Ok, I am born in 1975.. When I was about 6 years old my father got a used Betamax System from a neighbor. We soon started to frequent one of the first Videostores in Vienna.
When the pickings got slim for betamax.. Around 83 or so we got a VHS Machine.. From Fisher.. (Soon after we bought the same machine again, just in silver).. That thing could do virtually nothing and cost around $1300..
Of course we started to copy tapes from the Videostore.. Which made me popular with other kids because virtually nobody at that time had two VCR's and therefor couldn't copy stuff..
When I was around 15 I saw an English movie for the first time (Meaning not dubbed in German).. I also noticed that it was about 6 minutes Longer (That one Being Nightmare on Elm Street 2.. The German Version was Rated "16" and almost every gory scene was cut).. Oh I forgot.. I noticed that they cut movies at age 10 or so, when a line in "Police Academy" was stopped in the middle of the sentence and the guy was suddenly looking someplace else after the cut..
Back to the Story.. About 6 months after seeing my first movie I thought, great there are English movies out there.. And the only way back then to watch them was a Laserdisc Player.. So I got one of those for around $1600 and buying the US Releases (which sometimes were available before the movie was even in Theaters in Austria) at the local Virgin Mega Store.. Although they were pretty expensive.. They cost about $60-100 each.. Since I was still going to school and had no job I could only buy a few a months.. But still it was great perfect quality and uncut movies.. At age 17 I found that there actually was an english Videostore (one that rented tapes) in Vienna.. So I got a lot of those also... At that age I finally stopped watching Movies which were dubbed altogether.. That's now about 17 years ago... I've seen the last dubbed movie like 10 years ago.. And since age 17 it may be 5-8 movies I still saw dubbed altogether..
When I made my first money at the age of 18.. (I was critiquing PC Games for a Non-profit org, but they still paid me $50 a game) I bought a dolby Pro Logic Receiver from Denon.. I was blown away by the surround sound when I heard it the first time.. It was just the greatest thing ever..
Then over time I exchanged that with a receiver that could decode AC-3 Sound and such.. Then in 1997 when DVD came along I quit my job and took an 80k loan at the bank to open up my own company which dealt in imported DVD's (and in the beginning Laserdiscs) and Homeentertainment in General.. (I didn't sell TV's though).. Since I now got a company I also renewed my Home Cinema.. I got a Yamaha DSP 3090, Vienna Acoustics Speakers (those cost about 10k but I got'em for about half of that..) and a Yamaha Subwoofer..
The company was open for about 3 years then I fu**ed it up..
Well nothing changed in my equipment until 2008.. (Well except DVD Players..I get a new one every year since I can't seem to make'em work longer)..
Early at 2008 I got an HD-DVD Player.. (I bought that one after Warner said, they'd quit HD-DVD.. But I didn't think it was gonna happen that fast)..
In march 2008 I finally got a new Receiver, the Onkyo TX-SR 605.. (I am still using the now 10 year old Vienna Acoustics Speakers).. In may of the same year I got a Blu Ray Player, the Samsung BD-P 1400.. And in June I finally bought an LCD TV..
Well that's my story.. I now have about 570 HD Titles and am very happy with my equipment.. I am not planning any changes in the near future.. Except maybe Expanding to 7.1..

As for DVD itself I have to say that it soundwise in my opinion never reached the quality of Laserdisc Sound which was just awesome..

I was born in 1977, my 1st foray into tv's and video's I was around 3-4, watching batamax and vhs, bit of nerd even at that age I was tuning in tv's and vcr's because family members were complete idiots.

watched alot of vhs and betamax titles for my 1st couple of years, vhs was the main stay of my veiwing until 2001 when i got my 1st blue ray player..


I 1st started collecting vhs titles then moved to dvd, started with a couple after 8-9 years of collecting my vhs 60 odd titles where as my dvd collection sits in the 2000-3000 mark and keeps growing, now i'm starting to get into blue rays all i need now is the amp and blue ray player and lcd tv..

