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Anyone else sick of renting a video from your local rental store, perching yourself on the sofa with popcorn, drinks and snacks all carefully arranged around you, then turning on the video only to see the end credits slowly creeping up the screen? Yes, the git who rented the film before you didnt bother
to rewind it.
So why not have the cassettes rewind themselves? It shouldnt be too hard to build some kind of clockwork-type device into the tape (Im thinking of something not unlike the mainspring in a watch) which gets wound up as the tape is played, and then, when the tape is ejected, spools the tape back to the beginning again. It might have to have some of regulator in it so that the tape doesnt wind back too violently, but other than that I cant see any real problems with the idea. Apart from the growing popularity of DVDs, of course
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I've never rewound any of my dvd's... |
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And I've never turned my hard drive over. |
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Cheaper to put a sticker on the video tape reminding you to check.... |
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My Sanyo VCR rewinds a 3 hour tape in 48 seconds. Life may be short, but it's long enough for that. |
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I have a video-shell for the mini videotapes my (very) old video camera uses, that comes complete with a battery and motor to insert and eject the mini tapes. So clearly within the bounds of technology. However, with everyone moving to DVD, I do think you are a few years late with this suggestion. |
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So i might be a bit late with my "convert wax cylinders to flat discs of vinyl" idea as well, then... |
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Oh, we don't know .... we've got a "Cuneiform to Papyrus" converter idea we're working on ... go ahead, post the idea .... |
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Most video stores where I live have a machine that rewinds rental videos. |
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The spring would probably cause the VCR feed motor to slow down at the end, screwing up the picture. Also, the resistance on the feed motor would cause the VCR to stop the playback because it would appear that the end of the tape had been reached. |
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I agree that it is a little too late on this one. My video stores only carry VHS tapes for the older movies. Seems to be all dvds now. |
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People don't seem to get all misty for the VHS tapes like they do for vinyl albums. |
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But the video is so much warmer. |
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A constant-force spring could work to avoid increasing
load on the VCR's motor, as well as to avoid violent
rewinding. (Yes, they exist. Not only that, they are very
common. Tape measures use them.) |
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