Archaic Archiving
I was over at /. reading the latest Blu-Ray story’s comments (shoot me). Someone posted this up about VHS and the beginning of DVDs:
“[VHS] was so dumb, that people didn’t even mind loosing the ability to record TV when they moved over [to DVD].”
I never really thought about that before, but it is true. When I first got into DVDs, sometime in 1999, I pretty much threw my VCR away. Looking back on it I can’t believe I made that transition so easily. I was a recording maniac. I recorded so many movies and shows. I don’t know how or why I just gave it up like that when DVD came around. I can’t remember if Tivo was around then, but I know I sure as hell didn’t have it or any other DVR yet. And I definitely didn’t have a DVD Recorder until a few years later. How did I just give up “archiving” so easily? I can’t really figure it out.
Between my DVR and DVD recorder and PC’s DVD+-RW I can save as much crap as I want to, but I tend not to now. Atleast nowadays I know that the chances are that almost anything that airs on TV will be released on DVD soon enough so I don’t feel the need to record every episode (or any episode for that matter) of a show I like. Six years ago I couldn’t say that.
I guess it is something I will never figure out.