I got my 1st tv and video when i was 10-11, 34cm pojush button and a old jvc vhs player, moved houses upgraded to a 51cm mono tv and mono vcr, a few years past, got a stereo vcr, and as i cringe saying this an akai 4.1 ht system..

upgraded to a yamaha tss-10 thenn a tss-15, contemplating either a onkyo or denon amp for my next purchase..

i've picked alot of hardware over the years, I have to say this I haven't bitten the bullit yet on network gear though in time i might pending on what i can pickup at a reasonable price..

might start getting into to the retro gaming scene a bit more... once i tire of dvd and blue ray collecting..

as for consoles I own a: NES, SNES, N64, PS1, PS2 and xbox, I haven't looked at the 360 and PS3 yet waiting on lcd tv before getting into the next gen war..

Probably meant DVD player

Quoting dee1959jay:

Quote:
Quoting sniper323:

Quote:
watched alot of vhs and betamax titles for my 1st couple of years, vhs was the main stay of my veiwing until 2001 when i got my 1st blue ray player..

Blu-ray in 2001? That's gotta be a world's first...     

Quoting mediadogg:

Quote:
My parents had one of the first B&W TVs in the neighborhood. We were a little late getting a color set.

AT least you were not like my wife's father, he bought a Color set to watch the moon landing (1969) in color...

I remember life before VHS.  We had a huge floor console tv, and only about 13 channels, only 3 network (ABC, NBC & CBS).    I remember watching Hollywood movies (Wizard of Oz, The Sound of Music, when they played on network and that was my HOME THEATER.

Then cable gave birth to Showtime and HBO and we got it, but had to have one of those large brown boxes with a huge switch on it to be able to watch the movie stations.  I laugh at that now.

My neighbor became becasme very popular with the neighborhood kids, they bought a VCR and each week, took me with them to rent some bulky video tapes each weekend.  I would stay up all night with them and watch some of our favorite films.  I remember the ONLY video store in town was a little outdoor shack called Video Store Galore, it had about 300 - 500 movies.

Suddenly, video stores were openning up all over the place.  We finally bought a VCR and I started recording movies off of Showtime and Network TV.  of course, I would record 3 movies per blank tape, (slow speed) to save room and have more movies.  I didn't care that the image wasn't crisp or perfectly clean, as long as I could WATCH the movie, that was all that mattered.

my sister bought me my first tv for my room.  A 12-inch black & white, but I didn't care, I was able to FINALLY watch movies in my OWN room.  Soon after that , I learned how to hook up my tv to my stereo and have my movies play out of two seperate speakers.  Oh yeah, I was in the BIG LEAGUE now.

Then laserdisk came out, and I remember renting one JUST to see how good it was.  I rented a couple of films and thought this was just AMAZING.  Even though I had to flip the disk over in the middle of the movie, and sometimes deal with scratches and skips, just like a vinal record.

Now, I have my own family, and a DVD collection of about 900 movies.  Each of my girls have their OWN color tv and DVD player in their room and can't believe we only had 13 channels when I was growing up.  LOL.  I wonder what they'll be telling THEIR kids when they reach MY age.

You forgot, you actually only had 12 channels, as the dial was 2 thru 13...no #1. In 1953, we had 2 snowy channels and 1 that had various shades of gray. We sat around a 9 inch almost round B&W tube while a family member went up to the attic and turned the antenna until we yelled up the steps and told them to stop.

Ah! The good ole days...no I don't miss them.

My story:

In my house we only had B/W telly most of my childhood days, first in the 80’s we got colour telly and it was a revolution especially for my mom that liked to look at the landscape and the flowers in every picture there was some in. My best memory from telly during childhood was the Macahan’s with Zeb as my favourite, I don’t dare to look at it this days because I am afraid to ruin my best memory from those days. 

