981 I was working in Dixon's (UK electrical & photographic shop) selling VCRs not just VHS but also Sony Betamax and Philips Video 2000 format cassette machines plus Philips 12" LaserDisc was around too. Sales of both VHS and Betamax were very good (that would soon change to just VHS) though even the cheapest machines were expensive. Sales of prerecorded films etc, quite expensive and limited in content was not a big thing. Most people's main reason for buying a VCR was recording material from TV channels, this would include film of course. It is easy today to forget what a massive change all of this was. Until then people had to tune in at a certain day and time to watch TV content or simply miss it and films (especially very big ones) would stay on the cinema circuit for many years, decades often and when they did finally filter through to TV , as with TV shows, it was a matter of being in front of your much in demand family TV at a certain day and time with the assent of your home hierarchy to watch it. The advent of VCR and later DVD/Blue Ray, streaming etc, now defunct rental and cheaper hardware, cheaper & fully comprehensive content to own etc, were not just technological and market changes they transformed people and the way we live. |
| 5 hours ago | | Good times. |
| 6 hours ago | | i do miss vhs😢📺📼 |
| 6 hours ago | | However much it cost, I wasnt going to buy Rain Man. I did though acquire Grind, starring Shanna McCullough in 1989 |
| 6 hours ago | | Watching a movie or TV series without knowing some reviews or Rotten Tomato score.
So primitive.
😉😜🤣 |
| 6 hours ago | | Never catch on |
| 6 hours ago | | In the days when a movie on a cassette felt like gold. Now it feels like dust. |
| 6 hours ago | | What he was saying was that basically Rain Man is s**t |
| 6 hours ago | | "Aaaaand why not? ". |
| 7 hours ago | | 0:51 And soon you won’t be able to own your own copies, with streaming making everything a permanent rental. We’ve gone backwards. |
| 7 hours ago | | And Batman was as well. Mr Norman predicting the future |
| 7 hours ago | | And, why not? |
| 7 hours ago | | Hollywood Video and local mom & pop stores blew away Blockbuster with indie films, cult classics and oddball titles. Blockbuster became known for big mainstream films and even in the '90s I stopped renting from them. |
| 7 hours ago | | In 20 years renting now is completely gone |
| 7 hours ago | | A time when people talked slower, clearer and made more sense |
| 7 hours ago | | It was 1978 and dad came home with a VHS player and half a dozen classic Bollywood movies. It was unreal back then having the cinema at home. Wow. Those were the days. |
| 7 hours ago | | The 'sell thru' copies were as mentioned in the video, repackaged versions on usually lower grade of tape and taken off a new master. Prior to about 1987, most 'sell thrus' (albeit not officially called that yet) were sold for the best part of £20 and still packaged in the original rental packaging and usually taken off the same master tape with trailers and all! They were basically later dupes of the original rental tape. |
| 7 hours ago | | Everything seems so calm and cultured |
| 7 hours ago | | I can't see these ever catching on. |
| 7 hours ago | | Why were they so convinced Rainman was gonna be a big seller, its not exactly the type of film you watch again and again and again.
