You might think you’re getting on a bit if you remember the day when DVDs or CDs first rocked up. If so, spare a thought for anyone who first enjoyed movies at home via the magic of VHS. Doubly so if they owned a JVC HR-3300, given that this slice of miracle tech – the very first home VHS deck – is now a half century old.
Ah, yes, who can forget the dulcet sounds of your favourite VHS tape being devoured?
Gripe all you like, but this JVC number was the start of something special. Before the HR-3300, video recorders were mostly the preserve of studios. JVC’s plan was to shrink one down so it could fit into your home – and be cheap enough that you wouldn’t have to sell that home to pay for it. The result was revolutionary: thanks to the HR-3300’s ability to schedule a recording up to 24hrs in advance, you’d never miss The Sweeney again.
That’s assuming you could figure out how to use the thing. It looks… complicated.
Well, it was the 1970s. Despite being slimmer than those studio behemoths, the JVC HR-3300 was still a metal-clad beast. In today’s era of featureless black rectangles, those chunky switches and dials look daunting, and you really did need to read the manual to avoid blunders. But it wasn’t fiddly – and its piano-style keys even offered an unintended perk, making it tougher for kids to press ‘record’ hard enough to tape over your favourites. That said, JVC’s real masterstroke wasn’t the hardware – it was the tapes.
VHS? Really? I know the format’s having an ironic comeback, but wasn’t it awful?
No one was gawking at 4K displays back then, so VHS’s picture quality didn’t matter. What did was the tapes being able to record for two whole hours from day one, unlike Sony’s early Betamax efforts. Sony later caught up, but JVC’s VHS won the format war. And, sure, your HR-3300 may have eaten the odd tape here and there… but if you ever fancied chucking the deck out of the window in a tearful rage, its 13kg bulk would quickly remind you that the only thing you’d end up damaging was yourself.
Main photo provided by JVCKenwood.
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