I Don't Know About That - VHS, Betamax, LaserDisc

Episode Date: July 16, 2024

Kevin Rowland AKA Trayne Rekk: A Goodtime Charlie from Okotoks, Alberta, Canada who collects and loves anything involving music and movies. Kevin opened a TV/Stereo repair shop then eventually became a Radio Shack. The last 15 years Kevin has been making a living playing music with the Hillbilly Punk & Roll band, ‘Puttin' On The Foil’. Their two albums ‘Fired up, Ready To Roll’ and ‘Sing-A-Long Drinkin’ Songs’ are available on all the streaming sites and youtube. Go to www.puttinonthefoil.ca Watch the music video for the Doohickeys' "Rein It In Cowboy": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDHf9alkjCI ADS: BETTERHELP: Visit http://www.BetterHelp.com/IDK today to get 10% off your first month.

Comparison is the thief of joy, and it's easy to envy others and what they have. It might look like they have their lives sorted on social media, Instagram and whatnot, but in reality they don't, they're just like you. Therapy can help you focus on what you want and not what other people have. Stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash idk today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash idk. Stupid people.

Intelligent people. And the people in between. If the aliens come down, who should talk to them first? You might find out, and I don't know about that, with Jim Jefferies. So who should we send? If the aliens come down in the big spaceships, should we send our smartest and brightest, our in-betweenest, or our dumbest? Send Austin Butler.

I think we send our dumbest. Just to see if they get evaporated with a gun quickly. Just send a dummy up quickly. Hey there, Mr. Airplane Monster. Well, apparently they're already abducting those people. Mr. Airplane Monster, who's come visit. I just want to... Yeah.

All right, all right. Well, next time we'll send a moderately intelligent person in a fireproof suit we'll see how that works out and then we'll build our way up to our most intelligent and they have to be different varying degrees of good looking i would send whatever race looks the most like them first so they feel more familiar which i assume would be some type of silver we got any silver short people already in there's those guys in times square yeah we'll say we'll send people we'll send one of those blokes who does the statues where he doesn't move he'll be the first bloke i think the aliens will find that really interesting yeah but they're gonna keep talking to him and he's

just like whatever whatever information whatever information they've been given to outer space about us, we'll all be wrong if they see statue guy. And then we'll send the bloke who's sitting elevated, but he's holding a staff where clearly it's going down his cloak, and there's a seat. He always needs a rug underneath. Yeah. But it does look good.

The yogis, the fake yogis. Yeah, the fake yogis sitting on a plate that goes down their arm. This is coming out in middle of July, but I just did get a... Because I still have it from the Jim Jefferies show. I just got a notification about something that happened that you sent me. It was Jerry Seinfeld. Yeah. That was fun.

Oh, you didn't know? Oh, Jerry Seinfeld mentioned me on stage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't know that Jerry Seinfeld knew who I was, so I was quite excited. There was an... I've been watching Jerry Seinfeld, the TV series, since I was a teenager. It was a big deal for me.

So when Jerry Seinfeld, in front of 20,000 Australians... One of two shows that night. Yeah, one of two shows. Because Seinfeld's huge in Australia. The TV show's still played on network TV every day. And someone went in there and wanted to argue about what's going on in the Middle East. I'm not going to get involved in that conversation. And then he said, oh, great, you fixed the world.

It's great. Spot on what I just did then. And then he went, how about you go to a Jim Jeffery show and talk about the Aboriginals while he's performing in New York which is a good point although well I guess it's ongoing what's happening with the Aboriginals but the worst

of it was 240 years ago the worst of it yeah it's not as current it's not as current we're having referendums on the Aboriginals It's not as current. It's not as current. We're having referendums on the Aboriginals on how much we say they should have in the government. Yeah. And what's going over there is different. Did you reach out to Jerry?

No, not yet. Well, speaking of Australia, you're going to get that. I don't have Jerry's phone number. But if Jerry Seinfeld is listening to the podcast, which he might. He definitely would. He might. We might have him on as a guest. Yeah.

What would he be an expert on? Seinfeld. The problems in the Middle East. Well, you see, there's a boss. No, but. That is funny that that's the impression, even though he doesn't... He only does that, he only hits those notes when he's...

Every once in a while. Every... It's a pick. Every now and again, he does... He ever does it, that's the standard impersonation, because the rest of him's not like that, no?

Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I thought it was cool that he knew who I was. And look, let's be honest, he could have gone Hannah Gatsby. Could have been his other option. Yeah, I don't think that's... Knowing what Jerry said in the news media... I don't think he's a Hannah Gatsby fan.

Yeah, I don't think he even thinks about her. What are the other big Australian comics? I know we've talked about it before. Oh, well, there's plenty that are big there. Dave hughes is really big carl baron international i guess international stand-up jim and hannah really me and hannah gatsby are the sort of the the biggest but but now with streamers it'll be a different experience we'll see we'll see a lot more australians come cool you know like breaking another country like when i guess ronnie chang we're not ronnie chang so ronnie chang's arguably an australian comic he's bigger than me ronnie chang you know

so ronnie chang you kind of started comedy in australia right i started coming in australia then i started he started coming in australia ronnie started ronnie's like amos is one of amos's best buds and they started out together. But he has ties to the Australian comedy circuit. Yes, Ronny Chieng. Yeah, he's very big. Ronny Chieng. Yeah, but you would be the still go-to for the Australian. Because you're Australian.

Your voice is Australian. Australian talky-talky. I can do his voice as well, though, but frowned upon. I wouldn't recommend it. Wouldn't recommend it. Don't do it. Ronny Chieng as Seinfeld. Peace of the least. That's what I'm saying. but frowned upon I wouldn't recommend it wouldn't recommend it don't do it Ronnie Chang as Seinfeld

that's what I'm saying don't do it don't do it I'm going to do all my impersonations don't do it you're going to be in Australia

August 1st through or most of August you're going to be touring to the 18th all but sold out but there's still there's been added shows

such places as Cameron starting September 5th the Charm Offensive Tour with me and touring to the 18th. All but sold out, but there's still, there's been added shows. Yeah. Such places as Cambrian. Starting September 5th, the Charm Offensive Tour with... Me and the car, man. I'm really looking forward to that. It's going to be something special. All throughout Canada, there's dates in September and October. So go check out the Charm Offensive Tour.

You can find these on Jim's website, jimjeffries.com. And then also in America, you'll be touring as well. September 13th in St. Louis and September 14th in Atlanta, you will be with Mark Norman and Dan Soder in both those cities. Triple headline show. Come and see us. You know, if this works out, this is how we – the idea is like this is how you start like the Blue Collar Tour

and the Kings of Comedy Tours and things like that. You know, go and see like these packaged things with different comics. You know what the good thing about it is? If you're a fan of mine, you might become a fan of theirs. And if you're a fan of theirs, you might become a fan of mine. You never know. All three different styles. All really funny.

When you see people live, they take on a different energy to when you've seen their specials. You might not know you like someone until you see them live. That's true. And then you've got other U.S. dates, Detroit, Milwaukee, Kalamazoo, Minneapolis, Tucson, Phoenix, Denver, et cetera. I've been everywhere, man.

I've been everywhere. If you're here in California, July 30th. It's a great song. You're always tapping your foot when you hear it. I do like that song. I've been everywhere. Cincinnati. Kansas City. See that one live, though.

That one live is crazy. I've been everywhere, man. I bet you haven't been to Tucson. I fucking have. Name another place. Been there, too. Name it. Name it.

Been there. Been there. Been there. Johnny Cash's crowd work in the middle of that song. I can't wait to get a Johnny Cash expert on the show that's gonna be so good blow up

I'll be someone who's full of shit we gotta get him in person but they won't know about you can still know about Johnny Cash why why would you

spend the time July 25th unless you made the fucking movie we'll get Eugene back for it July 20 oh yeah

July 25th I'll be at the Hollywood Impwood improv for my shawesome show it's my monthly show and then july 30th punchline in san francisco july 31st the punchline in sacramento so come out to one of those shows and i'll be at the comedy nest in montreal august 22nd through 24th and i have a huge tour in florida sept October. August in Montreal. Yeah. Woo-woo. Lots of French ladies. Summer. Poutine.

Poutine. How do they keep their bodies so good with all the poutine? No one knows. It's a mystery. I hike around in the summer. Go to foreshaw.net. All my shows are on there and check it out.

I got merch and stuff on there now too. So fun times. Jack, what do you got going on? Go follow the Doohickeys everywhere on the internet. Reigning Cowboy is out. Go listen to it.

Reigning on a cowboy. Reigning on a cowboy. Reign it in. It's about golden showers. Not golden showers. Golden cowboy. Yeah, yeah. Like golden cowboy. Not golden showers. Golden cowboy. Yeah, yeah. Like a golden cowboy.

Yeah. Da, da. All right. Please welcome our guest, Kevin Rowland. G'day, Kevin. Now it's time to play. Yes, though. Yes, though.

