When did you or family did your first Color TV, VCR, DVD player, etc?

[Markieo]

My first color TV was in 1967, my brother paid $50 for it, dunno the brand name. A month later it caught fire, didn't get another color set until '71, when my dad bought an RCA Accu-color 25 inch set! Wasn't allowed to touch it for 6 months...

In 1984 I was the first one in my family to get a VCR...a Fisher 4-head hi-fi stereo model worth over $800. Piece of crap lasted me only 7 years! Blank tapes back then ran about $5.99 on sale!

My first DVD player I got in 2001. My first DVD's were The Simpsons 1st Season, and Slap Shot.

 

[Wright County Guy]

First VCR: 1979--it was a ginormous silver RCA--the tapes loaded on the top. Anyone else remember those bad boys?

 

[wrsg915fm]

Our first VCR was also our first major credit card purchase (we were newlyweds in 1983). It cost $399.00.

 

[anotherguyTN]

First color TV: 1979 - My mother was working at a Sylvania flash bulb plant and was able to buy a set through an employee discount.

First VCR: 1986 - My brother bought a Fisher. My own actual first VCR was in 1989 and it was a used Sharp.

Cable: 1999 - Got it when I moved into an area where it was available for the first time before getting married.

First DVD: 2000 - My wife bought an Apex for me for a Christmas present.

First HDTV: 2009 - My wife bought an Insignia for a Father's day present.

 

[willdav713]

I got my first VCR in 1993, My own Color TV in 1993 with Cable (I was 13) I had a 1 B&W Rotary VHF and UHF Television when I was 8 and 1 portable KRACO AM/FM portable TV as well. I bought my first DVD Player APEX P-O-S in 2002. My first DVD/VHS Magnavox MRV 700VR combo recorder in 2007 ($40 Ebay) ($10) seperate auction for remote. I bought my Mom her first Mangavox MRV 660 DVD Recorder for Christmas for $30 off Ebay.

My grandad bought his first hifi VCR Canon VR-HF 800 with Manual Gain Controls and barcode programming back in 1987.

My mom and dad bought thier first Panasonic Top Loading VTR (VCR) back in 1981, with those annoying manual tuning push button on machine channel buttons, no remote control but wired pause control imagine a 80s nintendo game controller but smaller with one white button, that was for pause, oh the recording speeds were just SP and LP. In 2008 my dad bought his first HDTV and 5.1 Denon surround sound stereo.
Before that they had a Pioneer QX-949A Quadraphonic Receiver.

Cable: Since 1983 Storer Mo City, Tx Rogers Cablevision San Antonio 1986-1989 Paragon, then Time Warner, then Direct Tv. For me Time Warner Houston 2000-2002 Time Warner Broadband hooked up via splitter to TV set had weak reception of certain CATV channels 2003-2005, Time Warner Austin 2005-2007 AT&T U-verse Austin 2007-2009, now I stream Digital Entertainer Live by Netgear which I bought a Radio Shack in 2009.

 

[willdav713]

First VCR: 1979--it was a ginormous silver RCA--the tapes loaded on the top. Anyone else remember those bad boys?

Yes the 1981 Panasonic Top Loading VCR you know the one with a DEW light? I bet that RCA only recorded in SP and LP ;D wired pause contol, and manual VHF/UHF tuning with those green channel stickers.

 

[dave73]

In my household, the first color TV my parents bought was a used Magnavox in 1982. That lasted only 3 years when it caught on fire. My first color TV was bought used in 1993 & was originally a used RCA, then was replaced with a Philco (one of the last Philco's made before the brand was discontinued).

Cable was with then TCI, & we got it when it became available in 1984 in Gary Indiana.

The first VCR was a used Fisher in 1993. The first one I bought was in 1994 was a Magnavox. A few months later, I got a GE to add to the Magnavox.

The first DVD player was an APEX that I still have, but have it in a box for now. The first one I bought with a disc changer was a Koss that I still have. Koss no longer makes electronics to focus on their headphone business.

Later this year, or next year will be the year I get my first Blu-ray player. I already have a Blu-ray player built-into the DVD-Rom drive of my new laptop.