The Mum buying the Disney tapes had the right idea, they would get a lot of use! |
| 7 hours ago | | I couldn't watch 'Film' when J Ross took over. |
| 7 hours ago | | I remember what I did as a kid in the 90’s for films I missed at the cinema I would rent them first to see if I liked them enough to want to own them as I did not want to annoy my Mum on storage issues & mess back then |
| 7 hours ago | | These people love Dustin Hoffman movies. |
| 7 hours ago | | 50 to 70 quid in 80s money, faaack |
| 8 hours ago | | I remember Barry, he did a some good pickled onions. |
| 8 hours ago | | Today I bought a movie called “The Family Man” on dvd from my local charity shop for 25p. On the cover it has a sticker saying “2 for £20 or £12.99 each” . I thought blimey they used to be quite expensive! |
| 8 hours ago | | I'm surprised that this report was from as late as 1989, I would have guessed that the market for buying movies on VHS had become a boom industry more around 1984 / 85. I certainly had a small collection of kids' stuff on VHS by 1987 / 88. |
| 8 hours ago | | On the estate that I grew up on there was a man who had about four video recorders constantly pirating the latest movies day and night and selling them around the estate for about £5 a video. I think he did quite well out of it for a number of years during the mid to late '80s and there was nothing wrong with them. They were all good quality as well and much cheaper than they were from retail 😂 |
| 8 hours ago | | I agree with these people. Just like color TV and the Internet, owning movies will never catch on. |
| 8 hours ago | | 02:08 shows why video rental stores went bust. Same as Kodak assuming that people would always want to shoot with film. |
| 8 hours ago | | Then Netflix came along and screwed it all up |
| 8 hours ago (edited) | | The chap at the end makes an interesting point about re-watchability... which was one of the main reasons I didnt own tons of dvds or vhs back in the day. When you think about that, ownership of films especially was always doomed to fail. Why would I spend money on a film I'm probably only going to watch once or that may be terrible? Streaming is essentially a modern day rental when you think about it |
| 8 hours ago (edited) | | Got my first VHS player in 1984. A top loading Magnavox with wired remote for $600. First movies I rented were Jaws (my all time favorite movie) and Cujo. First VHS movie I actually bought was the very first widescreen letterboxed edition of the Star Wars Trilogy in 1992 for $80 (the large blue box one with the hologram on it. Still have it). Didn't buy too many VHS after that. |
| 9 hours ago (edited) | | Glad moustaches are not cool 😎 anymore…. Phew ! |
| 9 hours ago | | I have rewatched Golden Rain Man many times. It's the one with Spurt Reynolds. Right? |
| 9 hours ago | | 2:10 the 80’s equivalent of the Blockbuster executive who told Netflix “sorry, not interested” |
| 9 hours ago | | Lest we forget that prior to VHS/home video, if a consumer wanted to "own" a popular movie like Star Wars, you were only really able to buy 8 minutes of footage on Super 8 film (at least in the US). The cost? $10 for B/W/Silent. $18 for Color/No Sound. $30 for Color/Sound. That was in the late 70's. |
| 9 hours ago | | Tbh I think both sides were right. People did buy Rain Man, watched it once. Bond movies, Star Wars, Star Trek would have been different and watched multiple times. |
| 9 hours ago | | Speaking in 2025. I can confirm: no. |
| 9 hours ago | | Where are the Laserdiscs? That was the way go own a movie! Wish we bought those. I thought my parents were nuts for renting me the same Tom and Jerry tape so many times in the mid 80s. I forget that they were probably $100 at the time. |
| 9 hours ago | | I am sure I was buying VHS movies well before 1989. |
| 9 hours ago | | Hey 1989 Video rental companies. You don't know me but my name is Netflix and I am about to become your doom! 😏 |
| 10 hours ago (edited) | | I still find it incredible that the film industry was able to make billions from selling us such a low quality product. I understand it has the nostalgic value attached to it now, but the fact that people still collect VHS is something I can't fathom. |
| 10 hours ago | | lol, this will never catch on
as i watch this youtube video from my vhs player 35 years later |
| 10 hours ago | | VHS was magic |
| 10 hours ago | | I totally forgot Ritz existed. 😮 |
| 10 hours ago | | I remember buying a copy of Animal Farm on VHS for £100 😮 |
| 10 hours ago | | I miss going to the rental on a Friday night picking the movies to watch over the weekend. |
| 10 hours ago | | The first time I bought a pre-recorded VHS was in 1986 from WHSmith at a cost of £24.99. Only a few years later those same titles were reduced to £9.99. I think there was also some cost cutting on the quality of the blank tape used. They used to clearly be branded Scotch, Sony, Maxell etc but when the prices dropped to £9.99 all the tapes seemed to be unbranded. A few of the 1990's tapes in my collection seem to be suffering from mould, but the older ones from the 1980's seem to have survived better. |
| 10 hours ago | | Barry Norman …..telling it like it is |
| 10 hours ago | | HMV really missed out on the whole streaming boom! |
| 10 hours ago | | and then dvd came along with no rental window delay, plus the ability to own complete seasons of tv shows as opposed to two or 3 episodes on a tape. |
| 10 hours ago | | 1989?! I can't believe it was so late on in the life of VHS that people came around to the idea of owning pre- recorded films. So basically the pre-recorded VHS market had 10 good years before DVD blew it out of the water! |
| 10 hours ago | | They will buy Blurays |
| 10 hours ago | | I have two little girls and every time we go into a charity shop or CEX and get three films for a pound etc, I am still blown away at how much money was originally spent on these things that are now almost nothing! Am sure my girls are getting bored of me telling them "That cost me £20 back in the nineties"! |
| 10 hours ago | | I was friends with someone in the 80s who always bragged about his family having a BetaMax. |
| 10 hours ago | | This was before they realised that subscriptions would make them more money and tie you in to their system. If you owned a physical copy you can do what you like with it, use it as often as you like and when you're bored with it - sell it. This has happened with all previously physical media including music, computer games and software, cars and bicycles... |
| 10 hours ago | | "Rain Man doesn't fall into the category of re-watchability" 😂 |
| 10 hours ago | | They had the original unedited Star Wars tapes on that shelf!!