Yes, though. Yes, though. Judging a book by its cover. All right. All right, Kevin. Kevin's into heavy metal and chicks, man. Kevin's got the quintessential Farrah Fawcett poster and he's covered the best bit with a guitar. So that's a lot of, I don't know what's going on there.

I don't know who the girl next to it is. It might be Shania Twain, younger or something like that. Cheryl Teagues. Cheryl Teagues. I thought it was a young Lisa Vanderpump there, underneath there for a second. A Johnny Cash poster, which I'm always excited to see. Kiss. a second um a johnny cash poster which i'm always excited to see uh kiss god i i disagree with a lot of your musical choices here kevin kiss adjust makeup they're fucking shit kiss you want me to

move the guitar so you can see your eight smarties high nipples yeah i know well no i know that poster don't worry about that that's number one selling poster in the 1970s i could do a whole podcast on that poster uh that changed hairdos around the country um uh yeah kiss it's just makeup everything's just i want to rock all night i've rocked tonight i'm gonna rock in the morning rock rock rock rock rock which acdc do better but they fucking pump yeah anyway let's uh okay so let's uh let's go so he likes chicks guitars and music kevin he also is putting on the i'm gonna say ritz under the t-shirt or i don't know what it says putting on myself putting on the foil all right okay it's a drug reference is it i don't know i was thinking maybe a hat foil foil hat. Oh, he could be a foil. He could be a tin hat.

Maybe the greatest movie of all time. Slap shot with Paul Newman. Slap shot. All right. Are we doing ice hockey? We're not. We already did that with Joe Bartnick. I know.

It's true. But I thought. I just gave you a hint here with what this is. Are we doing record LPs? Oh, that is a hint, actually, what he just showed you. It's not an LP. It's not an LP. A record.

No, it's a movie, Slapshot. Slapshot. We're doing sports movies. No. The movies of sports. Movies is a hint. Movies. What's that movie on?

Ice hockey. No, no. Physically on. How would you watch that? That was a laser disc Ice hockey. No, no. Physically on. How would you watch that? That was a laser disc. Yeah. There you go. We're not doing laser discs, are we?

We're doing discontinued home media. VHS, Betamax, and laser discs. Oh, yeah, I'm down for this. Yeah, I know this. I know this. There's one thing we forgot was the CED, but I got one of those, too. We got to talk about that.

What is that? The CED. That's what the R those, too. We got to talk about that. What is that? The CED. That's what the RCA came out to compete with Laserdisc. Oh, I've never heard of that one. It basically looks like a vinyl. It comes out. Yeah, I've never heard of that one. All right, let me introduce Kevin.

Kevin Rowland, a.k.a. Trainwreck, is a good-time Charlie from Okotox, Alberta, Canada, who collects and loves anything involving music and movies Kevin opened a TV and stereo repair shop and that eventually became a radio shack and then the last 15 years Kevin has been making a living playing music with the Hillbilly Punk and Roll Band I'm sorry, Hillbilly Punk and Roll Band

Putting on the Foil, their two albums Fired Up, Ready to Roll and Sing Along Drinking Songs are available on all streaming sites and YouTube you can go to www.puttinonthefoil.ca um yeah you wait so you owned a radio shack but those all went under right eventually um yeah circuit city uh took them over up here in canada but then now then yeah now they're just called the source which is weird because we have that's the number one porn store called the source here too there was always confusion the number one porn store like you had several no they were all

no there was we get up in calgary every corner had a porn store but they're like it's crazy and then we didn't have we had less stripper joints i think i couldn't figure it out yeah how do you say is is it Okotok? Is that where you're from? It's Okotoks. Okotoks, Alberta, Canada. All right. It's just south of Calgary there in Alberta.

And it's, Okotoks stands for rock, I guess, the Blackfoot. We have this big giant rock that's just outside Okotoks. That's the biggest erratic in the world. You can look it up, the big rock. The biggest rock in the world. Bigger than Uluru. Couldn't be bigger than all the rue it's called it it's called an erratic because it moved from the mountain up the rocky

mountains and it supposedly is the biggest erratic oh so like a boulder like one that can actually move that it isn't actually because all the rue is connected to the ground yeah okay i get what you're saying biggest loose rock pretty neat to see though like i've grew up all around it so you can't take it for granted, but it's out there and you drive by it. You can't take it for granted. Oh! T-shirts incoming. Quartz or something? I don't know. Alright. Well, I'm gonna ask Jim a series of questions on VHS, Betamax, and Laserdisc.

Yeah, I know all these. And then at the end of answering these questions, you're going to grade them on accuracy 0 through 10. Jackson, grade them on his confidence. I'm going to grade them on a hungry animal. Every time these things came along, people went, we won't improve on this. And then there was always my mate who stockpiled their house with them.

Like, I've got every movie you ever want to see. They're all sitting behind me on a wall. I had a friend who did that with DVDs, and he did, like, every movie you could imagine was ready to go if you want to pick a movie, they're almost gone. Well, you can get all of them online on Amazon or whatever. It's pointless. 21 through 30.

But it's pretty crazy how the collection, you see these guys, they're selling these. Some of these are worth a ton, and people are buying them all over the place. It's crazy how they're still kicking around. I know that Pete Davidson bought a whole lot of sealed VHSs because he thought that was going to be the new vinyl, and now he's got ones that are going for lots of money. Oh, really?

He bought them all for $10 and something. Pete Davidson bought a whole lot of... If you've got it like... I do a little bit of sports collecting cards, and I do a little bit of this. Try to keep your collection small. Video cassettes. Large things.

If you score 21 through 30, you're the sidekick. Remember that thing? No. Little film thing. 11 through 20, the fax machine. I don't even know how that's still around. No, you still need fax machines every now and again. You do.

You do. Every now and again, you need to fax a document. You have to fax to doctor's offices or something. Yeah. I agree with you. Sometimes there's a contract that needs faxing or something. There's some things. Zero through ten, iron lung.

Oh, wow. I wonder, did that work, the iron lung? Yeah, it did. Yeah, it worked. Just helped you breathe, did it? It was very bulky. What was the idea behind the iron lung? Now they'd put you on a respirator or something like that,

but I think it was just to, yeah. Just to make your lungs work. Yeah. It basically had pressure. It was pressurized. It was making you breathe. Now they'd put you on a respirator or something like that, but I think it was just to, yeah. Just to make your lungs work. Yeah. It basically had pressure. It was pressurized. It was making you breathe. I forget what disease it was for.

It was like tuberculosis or something. Tuberculosis. What was VHS? Video. Yeah, what does it stand for is another question. Video home cassette. S. V- is another question. Video home cassette. S. V-H-R, video home.

I don't know. It's a tape that you can put into a video player, and they came in two sizes. VHS was the bigger one. Yeah. Beta was the smaller one. We were a beta family. Really? My mother went all in on beta.

I don't ever use beta. So did my mom. And held on to the smaller one. We were a beta family. Really? My mother went all in on beta. I don't ever use beta. So did my mom. And held on to the bitter end. You'd go down to the video store, there'd be like five beta videos. And beta was meant to be better quality. And I believe Sony went all in on beta. There was one company that went all in on beta. We'll get to that.

And had the patent on beta. And then VHS went, well, fuck it, we'll do these bigger cassettes, and then that was open to all players. I think Sony keeps getting... Oh, no. Sony ended up investing in Blu-ray, I think. Well, we'll get to it. Blu-ray's the best of them all.

Who and when was VHS invented? Who invented it and when? Hmm. Well, I would say that VHS was invented in like see when was it popularized versus when was it I distinctly remember watching the original Star Wars on VHS and having all the kids from the street come over the house and we rented a video player to play the machine as well like it was all going on um so exciting yeah and so and I can remember those days and I was born in 1977 so was so exciting yeah and so and i can remember those days

and i was born in 1977 so i can remember that and so that would have been 1982 or something like that when that video came out in australia so it had to be invented before 1982 i'm gonna say see invention versus when did it go on the market are two different things i'm saying when did it go on the market and when was the first VCR available? All that stuff. I'm going to say it first went on the market in 1980. And that's when you first started having your VHS recordings. But it would have been invented in the 70s.

Do you know the first cell phone call was made in the early 70s? Yeah. Right? And it was a guy from Motorola. And you know who he rang? AT&T because they had the monopoly 70s. Yeah. Right? And it was a guy from Motorola. And you know who he rang? AT&T, because they had the monopoly on all those towers. And he rang the guy from AT&T to do, it was the first trolling, right?

He rang him up to go, I'm out on the street with no wire, not in a car, because they had car phones already. And I'm just talking to you from out in the street, right? And then someone's like, who is this? And you went, ah, wrong number.

My battery's dying. Yeah, so the first phone call from a cellular phone was the wrong number. I'm surprised we haven't done mobile phones yet. What did the first VCRs cost? In today's money? Not back then, but, you know, still was a lot. I'm going to reference it back to the... Okay, so the first phones cost the equivalent of like $10,000 in today's money.