The first 8 track stereo was my dad's, & he got that before I was born, & was under the Montgomery Ward brand.

My first cassette player/recorder radio was a Lloyds that I got in 1984 or 1985 from Zayre. My first CD player/dual cassette recorder/player radio was bought in 1994, & it was an RCA.

 

[W2JUV_AL]

First color TV I owned was a used RCA 21" round tube purchased in 1969. Picture tube lasted about two years then I bought a 25" Zenith Chromacolor console....The Quality Goes In Before The
Name Goes On. That set lasted 15-16 years. First VCR was 1983 or 1984, a 4-head RCA. First CATV in 1977, received locals from Utica & Syracuse NY also WPIX & WOR from New York City and CKWS Kingston Ontario. Cable cost then was 7 or 8 bucks per month, those were the days

 

[LKellerIII]

First VCR: 1979--it was a ginormous silver RCA--the tapes loaded on the top. Anyone else remember those bad boys?

Yes the 1981 Panasonic Top Loading VCR you know the one with a DEW light? I bet that RCA only recorded in SP and LP ;D wired pause contol, and manual VHF/UHF tuning with those green channel stickers.

I had the same model VCR. My mother-in-law, an early adopter of VCRs (primarily to record her soap operas on competing networks) had the old-fashioned rotary-dial tuner, but my Panasonic ( a year or so later) had direct-channel tuning, though the wired remote control only did 'pause.'

A year or two later (about '84), I bought a smaller (still top-load) VCR) with direct channel tuning on the wireless remote. I thought this was a great advance forward, and even watched live TV thru the VCR so I could change channels wirelessly.

 

[davalvideo]

Color TV in 1957....RCA. Got cable for the first time in 1984 and purchased my first HDTV set, a 34-inch Sony in March of 2002.

 

[Bob1370]

Color TV came to our house in 1963--it was a 21 inch Admiral console that needed a set-top converter to get UHF in addition to VHF (no big deal since we were an all-VHF town, with a separate full power affiliate for each of the big 3 networks, until 1966 when PBS, and UHF service, arrived). Lasted 15 years until it was replaced by a 27 inch RCA.

First cable hookup? My dorm at Cornell U. in 1969 provided it for free. It was a simple 12 channel system that had the three Syracuse VHF stations, two Elmira channels, two Binghamton stations (the CBS VHF and the PBS U), the three New York commercial indies (5, 9 and 11) and a local news and weather channel. I moved off campus after my first year and got a cable hookup of my own which carried the 3 Syracuse and 3 Rochester VHFs, the 1 Binghamton V and three Us (including the Binghamton PBS station), the two Elimira Us, and the three NYC VHF indies (WNEW, WOR and WPIX) all carried to upstate cable companies by Eastern Microwave's relay service. It also had a more ambitious local cable-only news and public affairs outlet with a small staff and studio by then, and was one of the first systems that offered HBO (for an extra $4 a month) starting around 1973. You needed a set-top box to see them all, it was included in the monthly price. Back then it had room for expansion--they said they'd eventually offer up to 40 channels as more services became available. That was the 70s...I'm sure the capacity was soon tested.

First VCR? Got one in Buffalo in 1979.

DVD? just recently--my new flatscreen DTV has a built-in DVD deck.

 

[Dave-N2DS]

Here is our family tv history. Starting in Syracuse, NY and then locating to Corning, NY in 1953

1948 My father gets an Air King 10 inch set with a 630TS RCA chassis
1950 I arrived. A true bundle of joy.
1952 My first "tv repair". I twisted the crt connector off, 10BP4 replaced.
1956 Moved. Dad had a 12 inch set converted to a 24 inch crt in a console cabinet.
1961 CRT on the Air King craps out, but not my fault this time. New CRT purchased. (I still have this tv)
1969 Uncle gives us an Admiral color tv, 21 inch round tube. Already on it's last legs.
1972 I rescued a Zenith color tv 25 inch from the flood and I used that.
1975 Sony tv 21 inch. Other tv sets to come along over the years.
1979 I bought a used ßetamax for big money. More VCR's over the years.
1984 Get a C band system with 3.8 meter dish.
1996 Put in a Dish Network little dish
1999 Bought my first DVD player.
2009 Sold my two Sony tv sets and bought a 32 inch Visio HD set.

