4 ms·
I 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 th
by mortenjorck 7y ago
I 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.