So I'm going to say it was a similar type of technology. I'm going to say it's a $10,000, $15,000 purchase. Really? First VCRs? First VCRs. $15,000 in then money or now money? Now money, now money, now money. Then money, then money, $5,000. Okay.

When was the last VCR made? Probably this week sometime. You think they're still making them? I still think that someone would have to make them. I'm telling you they're not. That's silly. Someone should get into that. I think they'll figure it out.

When was the last VCR made? I would say 2005. How long could you record on a VHS? Oh, depending on the size of the tape, but I remember three-hour tapes. Yeah, you know what they were called, the types of tapes? There was a 90-minute tape, which was a very popular one. Nah, 90, three hours.

I'll say three hours 30. What was the first movie released on VHS, and what was the last one? First one's a tough one. I don't know if you know what this is. I'm going to say Cum Sluts 3 was the first film. And Cum Sluts 14 was the last film. Okay.

What was the main advantage of... You've got to watch all of them. You'll never follow the story. What was the main advantage of Betamax over VHS and why did it ultimately fail in the market? It was smaller, which is better, because smaller is better because you have to store these things.

But they believed that the picture quality was better on a Betamax video. And then why did it fail? You were kind of talking about it. It was failed because I believe Sony had all the rights to it, and so no one else could make any machines for it. It might have been another company, but I believe it was Sony, had all the rights, so no one else could make any of the machines.

So all the other companies went, well, we'll just do this bigger size, and then everyone had bought those machines at a more reasonable price, and I think Sony even started making VHS machines as well. So it sort of went out of fashion. Okay. That next one is kind of what we were talking about already. When did Betamax start and when did it end?

And what did a Betamax cost? I believe Betamax was before VHS. So I'm going to say that Betamax happened 1977 was the first machine you could buy and that would have been like, you know, people using it for fucking instructional science and shit like that. But people having them in their homes, 1980, I believe that Betamax went all the way up

until the last one would have been made in 1990. Okay. Why is it called Betamax went all the way up until the last one would have been made in 1990. Okay. Why is it called Betamax? Beta testing is when you test something to see if it's going to be good for the masses, and it was tested by a guy called Max. What role did Betamax play in the development of the camcorder, and why did their version fail? Betamax probably had a camcorder

where you could put beta cassettes into the side of the video player, and you could put it straight in and record it, because the other ones were little tiny discs that you had to transport or plug the machine into your TV, and they would have had one that had the full video that went in there, but it failed for the same reason it did because people weren't using beta.

Okay. What is the Betamax case, legal case, and why is it significant in legal history? It's a plastic type of thing. A legal case. A real good... Oh, okay. history? It's a plastic type of thing. No legal case. Real good. Oh, okay. Well, it's a leather pouch.

The legal case was they believed that VHS were copying what they were doing and they had the proprietary technology. And then the courts probably went nah you can't have monopoly on information okay how did Sony's commitment to Betamax impact their business strategy you kind of already talked on that what was Laserdisc Laserdisc was a large version like a DVD that was the size of an LP which was was a great big disc, and it could be played on both sides. And to this day, it's the best quality original Star Wars

you can get before they add in all the bullshit and all that type of stuff. If you want to have all the original crap without Lucas pissing all over the film, that is the LaserDisc. How much time is on each side? I'd say 90 minutes and a half. Okay.

And then... It was very popular. LaserDisc became very popular in the classical music genre. I knew a man who owned... He had all the operas from all the different companies around the world, and for sound quality and for whatever, but had them all on laser disc and i since found out that if you go into the like the classical world they're still very laser disc prone what was the first year released and the last and do you know the movies too the first and the last and laser the first

one was die hard the last one was die hard five yep and uh i said the last one was the last one was Romance in the Stone, Jewel of the Nile Jewel of the Nile, do you know the company responsible for Laserdisc? Capital Records that's interesting, the last part of it and it never caught on, because why? because they're fucking too big man

and they were very expensive and the machine just sort of... And it was sort of like... Remember when you were seeing them at people's houses, you were like, fuck, this is something else. Yeah. But then DVDs came along so much, so quickly. And obviously, as soon as you saw a DVD, you go, ah, DVDs,

that's the way of the future. Except for the company of Blockbuster, which thought that DVDs weren't the way of the future. for the company of blockbuster which thought that dvds weren't the um way of the future and they they believe they stayed with vhs and then when netflix came along they had the opportunity to purchase netflix for a mere 50 million dollars this isn't long ago this is in that's when netflix was just a this is in the this is in the 2000s right this is this is so so he was just sending out the discs, right? Like that.

And Netflix was the first thing to have a subscription. We had like memberships at gyms. It was Redbox and stuff you could do that was like you'd go to the store, the convenience store. And because the problem with Blockbuster was the late fees. You fucking don't return it. So what Netflix did was they got rid of late fees, and they said you can have four discs at the time or whatever plan you signed up for if you have a disc

you can't get another disc until you return a disc and then they're back and forth back and forth and so then blockbuster did this thing they went no more late fees right because they're trying to compete well they didn't have the subscription so people just weren't returning videos and the late fees the late fees were like 50 of all the blockbusters income that and the popcorn yeah yeah and so and so that's what what killed them if they bought netflix they made in the shade but then they might have not had the innovation of streaming tv shows like they did i did enjoy going to the store and picking out a movie though it was fun it was a fun process like walking through and. I remember renting a PlayStation 1. Yeah, you could rent that.

Rent the actual machine. I rented a Nintendo 64 because I didn't have one. And got a couple of discs and a couple of games. And that's it. I've got my weekend. Hello there. I want to talk to you about BetterHelp. I'm a big fan of therapy.

Always have been. I've always found it to be a helpful thing in my life, not a hindrance. What have you got to lose? Look, comparison is a thief of joy, and it's easy to envy others and what they have. It might look like they have their lives together on social media, but in reality, they don't. They're just like you. Therapy can help you focus on what you want and not what other people have.

Stop comparing and start focusing on you. Visit betterhelp.com slash idktod today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp.com slash IDK. As I said, I've been a big fan of therapy. Often I was a bit tentative on going because what if I don't like the therapist? Well, this is where BetterHelp helps. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible and suited to your schedule.

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slash idk. Last question, which major film director is known for releasing special editions of his film on Laserdisc? George Lucas. Yeah, you already said it.

Alright, Kevin, how did Jim do in his knowledge of VHS, beatbacks, and Laserdisc? Zero through ten.

It was good. It was exciting. I was impressed. I knew you were awesome. What number are you giving him? Zero through ten? Oh, I'm going to give him nine. Yeah, I know shit about shit. Pointless shit is my bitch. That was ten material. The story of my life is pointless shit.

Nineteen. I'm pretty hungry. So, five. Minus five. So we didn't even get into Blu-rays. We could talk about everything. The problem is we really- Blu-rays are still going now.

The utopia of entertainment was really when the DVDs came out. You go to HMV. I was living in London at the time. What's HMV? His Master's Voice is what it stands for. The fact that I just recalled that. And so his master's voice, and it's got a picture of a dog sitting next to a gramophone.

And it was the biggest- Is that just a record store? It was not just a record. It was a huge record store across Britain. And them and Virgin Records. There was two competing when I was living in the early 2000s. It's like a tower. Bigger than tower. Yeah, like five-story buildings in london where you're going up the escalators and there's records and then they like dvds started

to get affordable where you get like three dvds for 20 pounds right you go through the bins and go oh i want to have that movie i want to have this movie you know and i remember because i was living in britain at the time having a huge d DVD collection, thinking, I remember getting all the superhero ones because there wasn't that many superhero films. I was like, if anyone wants to come to my house and see superheroes, I've got them all. Now I don't even see, like a new Superman's coming out who's my favorite, and I might not see it.

