3 ms·

My first official job as a teen was working in a video rental store. Indeed, new movies cost $40 to $80. Blank tapes came in different supposed quality levels

by blunte 5y ago

My first official job as a teen was working in a video rental store. Indeed, new movies cost $40 to $80. Blank tapes came in different supposed quality levels (similar audio cassettes), and cost $5-$10 apiece. Writable CDs were also quite expensive at first. But floppy disks were also expensive at first. Video rentals, before Blockbuster, cost $1-$4 depending on whether it was a new release and other specials (like rent 3 for a discount, etc.) As VCRs got more powerful, and rewinders came into existence, periodically a tape would get ripped off one end of its spool. Then it was a task to open the tape and do some minor surgery to fix it. And of course, some tapes were designed to be difficult to open, having permanent rivets. Those were solved with a dremel and some careful work. When the tape costs $80, it's worth an hour of teenager time to fix. We have it so much better now with streaming, although our appetites and consumption levels have grown so much that we often lament "having nothing to watch".

dhosek 5y ago
I remember when the first CD-R drives came out, a blank CD was around $100. In the early days, CD distribution of software was in some ways an intrinsic copy protection because computer hard drives typically had less capacity than a CD and it was not uncommon to run the software directly from the CD (not to mention that if you wanted to duplicate the CD it would cost $100 for a blank CD-R).
- rasz 5y ago
  Speaking of CD being poor mans copy protection, sometimes quantity of disks was enough. In Europe around 1996 Russian pressed pirate CDs showed up en masse. Often not direct 1:1 copies, but scene releases with modded homebrew translations, sometimes even including custom voice acting! It was especially hilarious in case of pirate localizations by Russians to other Slavic languages (mostly done by students barely speaking target language). Quick google found https://chess-progress.ru/en/photos/lokalizaciya-versii-lokalizaciya-kompyuternoi-igry-svyaz-s-ozvuchkoi.html https://chess-progress.ru/en/photos/lokalizaciya-versii-loka... "Localization of foreign computer games in Russia was carried out by computer pirates in small studios from 1995 to 2005 who worked on a illegal basis. The most famous similar studio was "Fargus Multimedia". Localization made by such studios, most often had poor quality. Not only the text in the game could be translated, but also the name of the game itself." Now the interesting thing about those pirate CDs was the business model. Smuggling and sales were mafia controlled, with fixed price set at ~$15 per disk. This made multi CD releases like Under a Killing Moon (4xcd), Phantasmagoria (7xcd), Ripper (6xcd), Wing Commander 3 (4xcd) etc much cheaper from legal sources. Break even was somewhere between 2 and 3 CD releases.
  - blunte 5y ago
    > custom voice acting! Be Kind Rewind https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799934/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799934/

by blunte 5y ago

dhosek 5y ago

I remember when the first CD-R drives came out, a blank CD was around $100. In the early days, CD distribution of software was in some ways an intrinsic copy protection because computer hard drives typically had less capacity than a CD and it was not uncommon to run the software directly from the CD (not to mention that if you wanted to duplicate the CD it would cost $100 for a blank CD-R).

rasz 5y ago
Speaking of CD being poor mans copy protection, sometimes quantity of disks was enough. In Europe around 1996 Russian pressed pirate CDs showed up en masse. Often not direct 1:1 copies, but scene releases with modded homebrew translations, sometimes even including custom voice acting! It was especially hilarious in case of pirate localizations by Russians to other Slavic languages (mostly done by students barely speaking target language). Quick google found https://chess-progress.ru/en/photos/lokalizaciya-versii-lokalizaciya-kompyuternoi-igry-svyaz-s-ozvuchkoi.html https://chess-progress.ru/en/photos/lokalizaciya-versii-loka... "Localization of foreign computer games in Russia was carried out by computer pirates in small studios from 1995 to 2005 who worked on a illegal basis. The most famous similar studio was "Fargus Multimedia". Localization made by such studios, most often had poor quality. Not only the text in the game could be translated, but also the name of the game itself." Now the interesting thing about those pirate CDs was the business model. Smuggling and sales were mafia controlled, with fixed price set at ~$15 per disk. This made multi CD releases like Under a Killing Moon (4xcd), Phantasmagoria (7xcd), Ripper (6xcd), Wing Commander 3 (4xcd) etc much cheaper from legal sources. Break even was somewhere between 2 and 3 CD releases.
- blunte 5y ago
  > custom voice acting! Be Kind Rewind https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799934/ https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0799934/