Joshua M. Greenberg, "From Betamax to Blockbuster: Video Stores and the Invention of Movies on Video (Inside Technology)".
Publisher: The MIT Press | ISBN: 0262072904 | 2008 edition | PDF | 216 Pages | 1,37 MB
The first video cassette recorders were promoted in the 1970s as an extension of broadcast television technology—a time-shifting device, a way to tape TV shows. Early advertising for Sony's Betamax told potential purchasers "You don't have to miss Kojak because you're watching Columbo." But within a few years, the VCR had been transformed from a machine that recorded television into an extension of the movie theater into the home. This was less a physical transformation than a change in perception, but one that relied on the very tangible construction of a network of social institutions to support this new marketplace for movies.