You know what I mean? I haven't seen the last couple of Avengers. I just don't give a fuck anymore. You're kind of oversaturated. Well, you get older, who gives a shit anymore? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so Kevin, I asked you. a dvd player when he first came out i think i bought the first model from hitachi toshiba and it was 1500 bucks my wife thought i was an idiot yeah

but it was still a winner of a machine though like i was i was selling mobile phones so we're talking 1999 maybe maybe 2000. I'm selling mobile phones. And in the store, we had like a promotion that if you bought a mobile phone, we also would give you a DVD player. And people were coming in to actually look at the player being used. Like, oh, fucking, oh, wow, it does look good. I think the first one i bought was awesome powers that

one came up but problem with the first machines that they were only they weren't made to deal with the dual layers yeah so what happened with i started buying the dvds that have more you know dual layers for um bonus features that original player wouldn't play them well okay well so that that that was how fast the technology because by the time i did it was like that by the time i left that job it went to blu-ray by the time and i left that job like a year later and by then we had dvd players in cars and there was another dvd that got that blu-ray out competed that that hd dvd hd dvd right i'll tell you what bit of technology never sold never sold

and I had them in the store we had about five of them in the back of the store ready to go and we had these five we had these things

we had a whole like set up like a whole display where I could press it and it would do things it was the first navigation systems right

before Tom Tom and all that type of stuff right before Garmin or whatever it was it was some company first navigation systems, right? Before TomTom and all that type of stuff, right? Before Garmin or whatever. It was some company and it was like a big box that you put in the trunk of your car and you had to put the maps in by disk and it would tell you, go left, go right,

go straight ahead and all this type of stuff. And people would come in and you'd press the thing and say go left go right you could see a little screen where it was doing like this and then people were going does it really work and i remember saying to someone i don't know it doesn't feel like it that's why you didn't sell it no like no they were like five grand or something they were like a lot of money and i hadn't seen one put into a car no one bought one of the fucking things and it felt so fucking space aged but even that like that they went so far ahead too like you had that then garmin then they're in the car and now it's

just your phone attached to the car within four years i had one like that that i bought for 100 pounds no about 300 pounds it stuck to my window And then they were 99 pounds by the time I left England. And now it's every fucking car just has one. Now your phone doesn't. That's your phone, yeah. All right, so VHS. What does VHS stand for? And then what is a VHS tape, Kevin?

Well, video home system is what it stood for. So it's just a model I made to take two spools. It was a consumer level. It was basically invented for recording, right? People wanted to record at home. And now my parents pirated some TV, right? That was the whole point of it. So we got a video player.

My mother, like we were poor, right? We had no money. You've seen where I grew up, right? We weren't rolling in money. We had no money. But my mother loved new technology she was an early adopter yeah right and she she didn't know how to use anything but we had a fax machine and things like this my mother was my mother was on board right so we had a video player and then another person down the road had a video player and you used to have to stack the two video players

on top of each other and put one video in and one video here and have another chord and it looked like it was super technology but right now it's probably just

one chord to one chord you're like Star Trek right and then you pressed you pressed record and the thing like this right and then the whole

came down oh warning if you do this you'll go to prison right and I'm a little kid and I went went, mum, when we go to prison, oh, it's going to be scary. And my mother kept the magnet inside the video cabinet.

If the cops ever come, my job... Was the scrambling? Yeah, my job was to go up to the Star Wars tape and go like that. It's like you're flushing drugs? Yeah, yeah. We had like five, maybe ten stolen movies, you know what I mean, that we'd gotten. What kind of magnet did you keep? It was like a cliche-ass magnet.

Like the big horseshoe one? It was a horseshoe one that was red with black tips on it. You know the ones that you hold like that with your hand? A horseshoe magnet. You had to keep it close enough to the tape so you could use it, but far enough away that it didn't damage them. You had to get right in there and swipe. Now, if you had a video player, you could pull the lugs out.

Do you call it lugs here in America or Canada? Oh, the plastic. What are they called? The lugs? The lugs. The plastic flaps that turn those recording. Oh, yes, yes, we did. Yes, yes.

Okay, so if you snap a lug out, right, you can't record on it because the recorder... You can tape on it. You can't tape on it. That was more to cassettes. Right? The lug pressed like that on a VHS. I was going to say.

The machine pressed in. If it didn't go all the way in, it went, oh, I can record. If you pull the lugs out, it went, oh, I can't record. That was its safety measure, right? So that's what the ones you got from Blockbuster had the lugs taken out. And the home video, if you really liked it, you could put a knife in, you could snap out the lugs so you could never record it. The most coveted thing in the house was, for my mother,

was the Princess Diana wedding right up until after she died. My mother would watch this wedding after they'd gotten divorced for years later. She's already, this woman's already thrown herself downstairs, been bulimic from the marriage, had a horrible time, died in a car accident in France

and my mother would be sitting at home going, oh, the people's princess. So if you wanted to really stir my mother up and you'd go like this, you'd go, you'd come home, you'd be holding the tape like this. Mum, I've made a mistake here. I don't know what I've done, but I've recorded over the royal wedding.

What? Because no one was selling the royal wedding. You couldn't buy it. No. Right? This is the only copy in her mind in existence. There was no eBay to find another one. This is like saying I've killed a child in the pool in the backyard.

Right? This is this level of what I've said to my mother. And so you go, Mom, I think I've recorded over the royal wedding. Which one? I'd like to say it was Fergie and Andrew, but it's Chuck and Die. Right? I've recorded over Chuck and Die. And then the next sentence would come out, but I pulled the lugs out.

I think Scott put some sticky tape over because he could put sticky tape over the lugs. Yeah. Over the hole. You could put sticky tape so you could go there. Now, I remember the video store, so Blockbuster, we had Video Easy. Blockbuster came later on in the store. So we'd rented some videos of some stone teenagers like you do.

Like, was there a job on earth that was more coveted than the video store job? Like, it had to be handed down to you by an older brother or something like that. You couldn't just walk in there with an application. There was a 20-year waiting list to be a video store because you get to sit there and you can watch movies all day. And I had a cousin, Mark, who worked at a video store

and he got videos before, but it had the time bit on the bottom. You can watch movies all day. And I had a cousin, Mark, who worked at a video store. And he got videos before, but it had the time bit on the bottom. I saw Pet Sematary a week before everybody. Anyway, so one day they had these videos. We rented these two videos. And we crack open one. Watch this film. And then we cracked open the other one.

And it said the name of the other movie and thing, but there was a porno in the thing. Now, whether by design or by accident, one of the young employees put a porno in our copy of Labyrinth. Right? Uh-oh. Right, yeah, uh-oh indeed. Now, I know I'm not allowed to watch the porno,

plus I don't get to see Labyrinth. Right? Plus I'm a kid, so I don't quite, it's not like today watch the porno. Plus, I don't get to see Labyrinth. Right? Plus, I'm a kid, so I don't quite... It's not like today's kids where they can go, I don't quite know what porn is. Yeah. I'm about five or six. They said it's...

My parents said it was an adult movie. And then I remember them saying to me, I said, what makes it... Everyone's naked in it. Yeah. Right? And so I imagined it was just a regular film and everyone was

walking around naked. Like it was just Indiana Jones but naked. That's just what's rated R means. Yeah. I used to remember when I went past books that said adult bookshop, I just assumed that was

a book with no pictures. Quite the opposite. Quite the opposite. But I thought it would be a book with no pictures loads of long words that's what you're out of book stories right whenever everyone's in neon and then triple X I'm like that I don't even know what that word is anyway so this island it's like xylophone this is anyway so anyway um so anyway so my dad there there's a copy.

There was this porno. It was in the house. You know how small the house I grew up in, right? It was a very small house, right? So we got to return that back and go get Labyrinth, Dad. And Dad's like this, oh, you don't have the bloody, you don't have Labyrinth tomorrow.'t bloody, you're going to have labyrinth tomorrow. Go play outside for a couple of hours.

And I'm told to stay in the other end of the house. It's one of my earliest memories. One of my earliest memories. I'm told to stay in the other end of the house. Dad's gotten, he's fallen on a piece of gold that just landed in his lap. Right? Right? Right?

So anyway, as I told you, we had- This was the problem with VHS too. You couldn't just sneak in your bedroom with it. We had one video player at this stage. Dad needed a second video player because this was, you know, he wasn't letting go of this. So mum had to call up the family down the road, the Hardings, I believe, and they had to- It was a whole operation., the Hardings, I believe. And they had to...

It was a whole operation. Oh, there's another movie we need to record, right? Yeah. Now, since later on in life, my father has told me about my mother and father's sex life being very active. Overly active, right? And probably because he didn't have a lot of porn. This is what kept the magic alive. If we had more labyrinth mistakes he would have he would have never fucked mom but but but so so the another

family had to bring up a video player so that my dad could pirate porn now he didn't know so my mother would have had to wire that up she was the one who knew a little bit about the wiring anyway that's him effort i'm just saying i know a lot about Betamax. Yeah. Okay. I always remember this one story. I found a Betamax under my brother's mattress, and it was deep inside Annie Sprinkle. I remember that was the first time I'd seen porn, and I remember you do whatever you do.

You abuse yourself. But I had to make sure I rewound it back to the same spot. Then he'd catch me all the time. You've been watching that? Oh, yeah. That was the genius move. You had to have it at a certain spot. Yeah.

But then there's another one for you. There's another one for you. So I knew where Dad kept this videotape. And then you'd put the tape in and you'd watch it. And then I remember thinking, this is where Dad finished. Oh, God. Because he didn't put it to an exact spot. He just stopped it when he was done.

Yeah, a little clean up. Stop. We had a tree farm and I couldn't, I remember when I found that tape, I was taking it all the time and I just, whew, those back in those days where you could go one after the other. Ba-ba-ba-boom, ba-ba-ba-boom,

ba-ba-ba-boom, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a woman who was an older lady, and then there was a girl in her early 20s, and there was already a stepmom, and she said, you have a great body, and I remember thinking, oh, this seems a bit weird.