I miss those days. |
| 10 hours ago | | Few rain men on there like |
| 11 hours ago | | That guy in rhe rental shop.....
😂😂😂😂😂😂😂 |
| 11 hours ago | | Will they? 🤔 |
| 11 hours ago | | "There will always be a market for rental"
Oh no there won't - the last vestige of that market died in 2017 when Amazon stopped Lovefilm.
Streaming services killed it or rather, I guess, replaced it - you are still effectively "renting" content, via a subscription fee. |
| 11 hours ago | | In 1984 the Terminator VHS would cost £119.99p |
| 11 hours ago | | Used to buy videos from W,H,Smith, HMV, Virgin back in the day. Used to rent movies too. My £10.00 pocket money got well spent lol! |
| 11 hours ago | | Barry nailed it at the end. Batman was indeed the next big video for sale pushed and was only £9.99 completely changing how we acquired the latest blockbusters. Buying new films on video seemed the norm after that. |
| 11 hours ago (edited) | | One of the greatest days of my life was when I was a teenager and DVD was being rolled out. HMV in Glasgow were doing an 'all stock must go' clearout of their VHS stuff and it was something like £2 each if you bought more than five. I ended up buying something like 40 or 50 films, most of the money I had on the card and mostly classics I hadn't gotten around to (at the time I had popular stuff like eg Ghostbusters or Terminator recorded off the TV) I spent the next 6 months becoming a proper film buff. My main regret is that the TV rips were meticulously done to cut out the adverts and nowadays I wish I'd had them left in. |
| 11 hours ago | | Look at streaming services now and now on blu ray and in 4K and still dvd |
| 11 hours ago (edited) | | Gosh how things have changed. They used to make you wait years to be allowed to buy movies on vhs and then dvd. Rental firms were killed off by postal rental of dvds who were themselves killed off by streaming. |
| 11 hours ago | | Fast forward to today, people may still be able to buy copies of their favourite films physically but if you wished to buy a copy for your very own digitally, you’ll have to access it via a rental system such as Netflix. Buying access is possibly but not the actual ownership. This is something I’d really like to change |
| 11 hours ago | | We forget, but so many shops closed because music and video went digital. And not just music and video shops, but shops like Woolworths(UK) took a huge knock due to music/video sales and eventually closed down after an economic downturn was the last straw. |
| 11 hours ago | | Batman 1989 became a huge seller when released in Spring 1990. |
| 11 hours ago | | Ah, those were the days. |
| 11 hours ago | | Marketing getting it wrong. Again. 😂 |
| 11 hours ago | | I worked in Our Price Records in the late 80s / early 90s. Batman was easily the biggest selling video of that era. |
| 11 hours ago | | First memory I've got about VHS was Betemax in the early 80s as a kid. Tapes were a bit smaller. |
| 11 hours ago | | Yes they will! |
| 11 hours ago | | Peter Smith of Channel 5 video has the same poster of the Prisoner behind him that I got when they released the episodes on VHS. |
| 11 hours ago | | my comments aren't allowed here LOL |
| 11 hours ago (edited) | | My best mate tells me off for still owning a pan n scanned copy of Bridge on The River Kwai on vhs. He gave me a widescreen dvd copy saying..."here is the other half of the picture !" |
| 11 hours ago | | Doovde are better... |
| 11 hours ago | | those were the days when you rented a movie on vhs then dvd came along |
