Not many people I’ve talked to appreciate the technology of Videocassette Recorders (VCR). It is a matured technology – the first VCR made for home use was back in 1965 by Sony – and low cost compares to Digital Video Recorder (DVR). I clean the video heads and change my tapes regularly. Four hours long of standard recording in one videocassette is good enough for the occasional short overseas trips, evening outings, and even a World Cup match.
After 8 years of service, my Philips VCR finally broke down.
First thing on my mind was to get it repaired but as my friends pointed out, it is an old VCR and it is more worthwhile considering other options. I can either get a (1) S$300 DVR from my cable TV provider that comes with a small monthly subscription fee, (2) S$600+ DVR that allows me to archive my favorite programs into DVDs that option 1 doesn’t, (3) S$1,000 high end DVR that has HDMI output, or (4) get a new VCR.
Last year, I would have picked up option 2 or 3 in a blink of thought. Right now, I am in the money saving mood and hence thinking hard before parting my hard earned money.
As I hit the stores, I am surprised that VCRs are no longer on the shelves. Singapore is still not on High Definition (HD) broadcast and why in such a hurry to take out such a wonderful technology that still serves well with today’s broadcast signal quality? Clean the heads and change the tapes often like I do and the downgrade in quality is not that observable. In the end, I found that Mustafa still sells VCRs with prices that range from S$125 to S$285.
How odd that I didn’t even wish to part my S$125. At the back of my mind, Singapore is going to have HD broadcast this year and by then, VCR will most likely be obsolete. Still undecided, I headed home to reconsider my game plan.
This afternoon, I wanted to open up my old VCR to attempt to repair it myself. If I could get the yet-to-be-watched “So You Think You Can Dance” tape out, that would be an achievement because seriously, I don’t claim to know electronic equipment well enough to repair them.
It was quite a scene looking at what was underneath the hood. I saw my “So You Think You Can Dance” cassette secured by a metal cage with pieces of the tape running through a couple of rollers and a shinny huge cylindrical metal that called video head. The instruction on the metal cage said: to remove the cassette, push down the latches on the side and push this plate forward. With my two hands, how am I to do three things at a time? I tried and failed. I switched on my power supply thinking that it must have been some electronic voodoo mechanism that would eject the tape if I managed to do these three things at once. No luck. Instead, I got lots of mild electric shocks while doing that. I turned to look at one of my screwdrivers that has a light bulb inside and it lit up! That translated to a presence of electricity. Out of curiosity, I used my screwdrivers to poke the places that used to give me electric shocks (like TV cable) and true enough, the light bulb lit up. All along I thought it was because of my body that is prone to electric shocks.
I nearly destroyed my VCR and my “So You Think You Can Dance” cassette while yanking the cassette out using brutal force. I found a very fine and loose spring after the act. The moment I switched on my VCR, the motors were in action. My VCR must have detected the absence of a cassette and all the parts have returned to their original positions. My heart jumped when I heard the sound of the machine as though it was coming back to live. But my joy did not last long. My VCR went dead as before. I tried many other things with no luck. In the end, I googled my problem and somewhere I read: to turn off the modulator, press and hold the ON switch of the remote control for a few seconds. There are other amazing stuffs such as hold the Stop/Eject button for a few seconds to do this and that. Suffice to say, none of those Internet search nor list of problems address my current issue.
Anyway, I whipped out my VCR remote control, pointed it to my VCR, and pressed the button so hard thinking that if it does not work, so be it. I don’t know if the VCR remote control button that did it or a combination of everything with the tape out and all. I don’t even want to find out how my VCR got into such a state to start with. I don’t care and I am happy because it works.
All complex problems have simple solutions and you may travel a long journey just to discover the answer lies right where your home is. If you think that playing adventure games like Sam & Max, that requires you to try everything possible and half of the time you found the solutions by chance, reality is not that far off. Right now, I have a working VCR that I am not sure how long it would last after an “operation” from an unskilled electrician. To the least, my reward would be my missing episode of “So You Think You Can Dance”. I doubt if Cynthia will notice that our VCR is back to where it was. She is in for a surprise tonight.