I have a feeling we'll get back to porn again at some point in this. Who and when was the VHS or who invented the VHS and when was it invented? And the VCR. I bought VHS porn on catalogs. And you were saying 1980 is what you said in Australia. You said the 70s. But what is the answer, Kevin?

77. Well, I mean, 76 is when beta first came out. Yeah. And the 77 was uh vhs okay so he was right he was right with the beta was first and they came up with it and then that was a big thing and then it was jvc japanese japanese um japan video company is the one that invented it jvc was the brand not sony yeah the jvc was the one the one That did VHS But then Sony did Betamax We used to have A play out

Where you put it in You put the disc in Like a big thing Went kunk Out the top Yeah You put the disc in And then you

Put it kunk Down like that And then it had big Like cassette buttons You know those ones That like Paddles That you have to push

The paddle down You had to put Significant pressure On the buttons Ah yes yes A yes, yes. A three-year-old couldn't play one. Yeah. My three-year-old now, who is a little late on his talking,

like he's talking fine, but he's not like a whiz at it, but he's talking fine, understands everything he's saying, and he understands everything in English and Spanish because he's got a Spanish-speaking nanny. But that prick can bloody, he can turn on the tv get to disney plus and get to the programming he wants yeah probably faster than we can yeah he's just like i see him with the remote and he makes this noise. Eh-eh! Eh-eh! So it was JVC in 1976. I'm like, why don't you have more words if you can do that?

They said that the first VCR was in Japan in 76, and then it was 77 was North America. And what did they cost? Jim said 15K and now money, 5K back then is what he's saying. No, I remember when Mum bought the Beta, it was about $2,500 and I know VHS though, when they came out, they were around $1,000, $1,200. That still was a lot

back then. That would have been more. That's a lot. Someone Google for me right now how much a VHS player cost in Australia in 1980. I'm going to say it's $5,000 Australian. I think I was right on some level there. I guess they would have to get down there, right?

So how the manufacturers... And we may not have gotten them until the 80s. There was a lot of things that we got just a couple of years later. This says, by the way, that $1,400 in 1970 in the United States would be equivalent to $7,200 today. So it's still very

expensive but i was buying top end yeah yeah okay i remember beta beta was 2500 bucks or my dad was like give my mom for that like what are you doing yeah so that would be like we live on a farm there's work to be done we'd only be watching these movies but then like your daddy started enjoying it right yeah yeah my my dad i remember like yeah timing timing video cassettes to record tv shows my brother it was amazing my brother used to record at school like things like jerry springer and stuff like that you'd come home oh good we get to watch people kick the shit out of each other good work but i remember also something like i got really into pandas like eight or something i like pandas you know i went through a panda face there was two pandas came out to the sydney zoo i remember being like this and

i remember like on the news they were like um they're tomorrow night on the news we're going to have footage of a panda birth which is so rare a panda birth in the wild right oh right we went out to dinner and i'm sitting there like this no I didn't set the time on the video I still remember this panic huh and I remember it like like I was eight I probably cried I went like this I'll never get to see that I'll never get to see that imagine a world where if you didn't see the panda birth that's it and as an as an adult, I still haven't yet to Google it. I've still never seen one.

I haven't missed out. It might be kind of exactly what you're picturing. I had a friend. I'm still friends with him. And if he's listening to the podcast, this was fucking weird, mate. This was. Came over to the house, right, with their baby. Their baby was a couple of months old.

Like, it was the first time we'd seen the baby and he proceeded to put the birth on our tv to start to mirror it up on our screen to put the birth up on our tv and she's sitting there with the baby and i'm like oh i don't i don't want i don't want to watch this so she was there and she was there they all thought vagina getting ripped apart i had look i have a lot of, I have a lot of theory on parents. A lot of... And we all know... Okay, and I'm not going to name names, right?

But we all know the famous person or the friend of ours who has had a baby and then they put too much baby up on the gram. Yeah. Too much baby on the gram. Because you've got to understand that to them it is the greatest biggest thing that's ever happened in their entire life this is of epic proportions and they've forgotten that it's not the same experience for everyone else and also that the whole world is is you know yeah we're seven billion of us we've all done it yeah we've

all done it but i'm a big fan of kids so i I have no problem with it. But anyway. All right, last VCR was made in what year? Jim says 2005. No, it was 2016. They were doing combos still. Oh, they were doing the two-in-ones. You get your DVD here. You get your videocassette here.

That one. Yeah. So that's pretty recent, though. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty recent. I just looked up your australia 1980s when the first vcr got there 1980 boom shakalaka and i know it was 1981 when i watched star wars and that was like one of the few things and there wasn't a video i looked that up that was 82 82 is when star wars okay that's that was five years old but that's my because kids from the street we were going to see Star Wars at home. Yeah.

And there was this video store that had three of them. It wasn't a video store. It was like a pharmacy that just had a rack in the corner. And how long could you record on them, Kevin, the VHS tape? The VHS, you can get up to four hours on standard play, which is SP. But then if you go SLP, which is the longest one, you can get 12 hours.

Then there was also EP, which would be around six, seven hours. So that was a benefit to VHS. I've just watched a documentary on the guy who invented cassettes, right? And the guy who invented cassettes, because 8-track had already come out, and an 8-track had very good quality and all that type of stuff, and it was a thicker tape. I remember those, yeah. And then cassette wasn't...

Did 8-track mean there were 8 different tracks to each song, or it could only hold 8 songs? No, I don't know. No, it could hold more than 8 songs. There was 4 tracks on each side of the tape. Oh, is that what it was? Oh, right, right. Oh, okay.

See, I thought it was... 4 on one side and 4 on the other. Oh, is that what it was? Oh, right, right. Oh, okay. See, I thought it was... Four on one side and four on the other. Oh. It was a big fat... It was a big fat thing, but the sound quality was meant to be quite good. And then the guy who had cassettes, he'd been recording voice,

he had big dictaphones with big spoils like that, right? And you have to feed them in, and then he was like, all right, this is good, this is good. Now, the advantage of a cassette over eight track was the cassette could record, right? So the cassette, you could... And there was no... There good this is good now the advantage of cassette over 8 track was the cassette could record right

so the cassette you could and there was no there's still lugs in the top of it mixtapes you make mixtapes you listen to the radio

you could already go from tape to tape whenever I bought an LP I always recorded it straight onto cassette because there was a theory that the first listening of an LP

was the best quality you'll ever get out of the record so I would record all my LPs onto cassette so I could listen to them I used to listen to radio just random radio waiting for a song to be played so that I could record it so at the end of

each song I'll go back to the cassette I'd be like is this it you'd be waiting there yeah that's why it was good to listen to the top 100 yeah the top 100 every weekend with Casey Kasem or whatever. But you would know. Well, the other ones you could wait the rotation. You go, it's going to be in the top 10, this song I want to listen to. Yeah. You could be ready to go.

You make a mixtape. And you'd have a double cassette deck and you'd make the mixtapes. It was the biggest way of showing love to a girl, right? Oh, yeah. You made her a mixtape. You don't know anything about this. No, not really. This guy would make it.

He made the cassettes, right? He made the cassettes. He gave the technology to the world. Just like, ah, you can all have it. Same as the bloke who did the internet. You can all have it, right? It's not going to be one company, whatever. But he's the same cunt who invented the DVD.

Really? This guy's good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, he built the technology to ruin his technology. No, not the DVD. CD? No, the CD. CD, yeah.

Yeah, he invented the CD, which without the CD, you don't get the DVD. You don't get the... And no one uses CDs anymore. Do you use a CD? No, they do. I actually still have CDs. Yeah, I don't mind.

We have to get CDs printed for our album because people are still buying them. Really? Yeah, I don't mind a CD. A CD was really the best physical copy of... It wasn't the good Walkman, though. The cassette Walkman was superior to the CD Walkman because you had to keep it still or skip.

The CD jumped and jumped and jumped and jumped and jumped, right? But the cassette Walkman was the first time people could listen to music while they exercised. Yeah. What was the first time people could listen to music while they exercised. Yeah. What was the first movie? And that was including at home because the fucking record players used to bounce all the time. Did you use VHS tapes? Yeah.

Okay, I don't know. I actually cut my wrist on a VHS case and I had to go to the hospital to get stitches. It was really bad. Embarrassing too. Embarrassing, yeah. I was three. What movie? Probably like The Lion King or something. my son's mad for the lion king the classic films like he's good man what

was the first movie released on vhs and what was the last jim said cum sluts 3 and cum sluts 14 oh i might be at my um young i looked that up it was young young teacher it's called The Young Teacher. South Korea. They're the first ones that came out. Sounds like a porno. Sounds like a porno. It does sound like a porno, doesn't it?

The History of Violence was the last one. Yeah, that was a good movie. Viggo Mortensen. I like that movie. That was, yeah, all right. It was good. 2006, but they still made it until 2006. I was going to say something about the VHS.