| 11 hours ago | | I still have the original Star Wars trilogy on VHS - widescreen editions - which my wife bought for me when we were dating. |
| 12 hours ago | | In Canada the big chain video rental stores charged so much in late fees that buying a copy of a film that you may want to watch more than once seemed like a bargain. |
| 12 hours ago (edited) | | Yep I had a ton of purchased tapes back in the day. Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves was the big VHS release I remember that came out on the same day as rental. Fond memories of popping into John Menzies after work to pick it up!😁 |
| 12 hours ago | | Yeah, I'm fine with renting a video but it would be great to own a copy that I can keep on the shelf. |
| 12 hours ago | | Bless him, that chap in the rental shop couldn't have called that more wrong! I used to love buying tapes in the 1990s, had a whole bookshelf full of them! |
| 12 hours ago | | Why buy when you can 🏴☠!?🤣 |
| 12 hours ago | | I have all the British pathe new reviews from 1970-1990 on VHS and 1985 was the most violent |
| 12 hours ago | | Rain Man is rewatchable, I've seen it hundreds of times in my life, what is that guy on about? Autistic ignorant/discriminatory? Possibly. It's 1989, most people hadn't even heard of the word 'autistic' unless they'd watched Rain Man. I reckon he didn't even watch the film. |
| 12 hours ago | | I remember my Dad finding Hook in the supermarket for £4.99 and thinking it must have been a pricing mistake, but we took it to the till because if it was for that price, it was too good to miss. I had NEVER seen my Dad spontaneously buy something before (we weren't flush with cash). I was flabbergasted. |
| 12 hours ago (edited) | | 1:48 - The stack of blank cassettes for the impulse buy when paying - Oh happy days! £1 penalty charge if you'd returned the video and not rewound it... |
| 12 hours ago | | And to think we used to do this |
| 12 hours ago | | I remember buying Beauty and the Beast on VHS and it looked Stunning 😢 |
| 12 hours ago | | 0:12 and today they can be bought in the shops for 50p |
| 12 hours ago | | Always liked watching Barry Norman: Intelligent and witty without ever being supercilious. Wish he was around now. |
| 12 hours ago | | My first owned VHS: Back to the Future
My first owned DVD: Blade Runner
Great times! |
| 12 hours ago (edited) | | For reference, £10 in 1989 is £26 in early 2025.
A 14.99 copy of Rainmam on VHS would be like paying almost £40 today!
The Blu-ray version is £8 on Amazon currently. |
| 12 hours ago | | Streaming has stopped all the fun |
| 12 hours ago | | My dad was a tv engineer and got us a rare vr2000 vcr in early 80s. Top gun was always demoed for the first dolby pro- logic systems in home cinema stores.Good to own films but dont watch them too much or you spoil it. |
| 12 hours ago | | In 1985 if you wanted to own Return of the Jedi it would cost £84.99 for a copy from Virgin Megastore. I know this because I bought one with my first ever wage packet. The woman behind the counter thought I was mad and said these copies were really only for rental stores but I went ahead and got it anyway. |
| 12 hours ago | | Will people buy movies on VHS? And why not? |
| 12 hours ago | | my first rental was Carrie - £50 deposit and £10 for the rental. early 80s.
Fast Forward (or be kind, rewind) I rent 2 discs per time via Cinema Paradiso (dvd BD 4k) and have a film collection - Billy Wilder, Hitchcock, Hammer etc box sets plus all the Star Trek (again!!!) on 4k. I've limited the streaming to the bare bones - especially as they've sneaked in adverts. Make our own TV schedule from physical media.