Then there comes the Video 2000, Beta and VHS, wow we could see a movie when we wanted to, well sort of as my family couldn’t afford a player for our selves, the moviebox was a revolution. I remember when I was left alone for the weekend I got money to rent movies and I biked down to the movie store and put the moviebox on the back and the movies in a bag on my steering wheel and biked as fast as could home to watch Jackie Chan, Bruce Lee and all other movies with karate…  he-he  this was the big kick for me then…  I watched them over and over again with nearly no sleep until return time.

The households first VHS player I bought myself, a used stereo player from Pioneer, wow what a sound…  later I think it was in 92 I first was introduced to Dolby Surround Prologic and it swept the feet under me, this I got to get for my own but unfortunately I didn’t got the money yet, but the fire was lit, at the same time I also got the interest for the big picture a projector could provide, and the year after I came over a cheap one that was broken, this was a analog BARCO that I newer got to run, the seller tricked me sort of..  the repair guy told me it was not possible to get all the problem that this projector had, it was used as spare parts and all the cards had failure… so then in 95 I bought my first telly and sat up my own home cinema for the first time in a cellar room at my folks, here I could watch movies when I wanted to…  soon after I bought a full home cinema sound system, and I got that prologic sound out of the rear speakers… soo cool.. 

I was now working and living under my folks roof so all my money went to buy new stuff.  First there was a LD player a SONY that costs me more than a month salary back then. Then I heard about AC-3 sound… wow me want also, so I had to replace my newly bought Dolby Prologic preamp, luckily I bought a component rack so the prize for upgrade wasn’t that high after all. I was in heaven only to discover that my LD player didn’t support AC-3…  bummer..  It was at this time my collection on movies got to a new level, I bought a collection of about 200 LD and the change from VHS to LD had gotten a flying start…  and along came this new media DVD oh so expensive at first but as I needed a new LD player after all to get the AC-3 I bought a combination player from Pioneer. With AC-3 sound and now Dolby Digital as they called it on DVD I bought a SUB and it rocked…  That summer of 98 I put up the entire rack in my folks living room and invited all my friends to watch all the newest movies directly imported from US…  and the upgrade from LD to DVD started with more expenses…

And then DTS comes around with more and more media, but again my player didn’t support it.. my newly bought DTS decoder from Rotel with state of the art DTS decoding from analog devices, the best back then, just collected dust and actually did only that until it was decommissioned. And then came the urge for big picture again, and because of my expensive experience from used projector buying I steered away as a new one was out of the question at that time, so I went for a back projection telly with CRT tubing that I got pretty cheap (all is relative) as the LCD revolution had come to the projector industries with crappy picture if you’d ask me back then, CRT still kicked ass back then.

I have so many hours of joy with this set, but there was still an urge for bigger picture, and the only way to go for me was BARCO this time a functional one, the DLP revolution had came around so big BARCOs was near free of charge. And along came the blu-ray revolution I got one of the first SONY blu-ray player that came into Norway after ordering it about an half year earlier… and when they called to tell me it had arrived I told my boss I was going early that day, don’t know if he thought I am crazy but he grinned some.

Again I got problem with my connections, My BARCO didn’t have HDMI neither had my old back projection telly and as the standard for Norway had been RGB and not Component I couldn’t even play blu’s at 720p I got so frustrated I could pull my hear out, yet another box that could collect dust…  I ordered a HDMI to RGB-HV fron Korea only to realise that the RGB-HV connection on my BARCO was broken and as my telly didn’t have HV I still couldn’t play….  Finally I got enough money to buy a full HD SXRD projector from SONY and man what a picture…  but what about the sound…  again my urge for early buys came back and bite me once more as my player now didn’t supported the newest DTS HD Master that I was so eager to get, I literally was chocked this time, this is actually not believable under a year old high-end equipment already ready for the garbage…  and there was another problem also, I had to upgrade my preamp again to HDMI to get the HD sound, but here is a shiny sunny day story, again my love for component equipment saved my day, as I bought a DTS ready preamp back then it had 5.1 inlet…  and when I bought a new blu-ray player I simply bought one with analogue outlets and man I love my 1080p/24 picture and DTS Master Audio from my speaker…   