Well, that doesn't matter. They'll come up later. You can say it. Go ahead. I was just thinking about accidents. Like, there were my sisters. I even asked my sister. She didn't really get the VHS when it came out,

and I remember she had the whole plastic case. You know the plastic case the tape came in? And then she would, I go, go put the movie in. And she just goes, and she's trying to put the whole case into the machine yeah what are you doing well she's just connected mate just don't be so bad i don't know well why is it like the whole thing about like when jim was talking like when you're young it was just the most exciting time was when you your mom and dad or something rented it was your birthday party and you get your friends over and you go rent first blood or something exciting or road warrior on vhs and you rent the movie it was exciting times yeah it's not that kind of excitement anymore yeah

no no they they don't the attention spans aren't as big see my son said to me the other day he said oh he was talking about the new mad max and i said oh we can't see the mad max it's rated r i said i'll tell you what we'll do because they're all sitting on it. I believe they're on the Max, the HBO app. And I said, all right, I'll just show you the car chase in Road Warrior, which is like the second film. I call it Mad Max 2. You guys call it the Road Warrior. And in Mad Max 2, the car chase. And he was like, oh, it Mad Max 2. You guys call it the Road War. Road War, yeah. And in Mad Max 2, the car chase, right?

And he was like, oh, it's pretty good. I'm like, pretty good? These are all real stunts. There's no CGI. There's a couple of stuntmen that you see in the Mad Max movies who are in wheelchairs, and you get to see the stunt that did it. Yeah. This is how, like, they fucking went for it, man.

You could probably watch Fury Road, though. Yeah, but he wasn't impressed by it? see the stunt that did it yeah this is how like they fucking went for it man yeah you could probably watch fury road though yeah but he wasn't impressed by it uh fury road's awesome yeah i look yeah i i'm a big fan of mad max movies i like i like mad max movies i haven't seen the new one though i haven't seen either but fury road i think i don't like the bit where she goes i'm furious in the advert i'm like fuck off Queens Gambit. Don't scream at me. Go play chess. What was... Oh! I haven't seen that show either.

Oh, get back in the chess. What was the main advantage of Betamax over VHS, and why did it ultimately fail in the market? Jim said smaller. Well, I think Jim was right. Well, the tape's smaller. Everything's better smaller. Keep telling yourself that.

You had a better picture. Thank you. You had a better picture, but ultimately it was just too much money. People didn't want to pay that $2,500 for a machine. Yeah. I remember. They said it was better. It wasn't like it was substantially better.

No, it was just a better resolution, but supposedly VHS had better audio. I remember buddies would record their record on the Vhs tapes and then put it in the vhs and have it plugged through your stereo because supposedly it had better audio so is that but i mean okay so right now is watching streaming something on netflix is that i felt like blu-ray was like so clear it was like eerie and it did have a blue tinge to it it did not have a blue tinge to it. It did not have a blue tinge. It didn't? It felt like it had like a filter of something. Definitely would not have. It felt like it. Okay.

Don't you feel like it had like a... No, not at all. Oh, I feel like... Okay. I feel like if you get me a DVD and a Blu-ray and you put them on, I'll be able to tell you which one's which. Well, yeah. One's significantly sharper than the other one.

Better resolution. Like you'll be sharper. Yeah. Some of these... Check if there's a Blu-ray. The reason I still prefer Blu-ray is just because depending on your internet bandwidth at the time of day, it might look like shit on Netflix,

so the Blu-rays are always good. And why did... I was going to say some more stuff, though. What it was, like Jim was right, too, where Beta didn't want to license out. They didn't right to where, um, beta didn't want to license out. They didn't, they didn't have the free licensing, so they didn't want to license out cause they thought they had the ultimate product.

Right. So, and they were trying to just be the only, only, um, media, but then VHS was smart. JVC was smart. They licensed it out to Hitachi, to Chiba, everybody, so they could make their own machines and there was no license fee. And that's what basically what it did.

It just, it, um, flooded the market with VHS and all these machines. And what did you tell me about porn too? There was something, I don't remember now. Well, like we were watching,

have you seen boogie nights? Yeah. Yeah. Well, remember when Bert Reynolds is pissed off because he's, you know, he's loves his films and he's an artist and he's a, you know,

directed. And then they started saying, well, let's go put stuff on video because it's cheaper and we can get our movies out more because the whole, the whole home viewing thing. Right. Yeah. So that's what it was. But I guess like they were waiting, I was explaining before they were just waiting to see if it was going to be better beta or VHS, but ultimately VHS one. But they, they still recorded like with video. Cause beta, the camera will talk about the beta. That was

what they used in the newscasts in the 60s and all that stuff, the beta cam. That tape, it's a big tape they used for broadcasting. Yeah. But then, they're still filming the beta because it was a better picture, but they still ultimately recorded everything on the VHS to sell it. Hold on,

Blu-ray. There's a blue tint on the back of it. Now Blu-ray, who knows how vivid it is on there, right? On the back of it. That's what it says. If you look at the back of the disc, it was blue-ish. That's all I found. It is, yeah. It was sort of.

Yeah, Jim's convinced that it was blue, the picture. No, it's all ones and zeros it's reading. Yeah. And another big one was the less recording time, right? We've talked about that. Beta had less recording time, so at home've talked about that. Like, Beta had less recording time. So at home, you didn't have enough recording time. So VHS had up to four hours, up to 12 hours.

And then Beta came up with Beta 2 and Beta 3, so they could get up to five hours. But that was as far as you could go. The tape by itself was an hour and 40 minutes is all you could record. And then the camera. So the Betamax development of the camcorder, what was their role in it as well? Well, see, I was not too sure on that one,

because I just know that they did have the technology before anybody. Like I said, they were using it in broadcasting, and I didn't realize it was back in the 60s they came up with it. But that was that bigger, it's called a U-matic whatever, and all the TV stations had those big tapes. I don't know if you've ever seen those. And that was Beta.

They were Sony. What happened with Beta, though, they would come out, they had the first camcorder coming out, but the problem was you have to take it out and put it in your machine. To view it? You put the tape in, it records. And there was no way to rewind it and look at it and watch it on the camera. That's what VHS came out after with that.

That might have been why porn chose it as well. So you could watch. I had a video camera that had little tiny cassettes like that that you put in. Little cassettes like that. VHSC? Did they fit into a VHS tape? Yeah, and then you could put them into a bigger VHS tape.

Yeah, I had those. So they gave the same quality. It was only 30 minutes, but you could put them into, you could take it out. That's what the first camera came VHC And you could put it Into a little cassette Looked like a VHS

And you put it into your machine And watch it Well if anyone There was a storage room Where I had a box of them And loads of home porn Yeah And

You mean home porn Your own porn Yeah yeah Home porn Yeah You? Yeah What do you mean

Like you You're like back in my early 20s, like me and the girlfriend. Yeah. Right? Do you ever film yourself? People do it all the time now. Why is this such a, why are you all looking at me like I'm a pervert? How many times?

I know, I'm with you. First of all, I thought you were talking about when you were a child still. No, no, no. In my 20s. Okay, yeah. Living in England. Yeah. And so I had a little bit of that, and I had a little bit of,

and I had all my early stand-up routines. So there's a box somewhere that was thrown into a dumpster with so much fucking early footage of my stand-up career and me fucking. Would you watch back the stuff? Did you ever film yourself jerking off so you can watch yourself jerk off so you can jerk off No, I watched it so I could put it in rewind and watch the come go back in what you talking about watch me So what are you talking about?

Wait wait, are you trying to work on your technique? I don't understand what you're doing No, I'm just saying I have filmed myself jerking off just so I can watch myself jerk off get horny and watch myself jerk off I don't know who's getting horny watching you jerk off especially you i don't know yeah you're probably right but i don't know it's just one of those things i can we try i can we transfer you guys No We're good Mine wasn't loads It was like four or five tapes But people now

I haven't got a dick pic That has been sent out by me Since the early Camera phones I haven't I haven't sent it There has not been a dick pic of me since 2007 it's like an eight congratulations right it was just on the on the nokia on the phone

the little tiny one it was and it was it was the one photo i always because let's be honest what dick pics are dick pics uh no one wants a dick pic right no one wants them women just want them it's an arms race right insurance yes they send you a naked picture can i have a dick pic we both have bits of uh the things that other people don't want to see destruction yeah we're we're we're russia and america right now you've built a bomb i've built a bomb and that's how we're going to have peace so I knew I knew to get what I want from other pictures I used to have to have

a dick pic ready to go but I haven't sent a dick pic out since the early about 2008 would have been me last dick pic you'd have to take a new one

and that was that was some early ass camera phones yeah they were I picked no videos then your dick

would have been on it's peak oh it's getting the older you get i remember the picture i remember the picture it was a stunner get ready jack it was gonna change color shape is it gonna look like the olive photo i'm gonna get your dick out there that's what my dick looks like, a french fry with an olive head on the end. So you already said it was the first Betamax. It was a 1975 combo, 19-inch TV, $2,500,

and 2002 was the last one. Why was it called Betamax? Oh, that was a weird one, because I guess it's beta is the Greek words. I wrote this down. The Greek letter beta resembles a tape going through a transport. I was looking at it. Oh, the way it was in there.