Nice to see HMV featured - we have one in Cardiff 🙂 |
| 13 hours ago | | Remember the very early 80's, sipping a pint in the local pub on Friday evening and the local Arfur Daley doing his rounds selling pirated copies of movies which when played were terrible quality but it didn't make a lot of difference because I was too pissed anyway. |
| 13 hours ago | | Every town had it's own video shop. For a kid growing up in the 90s, it really was the only portal (outside of the library which dealt strictly in books) into the outside world. By the late 90s they started to close due to Blockbuster's dominance offering guaranteed copies of new movies. When DVDs suddenly dropped to £5-£10 buy in the mid 2000s and even the supermarkets got involved, you knew rental would be on it's way out. |
| 13 hours ago | | The rental market eventually won, steaming is just renting. |
| 13 hours ago (edited) | | Be kind, rewind! Places like HMV, Blockbuster Video, Jumbo etc. were great opportunities for young people to get summer jobs that didn't suck the life out of you. It was client facing, but you could be dismissive or look bored and get away with it. Cashiers at HMV were kind of expected to be elitist. |
| 13 hours ago | | Fond memories of renting a video for the weekend in the 80s, sitting down as a family to watch it, then finding that the previous renter hadn’t rewound the tape, and it seemed to take FOREVER to rewind! |
| 13 hours ago | | I miss going to the video shop with my Grandad…
Always one of first things I remember when I think about him |
| 13 hours ago (edited) | | Vuuuhse! Doovde! (Fonejacker) |
| 13 hours ago | | I remember renting videos in 1982/83 while at college. This film is 7 years later! And yes I still own a copy of Rainman on DVD it is a very good film. |
| 13 hours ago | | It’ll never sell (through). |
| 13 hours ago | | I only watch movies on YouTube or Tubi. |
| 13 hours ago | | I was born in 1984. My dad bought our first VCR for £700! We loved renting videos. I still buy my favourites on physical media, most of the DVDs I kept are in the cupboard but I've got around 300 Blu-rays and 130 4K UHDs on my bookcase. Streaming has it's place but why let companies choose what's available for you to watch when you can own them. 😎 |
| 14 hours ago | | My mate was a DJ at Radio HMV before we met at Radio Top Shop. That was about 18months after this was aired. Happy days. |
| 14 hours ago | | I remember as a child in the early 80s for my birthday party my parents went to the village video shop, not just to hire a film (The Secret of Nimh), but also a VHS machine and a colour telly (we only had a tiny B&W). The world has moved on... |
| 14 hours ago | | 2025 Yes! |
| 14 hours ago | | I was a young child during the mid to late 80s but vividly remember us renting tapes from our local Ritz. |
| 14 hours ago | | I can't belive people in 2025 still buy DVDs to keep in their 'collection'. I stream everything now and download the movies I like FOR FREE. Why 'collect' movies on disc? It's nuts and a total waste of money. |
| 14 hours ago | | Brings back great memories of when I started collecting movies on VHS before upgrading to dvd , Blu rays and now 4k UHD 👌👌👌👌 |
| 14 hours ago | | How do you get your hands on these sell through VHS tapes? I’ve finally left the house and had a wander down my high street but the Blockbusters has gone. Very strange. |
| 14 hours ago | | I still miss the ritual of renting DVDs. I used to travel 7 or 8 miles to a local town. Watching a film was an event.
