Michael Rogers
Supporting Actor
- Joined
- Dec 31, 2005
- Messages
- 740
Ever since I was a kid in the 1970's, I loved TV and movies enough to want to be able to have them to watch when I wanted to.
I heard about this recorder thing that could save TV but never actually saw a VCR until, about 1979 when a school buddy of mine taped Alien off of cable and I finally got to see it.
Of course, a Betamax or VHS was way beyond a school kid's allowance and my parents were not interested in anything like a VCR.
It wasn't until High School until I thought I could save up to get anything for the little color TV I had in my room. VCR's were still way out there (5 -7 hundred dollars, as I remember), but the RCA Selectavision CED disc player was something like $150. So I saved up for a stereo one and bought Carrie and Star Trek 2 as an incentive to get it.
Now, I don't have to tell some of you what fun CED can be. The wear, the skipping, the side changing. But I still loved it to death.
I hooked it up to the TV and my little stereo and finally I could buy movies like you would a record album (I wished I could record stuff though).
Pretty soon, I also saved up for a 25" TV monitor (RCA, one of the first ones I saw that wasn't in a wooden console but a modular unit as small as it could be to house the 25" screen. It was compact and had lots of video connections, a remote control, top mounted controls and side mounted stereo speakers. It also had a slightly smoked glass cover for the TV screen that I think made the picture look better )
Pretty soon, I noticed the "This movie has a matrixed surround track" line on the back of MCA movies like Cat People and The Thing (it felt particularly good to pick up an R rated movie on CED that I was still too young to see in the theater. My mom and pop video store didn't care).
By that time I was also getting Video Review and fortunately, an issue came along and answered my questions in an article about matrixed surround tracks. It explained about Dolby Stereo and the L-R + delay that gave you the surround track and pointed the way to an electronic device that had the L-R and delay circuitry.
So, by (I think) 1984 I had my first (very primitive) surround stereo system. I ordered the version of the surround delay box that you could assemble to save money and got my dad's help. I hooked it up to a (not too powerful) basic amplifier and a couple speakers.
It gave a good effect but was far from accurate (I knew it even then). Since the circuit was L-R with none of the steering logic we are accustomed to with Dolby Surround of today, most of the sounds occurring on the left and the right wound up in the back speakers. The delay was supposed to fool the ear into thinking that all but the out phased surround sound effects were coming from the front but it rarely worked that way for me. Part of the problem was that the amp supplying the front speakers and the amp supplying the back speakers were separate and one had to adjust the volume on both and figure a good balance.
So, in 48 HRS when you had the hotel shootout, you could hear the bullets hit the door frame seen in one of the shots in the back speakers. I still thought it was cool.
Still, I would spend a lot of time tweaking it to try to get the "perfect effect". In the articles on Dolby Surround I got they often pointed to using movies like "The Thing" to see if everything came from the right place. Another article pointed out how they got an "audio zoom" effect from the scare scenes in "Creepshow", where the music would shift between the front and back speakers to "pull you in". From the CED disc to the DVD, I never got an "audio zoom" effect from the scary scenes, so sometimes you take what is said in the articles with a grain of salt.
So anyway, that's how it all started. Finally got a VHS in 1988, the first DVD player in 1998 and blu-ray early this year. My teenage self would've killed for the set up I have today, even though it's relatively modest compared to some of yours.
I heard about this recorder thing that could save TV but never actually saw a VCR until, about 1979 when a school buddy of mine taped Alien off of cable and I finally got to see it.
Of course, a Betamax or VHS was way beyond a school kid's allowance and my parents were not interested in anything like a VCR.
It wasn't until High School until I thought I could save up to get anything for the little color TV I had in my room. VCR's were still way out there (5 -7 hundred dollars, as I remember), but the RCA Selectavision CED disc player was something like $150. So I saved up for a stereo one and bought Carrie and Star Trek 2 as an incentive to get it.
Now, I don't have to tell some of you what fun CED can be. The wear, the skipping, the side changing. But I still loved it to death.
I hooked it up to the TV and my little stereo and finally I could buy movies like you would a record album (I wished I could record stuff though).
Pretty soon, I also saved up for a 25" TV monitor (RCA, one of the first ones I saw that wasn't in a wooden console but a modular unit as small as it could be to house the 25" screen. It was compact and had lots of video connections, a remote control, top mounted controls and side mounted stereo speakers. It also had a slightly smoked glass cover for the TV screen that I think made the picture look better )
Pretty soon, I noticed the "This movie has a matrixed surround track" line on the back of MCA movies like Cat People and The Thing (it felt particularly good to pick up an R rated movie on CED that I was still too young to see in the theater. My mom and pop video store didn't care).
By that time I was also getting Video Review and fortunately, an issue came along and answered my questions in an article about matrixed surround tracks. It explained about Dolby Stereo and the L-R + delay that gave you the surround track and pointed the way to an electronic device that had the L-R and delay circuitry.
So, by (I think) 1984 I had my first (very primitive) surround stereo system. I ordered the version of the surround delay box that you could assemble to save money and got my dad's help. I hooked it up to a (not too powerful) basic amplifier and a couple speakers.
It gave a good effect but was far from accurate (I knew it even then). Since the circuit was L-R with none of the steering logic we are accustomed to with Dolby Surround of today, most of the sounds occurring on the left and the right wound up in the back speakers. The delay was supposed to fool the ear into thinking that all but the out phased surround sound effects were coming from the front but it rarely worked that way for me. Part of the problem was that the amp supplying the front speakers and the amp supplying the back speakers were separate and one had to adjust the volume on both and figure a good balance.
So, in 48 HRS when you had the hotel shootout, you could hear the bullets hit the door frame seen in one of the shots in the back speakers. I still thought it was cool.
Still, I would spend a lot of time tweaking it to try to get the "perfect effect". In the articles on Dolby Surround I got they often pointed to using movies like "The Thing" to see if everything came from the right place. Another article pointed out how they got an "audio zoom" effect from the scare scenes in "Creepshow", where the music would shift between the front and back speakers to "pull you in". From the CED disc to the DVD, I never got an "audio zoom" effect from the scary scenes, so sometimes you take what is said in the articles with a grain of salt.
So anyway, that's how it all started. Finally got a VHS in 1988, the first DVD player in 1998 and blu-ray early this year. My teenage self would've killed for the set up I have today, even though it's relatively modest compared to some of yours.