Oh, okay. Some Greek name. And then max is supposed to be maximum, which means great. And then the legal case, beta max went to court. Then it was a significant illegal case. Because they came out first, and I guess the studios, Disney and Universal, were worried that this was going to be, they're going to start recording stuff off the TV and all that,

and it's going to affect their reruns and all that kind of stuff. Oh, so that was the court case. They took them to court saying it was copy infringement. But they won, so that's why you were allowed to record off TV and stuff? Yeah, but what they did was they ended up actually lost first because they went through whatever court they won, so that's why you were allowed to record off TV and stuff? Yeah, well, what they did was they ended up actually lost first because they went through whatever court they lost, and then they were looking, seeking damages and all that. But then they went to Supreme Court, which Sony did,

and then they ultimately won because they just said it's free, like free, fair use, fair use. And even then, and thank God they lost because they would have found out over the years they made so much money out of uh the the videos but not just that just well that's what they said that so what happened was they wanted then they said okay we lost but we want to make sure there's some kind of a royalty coming from every blank tape that's sold well what they said because reach and then they said basically was no you make too much profits from rentals and stuff what they what they did that back in the day was so to buy a movie on

vhs cost over a hundred dollars yeah right and so that was the plan is so that no one would buy them we'd only ever rent them for you what was it six bucks yeah i don't remember no yeah right so you see it was like three four bucks up here i don't yeah it was it was like five dollars australian when i was a kid and then by the end it was like six dollars or something maybe ten dollars at the end and um um so they made the cassette so expensive that you couldn't do them but then blockbuster would sell them off at the end for like 30 bucks like own the movie for the 30 bucks so the the the video companies they the movie companies thought oh this, oh, this is the end.

This is the end. We're never going to, because everyone's going to be watching at home. They're not going to go out to the cinema. It's going to fuck things up. But it did the opposite. It made people re-watch movies that were out of the cinema over and over and over again and made it possible for us now to have sequel upon sequel upon sequel upon sequel. Because it used to be, be like people forgot about movies.

You're not going to... Like imagine if they made Avatar 2, what was it, eight years apart, ten years apart? At least, yeah. 2008 to 2000... 23, right? Yeah, and so you see Avatar 1 and then the next one comes out in 15 years.

You're like, what the fuck's going on? And you can't show it to the kids or anything before they go to the film it made the movie industry bigger and bigger and bigger yeah i didn't realize that there was like taxes levies on that on the blank tapes and stuff like that that's they tried i know i know i know they didn't they didn't work with the the data or the vhs tapes but it i know they did it later with cds and stuff they were putting the levies and stuff on blank cds that was another one the cdrs right yeah because when i first did stand-up comedy i was like my second or third set and this guy was recording i remember and i said hey i want to get my set and he was like really annoyed that i was asking he was like in town from fsu and he

was just you know from college and i said well i'll send you i'll give you a blank i'll send you a blank vhs and you send me back a copy he was just annoyed with me even asking it's my third set too I don't need it recorded but I remember walking around downtown Miami looking for a VHS tape and this guy was telling me $20 for three and I was like that's a I didn't in my head I hadn't bought a VHS in so long I thought that was super expensive we got into like a huge argument huge right he's like fuck you get out of my store but like to that level where i was like yeah fuck you too and i went down the street to cvs and it was 20 for three exactly what he said and uh i bought him and then i i screwed i went around the

whole city block so i could avoid his store because he would stand down in front of his electronic store i avoided his store i was like yeah i was right should have gone to that argument then i sent my vhs tapes to this guy in fsu never sent him back ah fucking sad story um uh sad so laser disc um oh yeah i i'm fighting with people in stores it's the worst yeah yeah but i was in the wrong i've got a memory of a lot i got most of them i've been in the right but every now and again, yeah. I had one where my wife pulled me aside and went, just calm down, it's okay. Because there was like a guy, I was in a shop,

and we were late for dinner, and I was looking at something, and I just wanted to go, hey, look, I'll come back in a couple of hours after dinner, but what's the price of that? Right? In the store. What's the price? That's all I wanted to ask. It was a watch store. Right?

What's the price of that? Right? I'll be back in two hours. Right? But there was a guy like this. And what does that one do? And what is that? He was just kicking tires.

And the guy was like, I'll be with you in a moment. I'm like, I've got this much of a question. I said, I've just got a short question. Like that, right? And then he went, and then the guy, I'll be with you in a moment. I'm like, I've got this much of a question. I said, I've just got a short question. Like that, right? And then he went, and then the guy, I'm like talking like 10 minutes later. Paul Newman wore that, did he? Like that. I already know you too.

I've shopped with you. And I went like this, ah, fuck all of you. And I walked out of the store. And I got fed up. You all get fucked. And then as I of the store. I got fed up. Yeah, you all get fucked. And then as I went to dinner, I started to calm down. I went, fuck. I looked like an asshole there.

And I went back into the store. I come back a few hours later. And I've come back to the store to apologize to the guy. I want to walk in and go, hey, I was a bit frustrated there or whatever, and i should have been more polite or i should have said nothing i'm sorry that's what i wanted to do but he just locked up this door and so i tapped on the window and he's like no because he remembered me from before and he's like no no it's okay and i went i'm just doing the crap I'd like to apologize about the way I spoke to you earlier

there's nothing worse than you have to remember that time we were on the road and I was really stressed out about something probably something with my mom was when she was really sick and something else whatever and I met you it was a game most

it was when you got on the plane and you got angry no no no no no this was in like a different story it was in Atlantic City we were waiting to go to a restaurant yeah and then that's right I think I was just sitting there waiting for like two minutes it wasn't that long but you guys showed up late and I was super stressed out yeah yeah and I was like really angry to the point I sat down and then I was I sat down and I was like fucking and I just I walked out of the restaurant and I was like really angry to the point I sat down and then I was like, I sat down and I was like, fuck you. And I just,

I walked out of the restaurant and I was, and I went out to the front and I sat on a bench and I think I called like my, my friend and I just calmed down. I go, yeah, I just made an ass of myself. And there I was, I was really upset about something.

Okay. And you went like this. I don't know. Oh, I remember this. I came down and you're like this. So I just sat here like a fucking idiot. And I'm like, I was with my new girlfriend then who is now my wife.

Yeah, I was with my new girlfriend. And I'm like, dude, I was literally five minutes late. Like it was nothing, right? Yeah, but we've all had these moments. No, no, no, no, no, no. On the road, on the road, on the road. But it's also, I was like, dude, no, no, no. On the road, on the road, on the road. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? But it's also, I was like, dude, I'm with a girl.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They're never on time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You come at the end. Yeah, no, it was all the other shit in my life that was going on. She was getting her hair done or something. It was nothing that was going on there. It was everything else in my life

that I just put in this moment. And also, it's like, if you're in a casino and the restaurant's downstairs, and you're meant to be there at seven, you leave your room at seven, and then you're looking around, and then by the time you get there it's eight past seven and you didn't fucking know where it was nine hundred ninety nine thousand times out of a million i'd

just be like it was just this moment so then i went outside i'd like calm down let me go back in yeah go back in the restaurant i sit down i'm like hey i want to apologize to everybody like same thing blah blah and i remember tasey was like, oh, that's okay. Everyone's like, it's cool. Hey, let's get a drink. And there was some oysters in the middle. We had ordered a tray of oysters. And he's like, have an oyster.

We went around, cool. And I reached over and I hit the water glass there and it shattered glass. And I just sat there and I was like. They were very gritty, those oysters afterwards. I was like, yeah. I'm going to go kill myself now. But the waiter had seen this all happen,

and I was like, he's just smashed the glass in there. If you can get us more, he's still upset from before. I know. We thought he'd calmed down. I literally was like, I'm really sorry, and everyone was like, cool, we're going to have a nice dinner. All right. Let's get back to the laser discs.

I was going to say, I brought two things. I got so you can see beta. Easy Money. Oh, yeah. Beta. Bill and Ted's Jazz Adventure. Easy Money, great movie. Yeah, yeah.