That's the details from here. Nice thread to read.

Dave

 

[pqgeorge]

Let's see......

Our first UHF TV was a Sears Silvertone set bought in 1964. 21 inch black and white. A very sensitive TV and really was a great DX unit. It last over 15 years.

Our first Color TV was on Christmas Day 1972, an RCA AccuColor set (19").

Got cable in '77 in Great Barrington, MA. 12 channel system with HBO. (Had a few "extra" channels hidden below Channel 7 including WSBK). First VCR, a top loaded GE VHS, early 1983. First TV Stereo decoder September, 1985. First DVD, 1999. And that should do it!

 

[fybush]

I'm a little younger than some of the company here...so I don't remember a time before we had color TV in the house (my parents got a 25" Zenith as a wedding present in 1969, and by the time I came along a few years later, they had a 13" Toshiba in the bedroom, too.)

Cable came to our neighborhood in January 1980, and we signed up right away - 27 channels or so from People's Cable in the Rochester suburbs, ancestor to the Time Warner Cable system I'm watching right now.

We got our first VCR in 1985, an early front-loading Zenith with wireless remote. Great machine; it lasted more than 20 years before giving up the ghost. Weighed a ton.

I think I got my first DVD player around 1999, first DTV tuner around 2004, first HDTV in 2008.

 

[WPPCProductions]

My parents got our first color tv was in 1971 I think It was a Motorola Quasar 19" tv all solid state tv.I still have that tv in my garagecable tv with HBO got hooked up in 1975.with the wired push button box with a whopping 25 channels .I remember sneeking in to see George Carlin's HBO specail and hearing the 7 words that we cant sey on tv. .1984 my late sister got a Quasar vcr the first in the family.I got mine in 1985 which was a Panasonic PV9600 portable HiFi vcr plus a Realistic MTS stereo tv tuner in the same year later in 1986 I got a used Panasonic tube style video camera from a friend..1987 I got a Sony SuperBeta Hifi vcr which it was great.the same year I purchased another VHS vcr to back up the panasonic which it was a NEC which was a lemon from day one .I had Nec send me a new one.later that year My dad got a 8mm camcorder which was a Olyimpus VX802 which still works to this day.In the 1990 VCR's and tv sets came and gone into my scrap pile for parts.end of 1998 I build my first pc.it is a p2 450mhz with a 10gig hd.which I still use today.with the other 3 pc's.In 1999 I picked up a Apex 600 DVD player for $190 bucks from Circuit City.which was great for the mp3 playback feature.the same year in got my first mp3 player which is a Diamond Rio 300 with a whopping 32mb built in memory I added another 32mb sd card to up it to 64mb's.The 2000 no big electronic things
came into my life until 2009 when the gov killed off analog tv. Last year I got my first DTV which is the 7" Sharper Image portable from BJ's
'

 

[TexasTom]

By the early 80s, VCRs started to include baseband composite video and audio outputs on RCA connectors, and we started to see some TVs that had RCA video/audio inputs. By the late 80s/early 90s, such inputs had become standard on nearly all TVs.

Those baseband connectors were around in the late seventies -- my first VCR, an RCA VCT-201 2/4 hour VCR, had RCA connectors for audio and video inputs and outputs. There were virtually no televisions with direct video inputs back then, but the connectors were still useful for dubbing between VCRs (assuming you knew anyone else with a VCR), and for feeding the audio from the VCR into a stereo system for better quality (albeit still mono) sound.

 

[TexasTom]

First VCR: 1979--it was a ginormous silver RCA--the tapes loaded on the top. Anyone else remember those bad boys?

Oh, yes, I remember those machines well -- possibly, that could have been the same machine as my first VCR, if it was a 2/4 hour machine with a 24-hour timer and the old click-stop style tuners.

