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It didn't even occur to me that this would need to be explained. Up next we should talk about why it was bad to leave VCRs paused for long periods of time.
by fred_is_fred 7y ago
It didn't even occur to me that this would need to be explained. Up next we should talk about why it was bad to leave VCRs paused for long periods of time.
- cpach 7y agoWhy was that bad?
- jannes 7y agoI believe because the tape will stay under tension
- mortenjorck 7y agoI remember being told as a child that it "wears out the tape," but I'm going to guess it's specifically because the same section of tape stays wrapped around the capstan (the metal cylinder it loops around to be read) when it would normally be passing through. Keeping the same section of tape under tension for a prolonged period presumably weakens or risks distorting it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- kozak 7y agoIt was worse than that. The head drum continued to spin throughout the entire duration of the pause, rubbing against the film at high speed. That's because the VCR didn't have any "memory" to hold the entire frame¹, so the lines of the frame had to be read from the tape over and over again. ¹ It was actually an interlaced field, not a frame, but that too much nitpicking.
- mc32 7y agoSo kinda like riding a clutch... ok maybe not that bad.
- hunter2_ 7y agoMore like a burnout vs launch control, with infinite tread and it's the road you really care about.
- brirec 7y agoIt isn’t about tension. In order to display a paused image, the head must continuously rotate and scan that section of the tape. You can literally overheat and wear the tape out in that spot because there is a spinning piece of metal against it. Only specialized VCRs such as high end professional/broadcast or security recorders have something like a framebuffer.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tomc1985 7y agoSome kids call 3.5" floppies "save icons" because they've never seen them in any other context