So people can see how the tapes. That's Bill and Ted's. That was when they started having the tapes just coming out in cardboard and they got rid of the plastic they all used to come in plastic then they started to go oh we don't need to do that just just oh yeah there's the beta versus the vhs that's how small it is compared to the it's not that much smaller yeah it's a lot smaller it's a lot smaller yeah yeah and i remember defending beta at in the schoolyard oh me too and people were just like this better picture man it's a better picture it's smaller he's great big and you go in the videos there'll be five fucking things you could watch on beta

i don't know about vhs i mean nb like iHS There's Bill and Ted's I probably watched about 50 times You can barely recognize it now when you watch it The color's been so wore out on it And the audio So there wasn't a lot of shelf time either for these things At least with Laserdisc If you looked after them they could last

And same with DVDs So how long could you record it Before I'm not going to name the girl but i was about i was about oh i was about 13 there was a sex tape of a uh a fairly famous australian right there was a sex tape and this is before the internet so it was before everybody you know before we no but close um so before before there was uh kim kardashian and paris hilton and all the famous sex tapes that may or may not have been done on purpose or by accident or whatever and actually have made

people's careers and but obviously now i'm looking back at it as you're like, oh, that's horrible what happened to the people if you don't want that to happen to you. But there was a sex tape of a TV presenter in Australia, right? And this had been made so many copies of this tape had been handed around the schoolyard and all this type of stuff. You couldn't see anything. You might as well be watching it through a blizzard i couldn't see anything i heard a bit of moaning

but it was i got a very low-end quality version of this cassette very low um i mentioned it when he died on our podcast screech that i was uh i wouldn't say friends but i was friendly with him i spent a whole week in a comedy condo with him nice fella yeah i was uh i wouldn't say friends but it's friendly with him i spent a whole week in a comedy condo with him nice fella yeah i enjoyed him i really but he admitted sex tape famously yeah and i think i'm sure he's talked about because it wasn't the only person but he said that he got like a penis double for the sex tape oh really yeah yeah so it really wasn't his dick that's on the sex tape which i was like yeah let's fight we should fight we should find james old tapes and you guys are really tape back in his young days.

Man, that's what I'd like to have out there. I wasn't a bad shag back in the day. No, no, they're in landfill somewhere. So the Laserdisc, who was responsible for making the Laserdisc? What company and what year and what was, yeah. Well, I guess in the late 60s the idea was, yeah. Well, I guess in the late 60s that the idea was, but it wasn't 71. It was MCA and Phillips was the ones that were developing it, but it didn't come out until like 76, 77 there.

Pioneer had most of the stocks in the company, so they took it over. So in Japan, so it was Pioneer in Japan. Okay. And then. Purchased it. And you were saying, you wrote something here, it's responsible for karaoke, Laserdisc? Well, because karaoke is what happened.

Karaoke, when it came out in the 70s, when karaoke first started in the early 70s, I was researching that a little bit. And karaoke was nice because it was the first time they could put lyrics and audio all together on a disc, right? Because you couldn't do with vhs you couldn't do any of that kind of stuff when it came so laser this was one of the first that came out with that ah okay it was popular with the japan laser japan's huge so there's tons of

karaoke uh laser discs out there you can get but also it was the first time you could hit tracks yeah yeah and another thing people get like so's, I'm going to show you there. That's the Slapshot one, eh? Right, that's a good one. But you see, you got two sides, and it sucks because, you know, it depends if it's a special edition, it's compressed. You only get about 30 minutes per side, and you got to get up and flip it over. And then when you get that disc, you got to grab the second one.

I got a Jaws one that's got six discs, so you got to sit there and flip them. Oh, yeah. So that part sucks. That would probably be the downfall of Laserdisc. You're gonna need a bigger disc. Yeah. Anyways, yeah. So what was it again? What were we talking about? We were talking about Laserdisc. I was saying what was the downfall

but I'm assuming it was the length of flipping them and all that crap. Why they never caught on. Yeah, why they never caught on. Yeah. Because I remember them just being on that side of the store, and I was like, who the fuck watches Laserdiscs? But it's, now it's just kind of cool to see it,

but there's so many different things. But the other thing, they started recording on them, too, in the 80s. So you could actually take them and if you had the player and you had the recorder one, you could record data onto it. Just like a CD-ROM. So it was pretty cool back then. And the first movie that

came out on the last one was not Jewel of the Nile? Romance in the Stone. Oh, the first one was Jaws. No, the first one was Jaws in North America. Okay. And then the last movie was... The last one was that Nicolas Cage one.

I got it, too. It's Bringing Out the Dead. I don't even know that one. What the fuck's that movie? That was Nicolas Cage and... Who was the director on that one? Scorsese. Scorsese, you're insane.

Scorsese, yes. Yeah. That was the last one that came out. And then the last question here was, which major film director is known for releasing special editions of his films on Laserdisc? The enhanced features, Jim said George Lucas, Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah.

He's right because he was doing all that stuff. He loved it. He loved the Laserdisc, George. All right, cool. This is a part of our show called Dinner Party Facts. We ask our expert to give us one fact obscure interesting about the subject we can use to impress people you got something for VHS

or Betamax well no I got one for Jim Murray mentions it he was right on the ball was the Lucas when Star Wars came out with that special edition when they added all the the new CGI kind of not CGI that looked like plastic it was horrible when they added all the new CGI kind of, not CGI, it looked like plastic. It was horrible

when they brought it out. But people were upset because you couldn't get the original version unless you got Laserdisc in a digital format. That's where the actual original Star Wars was from. So you could watch the original. They didn't have any of that extra added stuff in there. But Dinner Facts is kind of cool. I don't

know if you ever noticed. Maybe not. Probably not. I don't know. I was rambling. Lucas and Spielberg didn't want to go with DVD. So there was a DVD company called Circus City came out with this format. It was called DVX. And it only lasted for a year. And Lucas and Spielberg were a hands-down thing, and that's the way they're going to do it.

So they're going to wait until we release Star Wars on DVD, on DVX instead of dvd and how dvx works was that you would pay 450 you could take that rental home and then you could watch it for two times and then it would it would just go away it's disintegrate or whatever how it worked with that then you would throw it out or you could pay more to get so you can get multiple times and you'd pay more to get more times and you get unlimited times so spielberg didn't that's why the d if you look at the spielberg dvds and this um lucas stuff they never came out to the 2000s because they they didn't want any part of the dvd yeah okay so i don't know i'm rambling there but uh no it was good that's what it was because i

remember i remember being going like why is brazen lost ark on dvd yet why is it on dvd because the dvs were coming out in the 90s, right? Yeah, yeah. And there was no Lucas or Spielberg. There was no Jaws. There was nothing on DVD. And then DVX, they folded because it didn't make any sense. You're going to rent something and pay $2 or $4 for something,

and you want to watch it more. You got to go pay more, and you got to go pay more. I'm all in on Palm Pilot. On iPod? You're investing more i'm all in on um on palm pilot on ipod thing i'm investing in palm pilot yeah in palm pie oh palm pie oh i remember when palm planet came out that was a big thing yeah was around the same time i believe bono spent a lot of money on palm pilot well sidekick was the cool one at the time the kids would flipped out like like slid out like that and they'd go texting just taken off but and then the palm pile was around i think it was around the same time but the palm pile was around the same time as the blackberry in the blackberry

the blackberry comes from what country i just saw the document or the movie canada canada well kevin thanks for being here. Go to... I was going to show this. Check this out. This is the Star Wars special edition. So I had to buy all three of them so I could have the original back. What is that?

That's cool, eh? That's the LaserDisc. That is cool about the LaserDisc, though. It's kind of like you put the photos and all the writing, like albums and stuff. I do miss all that stuff. Even with CDs and stuff, I miss all that. The inserts.

But you can't get Empire Strikes Back without all the added things, and you can't get Return of the Jedi without all the added things? On which? Laser disc? On laser disc? Well, I mean, I bought all three laser discs

there years ago, because that's the only way you get the actual original, how it was made when we watched it as a kid and with no added features ah so lucas when he did that he released it in 97 those movies came back in the theater and he added i don't know if you watched them they're awful like they added like jabba the hut was not jabba the hut that was the big heavy guy walking in yeah yeah i've watched him yeah there was a big fat guy and then they just superimposed yeah and it is horrible but he released it it on VHS in the 90s, and then he didn't want nothing to do with DVD,

so you're waiting, and people were pissed off because I don't want to see it. Remember at the end of Return of the Jedi when it shows Anakin? Yeah. Oh, I've got movies one to six on Blu-ray and a little thing that happened.

There's still some Blu-rays I own that I'm not getting rid of. I don't know why. I don't know why I'm holding on to them. I use them. They just look better. Well, if you want to check out Kevin Rowland's music, it's puttingonthefoil.ca. Go to the website.

You can see the albums are available there. You can see some videos. And if you want to see him masturbating, maybe request it on there, too. And we transfer that to you. Yeah, if I guess so. Why not? It's between you and that person.

If it makes him horny, it'll make you horny. I'm going to jerk off to that fat guy jerking off. Something for everyone. There's something for the moms. All right, Jim. Cheers. Ladies and gentlemen. Thanks for putting up with me.

Appreciate that they won't do this. I love what you guys do. You're a fun guy, brother. Ladies and gentlemen, if you're ever at a party and you see someone comes up to you and they go, the Betamax machine is inferior to that of the VHS, go, well, I don't know about that, and then slap them. Good night, Australia.