And now just a few years later the 3D monster has came around and I am already biting on their bait…  fortunately they have come up with an standard already and that is good,,,    ha-ha  did I mentioned I bought a HD-DVD player by the way?  It was let out to make this long story some sentences shorter along with all my upgrade on sound equipment and self built speakers and big woofers in every corner something that become absent with the introduction of digital sound systems according to Dolby experts…  this back then… 

Sorry for the long maybe boring story but I was carried away and enjoyed it myself at least 

When I was a kid we had a single color TV in the living room.  At the time I was real little we got one channel decently well (13, which was ABC at the time I think) and a second reasonably well (KET) and sporadic times other channels.  We watched The Love Boat, Fantasy Island, The Dukes of Hazard, and The Lawrence Welk Show.  Probably others too, but I don't remember them as clearly.  My grandmother watched gmae shows and soaps in the daytime, and I watched Captain Kangaroo when we could get it in, and Saturday morning cartoons like Super Friends and broadcasts of Looney Tunes.

At some point when I was a kid (don't remember the exact year) my grandmother had an enormous antenna built in the front yard.  That got us a further selection of five more channels with reasonable reception and another KET affiliate.  That was sometime before summer 1984 because I saw Star Trek for the first time that year on channel 34.  My other favorite shows at the time were Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors and TranZor Z. 

Mom and I moved to Bowling Green in fall of 1984, and for awhile we didn't have a TV at all, except back home at my grandmother's house.  We didn't have a TV full-time again until summer 1986, and by that time I was very into afternoon cartoons (Thundercats, Silverhawks, Transformers & G.I. Joe ... and still into Star Trek).  We got our first VCR sometime in 1987, and I was very into recording movies and stuff on TV. 

Money issues had us without a TV (and naturally VCR) again by spring of 88 and we bounced around for awhile.  I spent two years of high school living with cousins, where I amassed a bit of a library of recorded VHS tapes.  For those years my favorite shows were Twin Peaks, Dark Shadows & Island Son.  Back living with mom and later in a homeless shelter in late high school, home entertainment equipment was about the furthest thing from my mind.  I still had some of my tapes though.

It wasn't until we had drug ourselves out of the shelter and built ourselves back up that I started thinking about acquisitions to watch stuff on again.  Of course, money still being tight it was about economy - the TV/VCR combo.  I think it was a 13 or 15 inch screen.  In this period I built a reasonably large library of VHS tapes.  I think we must have had better than 500 before we ditched them.  Thank you Book & Music Exchange (they're also the reason I have such a large library of DVDs today).

Later (1998) we got a rental house with with one of my best friends and she had a larger TV, so we kept that in the living room and moved the combo into my bedroom.  This was when we first got DVDs (2000), and we played them all on her PS2.  Economy.  She eventually got married, moved out, and so did we - today I own my very own little home.  It's not much, but it is completely paid for and I'm quite fond of it.

The TV I have right now is the nicest TV I've ever owned.  I got it about five years ago.  It's a 32 inch square TV, and weighs a ton (I'm certain!).  But the picture is clear and the sound is reasonable (it cuts in and out on one speaker occasionally - shows what I've learned to live with).  I have a DVD/VHS combo player, which replaced my ex-roommate's PS2 for playing DVDs several years ago (after I got rid of the TV/VCR combo).  While I got rid of most of my VHS tapes before we moved here, I still have about twenty, including one that I made at my cousin's in high school, and it still plays.  The quality isn't particularly good, but I'm still glad to have the material (six episodes of the Island Son TV show).  I got a PS3 in December, so I'm using it as a blu-ray player (and have started the conversion).

My next plan for acquisition is a widescreen TV.  Sometime this year or next year.  We'll see how it goes.  Maybe after that I'll see to speakers and some sort of surround sound capability.  Of course, I know nothing of the technical stuff here.