As for the rest of the question:

First color TV (family): A 23" Heathkit that my father built in 1970
First color TV (personal): A 13" Panasonic color TV that I saved up for and bought in 1977, as I was starting high school. I've still got that TV, and it is functional (with the help of a digital converter box).
First VCR (personal): A close-out RCA VCT-201 that I bought in the summer of 1980. It was an old 2/4 hour model, so was relatively cheap for the time.
First DVD player: An Apex player that allowed for easy over-riding of the region code and copy protection systems that I bought in 1999.
First HD set: A 40" Toshiba rear projection set that I bought in 2000.

 

[willdav713]

First color TV I owned was a used RCA 21" round tube purchased in 1969. Picture tube lasted about two years then I bought a 25" Zenith Chromacolor console....The Quality Goes In Before The
Name Goes On. That set lasted 15-16 years. First VCR was 1983 or 1984, a 4-head RCA. First CATV in 1977, received locals from Utica & Syracuse NY also WPIX & WOR from New York City and CKWS Kingston Ontario. Cable cost then was 7 or 8 bucks per month, those were the days

My Grandfather bought a Zenith 25" Console back in 1987 with those 4 antenna Coaxial Connectors Input and Output. That sucker used two ac plugs to operate one for the TV and the other for the Coaxial Connector Box. When he first bought it he had Warner Cable Box hooked up to two of those connectors one for input and output and the Canon VCR connected to a separete output. I had to give it away because I moved from a house to a 3rd floor apartment and moving that heavy tv was not an option. I bought a Sanyo LCD TV and it only lasted 3 1/2 years from Walmart. LCD TVs suck, Consoles are still the best TVs ever made, next to standalone projection tuners.

 

[LKellerIII]

A baby boomer here (b. 1952). My father was never an early adopter. For example, he didn't switch from a monaural to a stereo hi-fi until the early 70s, and continued to buy monaural records as long as they were available. And he wouldn't get an "extension" phone either - he was anti-"Ma Bell" and didn't want to give the "blood-suckers" any extra money, so my whole childhood, we had only one phone in the hall.

We didn't have a TV until I was 5 (1957) - I'm probably scarred for life. ;D

The 23 inch RCA Victor B&W was our only TV until 1968, when he won a 10 inch portable color TV in a contest at work. I promptly snatched it for my room, and he didn't care - he didn't like the small screen, and black and white was fine with him. If I remember, he finally bought a big color set in the mid 70s, when the old RCA wasn't worth repairing yet again. In my day - TVs were expensive, and when they went on the fritz (which happened often), you called a TV repairman, and he come to your house, just like the plumber and electrician.

I left home in 1969, and made do with those cheapo 12 inch B&W sets (about $99) until 1975, when I bought an RCA ColorTrak - rotary dials, no remote - but a good set for its time. If I remember, it cost me about $350.

First VCR - after they had been widely available for about a year - 1980 I think (?). A big top-load Pansonic with a wired remote that only did "pause." That cost about $800, but I had a good income by then.

 

[mjlarochelle]

My father's family got its first TV in 1956, which was when the first television station signed on in their area, CKGN/10 in North Bay, Ontario. Four years later they were living outside Sault Ste. Marie right across the river from Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and they got a color TV so they could watch WTOM/4 (NBC) in color. It would be 7 years before any stations in Canada were allowed to broadcast in color.

My mother's family got its first TV around 1959-60. They lived in Calgary and got one channel, CHCT/2. While still in Calgary CFCN/4 signed on the air. They got their first color set while living in Ottawa in 1969.

My parents got cable for the first time in the late 1970s while living outside Vancouver. I think they got 11 channels including most of the Seattle locals and KVOS. They got their first TV with a cable converter in 1985, living in Ontario. Initially that meant getting an additional four American channels above Cable 13, but it wasn't long until cable offerings expanded dramatically.

They got their first VCR in early 1985, a front-loading JVC. A couple years later they traded VCRs with my mom's parents, who had gotten one in the early 80s, a high-end top-loading JVC with editing capabilities and a camera input. The top-loading model finally gave up in 2008; the front-loading one had given up in the late 90s. Both had wireless remotes.

It was 2004 before we had a DVD player.