That's So Last Century


Recommended Posts

There's a new 3 part T.V. programme called "That's So Last Century" starts on Tuesday 8th December on Channel 4 at 10pm.

The programme is about Gadgets and includes huge mobile phones, VHS Recorders, Walkmans and the Spectrum computer. It sounds as though it might be interesting looking back and worth a watch

  • Upvote 7
Link to post
Share on other sites

Talking of VHS do you remember betamax

Best wishes

Peter

Link to post
Share on other sites

Does it cover "working for a living" too....... :rotfl:

Link to post
Share on other sites

It was better quality DaveN, that's why the vast majority of TV stations used Betamax cameras for recording video on assignment right up to their replacement with digital cameras.

Big problem Sony had with the Betamax was it needed a lot of bandwidth for data, took them ages to overcome the recording time limitations with their tapes that VHS format didn't have. Eventually they slowed the tape speed down to accomadate mre data, but lost quality, but still far superior to VHS. We had a Toshiba Betamax and a VHS tape player/recorder too. Much preferred the Toshiba, far better picture quality.

The "war" between the two recording formats was won using the printed media.

Link to post
Share on other sites

I think Beta was generally acknowledged to be better than VHS, but V2000 was supposed to be better still. I think we ended up with VHS because of politics in the industry.

FWIW, I still have a VHS player under the telly but haven't used it for years and chucked out hundreds of vids last year. Couldn't give them away.

I have a smartphone, also a cute little Sansa Clip MP3 player, a tablet and a PC and a smart telly. But I still play vinyl and occasionally 78s via my hi-fi. I'm in the process of getting into audio 'streaming', so all of my CDs can be loaded to a server and accessed at will.

I replaced my Cassette player with a CD recorder which will record from any analogue or digital audio source onto a hard drive and then burn to CD. I use it mostly for digitising vinyl.

Some people are going over entirely to streaming all their music choices in high res from the internet, via subscription, but I'm not going that far yet.

I suppose I've got a foot in this century and the last.... :)

Col

Link to post
Share on other sites

#1 Thanks DaveN for telling us this was on. I have just watched episode 1 on Channel 4 catchup. Brilliant!

I strongly disagree with what they said about the BBC computer being useless. In 1991 I used to do all the external exam entries for a school using a BBC computer and a Dialup connection. It worked but I had to do it after school because if the phone rang we were cut off and had to start sending the file again. All the entries for one exam board had to go in one file. It was so much better than doing entries on paper because the data was stored on disc and you could print all the lists you wanted.

I had a cassette tape player in my car and I made up a tape of Bohemian Rhapsody over and over again for the full length of the tape. It was great driving music.

The way the people struggled with the cameras reminded me of the woman with the can opener in Back in Time for Christmas! When I was 11 my parents bought me a Boots Comet 11S camera and I never had a problem putting film in. That was the camera I used until after I was married. iPhones, tablets, laptops and other modern pieces of equipment do much of the work for us and make it easy. I have also noticed that now many pieces of equipment have their instructions as a set of diagrams. The Dyson cleaner does. This is a dumbing down but it does have the advantage that you do not need a book with the same thing in 20 languages!

I look forward to watching episode 2 tomorrow, or actually later today!

Link to post
Share on other sites

I was fascinated by my Wheelo, the slight hum and the smooth running up and down and round the framework. Thanks for the picture Mick, I have tried to remember what they were called to bring it to the attention of the Forum for ages.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...