Now, we have 1000s of films on tap and it's hard to muster the enthusiasm to press the streaming app button on the remote, never mind trawl through the catalogue. |
| 14 hours ago | | Err, Rainman was pretty good, I've rewatched it a few times! |
| 14 hours ago | | And the VHS market would be golden for only 10 years until DVDs appeared. And 15 years after that the whole physical media market would be in a state of irreversible decline. |
| 14 hours ago | | Meanwhile the video porn market is at a gazillion pounds annually |
| 14 hours ago | | I still have videos on the shelf from the 1980s that I bought and only watched once. |
| 14 hours ago | | Nah, it's just a fad. It will never catch on... |
| 14 hours ago | | People were buying them in 1984, never mind 1989. |
| 14 hours ago | | The HMV Oxford St video wall. As a teenager I would go there just for that, and the live dj booth! |
| 14 hours ago | | 2:14 I think guy is about to get egg on his face |
| 14 hours ago | | Guess we back where we started with streaming another word for rental. |
| 14 hours ago | | Barry was one of the best film reviewers ever, whether you'd agree with him or not. RIP Mr. Norman. |
| 14 hours ago | | And collectors still do. Sometimes for thousands of dollars each |
| 14 hours ago | | Fast forward to 2025 and video rental stores don't exist, entertainment retail is pretty much dead, physical media is all but dead. Digital libraries can be turned off or revoked at any point if the platform you buy the digital copy on gets shut down or has licensing issues. |
| 15 hours ago | | Barry Norman was so utterly dismissive and opinionated. |
| 15 hours ago | | Simpler days when I and my siblings used to fight for the remote. |
| 15 hours ago | | 0:29 £14.99 is almost £39 adjusted for inflation! As people say luxuries used to be expensive and housing cheap now it’s reversed! |
| 15 hours ago | | I did actually rush out and buy Rainman on VHS. It was and still is one of my favourite films. |
| 15 hours ago | | The presenter was right about "What's all this Sell through nonsense, why can't they just use sale?" it didn't really catch on. |
| 15 hours ago | | It's films not movies |
| 15 hours ago (edited) | | My local video shop charged a whopping £2.50 for the top titles during this time, and I had to show two recent bills, blood tests and a pound of my own flesh. Still, Batman was very good, and my then-girlfriend loved "Pretty Woman". Worth a fiver of anyone's money. 😀 |
| 15 hours ago (edited) | | Rental guy says nah...demand for buying will be low.
Selling guy (HMV) says demand for buying will explode.
Warner Bros guy says you will love to own Rain Man, the data said so.
Some dude says Rain Man is not rewatchable.
Take your pick of whichever monkey appeals to you.
Sell through means selling to end consumer as opposed to sell-in which means selling to a retailer, ie the rental market. I should know I work in market analysis making me another monkey...with bananas! |
| 15 hours ago | | Shade on Rain Man. |
| 15 hours ago | | 2:12 he was right then wrong, right now people are ditching streaming wrong again. |
| 15 hours ago | | I remember as a child it felt so long waiting for a video to rewind ... I remember dvds appearing for first time, and now they are slowly going the same way as VHS because of streaming . |
| 15 hours ago | | It's actually remarkable how we moved on so fast to cd and dvds and now everything is online in just or 30 or 40 years |
| 15 hours ago | | I remember that some video shops would sell a portion of secondhand rental films a few weeks after release. It was a gamble though as some popular films had been rented out so many times that the tape would be damaged. |
| 15 hours ago | | VHS was a good jack-of-all-trades video format - more convenient than Laserdisc, cheaper than Betamax and Video 2000, and more reliable than CED. Until DVD, it was the most well-rounded. |
| 15 hours ago | | In 1989, I worked for a few months in a high street chain that no longer has a "record department." The sale through thing had just started; it might surprise you that the top selling VHS back then was a Calisthenics exercise video, we literally had piles of them behind the counter.
Also, a Disney release was a big thing back then, because a Disney film would only be available to buy for a few months before it was withdrawn for a while. |
| 15 hours ago | | I spent a fortune buying films (and concerts), they took up an incredible amount of space and the quality was rubbish (marginally better than the chewed up copies from the local video rental). Couldn't give them away so they were binned and now reside in a large hole in the ground as per discarded Lego. The same thing then happened with DVDs. I'm sure that when technology is sufficiently improved my 4kBDs will suddenly seem unwatchable due to their poor quality and I'll be looking to secure an 8K remaster of Blade Runner. |
| 15 hours ago | | 36 years later and I'm watching this on a phone screen with my collection of about 400 Blurays in a cabinet next to me 😂 |
| 15 hours ago (edited) | | The biggest change not disgust was you could now watch p0rn at home instead of a seedy cinema or glossy mag, so I've been told :) |
| 15 hours ago | | What did that lady mean by "shows for my husband and I" while darting those eyes around |
| 15 hours ago | | Quite reasonable at only a toe and a finger. |
| 15 hours ago | | Barry Norman only streams movies from the cloud these days. |
| 15 hours ago | | “Lockdown price”? (Le gasp) |
| 15 hours ago | | It’ll never catch on! |
| 15 hours ago | | Laserdisc was (and in some cases even today still is) the king. VHS as an audio format though, is surprisingly good. |
| 15 hours ago | | And today you can't give them away !! |
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