this post was submitted on 23 May 2026
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Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ
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My parents "pirated" all the time when I was a kid. We'd generally have no more than basic cable (usually just antenna). There would be free weekends for HBO, Cinemax, or Showtime back when there was only one of each. My parents always had blank 8hr VHS cassettes and they'd record three movies to each. They recorded on SLP or EP mode (depending on the VCR model) to get that much time per cassette and it would end up with the crappiest quality ever. If you think VHS is shit quality, watch a movie on EP mode. Our movie collection was pretty extensive, but 90% of it was this.
You'd have to remember to reset the counter when putting in the tape and fast forward to a specific counter time written on the cassette in order to see the movie you want. My favorites were always second or third.
I vaguely remember talk of Dad climbing the pole to connect the cable himself but that went away when cable boxes became a requirement. There was also a time when he ran a coax from the neighbor's apartment and we split the bill. That didn't last long though because that neighbor moved.
My parents were sailing the seven seas back when your only option was a row boat.
My parents had a A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back VHS tapes that they recorded from TV showings... but not ROTJ. I spent like 2 or 3 years worrying about Han because we didn't have ROTJ lol.
My (58yo) VHS cinéphile collection was freaking extensive. Back then, as today, we didn't watch TV but I bought, and scrutinised to no end, the program & set the VCR to record. I always had blanks, 3h for long movies and 4h for 2 "normal" ones. When we moved countries, at a time when DVDs where a thing, a friend of mine asked to keep the tapes because it was so good. Every Hitchcock, every Bogart, every Kubrick, every... You name it. Series even.
Yeah quality was shit, but "tomb of the fireflies" and "princess bride" totally made to the deepest of my heart, until today and forever. At work I had "Singing in the rain" as a testing tape - each time I used it, you had everyone passing in front of the beamer stop, and watch.
Emotion trumps quality.
Singing in the rain is a banger that I rewatch every now and then. Everyone should watch it, even if you're not "into" musicals - there's SO much more going on! A fun satire of hollywood using every trick in the book to get there. chef's kiss
My Dad got us a fancy VCR that could fast forward to chapter markers we could manually add to each vhs. Of course, fast forward wasn't instant, and sometimes the marker on the tape would get corrupted over time...