The thing about movies up until 1972 was that someone else dictated where and when you could watch them. You either had to go to the movie theater or wait for the film to show on TV. That was a major bummer, so production studios decided to do something revolutionary: they released films on VHS.

How did people watch movies before video?

Before VHS, the only way to watch a movie or TV show was to watch it when it was available. For a movie, that meant seeing it in the theater when it was released – and maybe once more when it got a TV showing.

How did people watch movies in the 1900s?

Films were also shown in other kinds of theatrical spaces—vaudeville theaters and opera houses, for example—particularly but not exclusively prior to 1910. Movies were also shown in high schools, churches, amusement parks, YMCAs, tents, vacant lots, and fraternal and social clubs.

How were old movies watched?

They would sometimes show movies on TV. Also, some old movies would come back and make the rounds of theaters again. Clubs could rent out movies and show them if they were willing to sign the appropriate agreements and pay the fees and had a theater to show it.

How did people in the 1960s watch movies?

Drive-ins gained immense popularity 20 years later during the 1950s and '60s with the Baby Boomer generation. There were over 4,000 drive-ins throughout the U.S., and most were in rural areas.

The History of How We Watch Movies

How did people see movies in the 50s?

"Drive-ins started to really take off in the '50s," Kopp said. "They offered family entertainment. People could sit in their cars, they could bring their babies, they could smoke. Drive-ins offered more flexibility than indoor theaters."

How did people rewatch movies in the 70s?

Home video

The first was that you could record stuff from the TV (albeit 13 years late…) and rewatch it whenever you felt like it, the other was that you could go to a shop, rent a film and bring it home on a Friday night to watch with the family.

How did people first watch movies at home?

“When the movie production companies started selling movies on tape, we could buy them to watch at home, on our VCRs. We could also rent movies at Blockbuster (yes, they went out of business) to watch at home. It was a little bit like borrowing a book from the library, but we had to pay to borrow them.

How did people in the 1920s watch movies?

Cinema in the 1920s

As the popularity of “moving pictures” grew in the early part of the decade, movie "palaces" capable of seating thousands sprang up in major cities. A ticket for a double feature and a live show cost 25 cents.

How did people in the 80s watch movies?

Pay-per-view was available as early as the 1960s when you could call in and pay to watch a sports program on a private channel. By the 1980s, cable networks like HBO, Cinemax, and Showtime offered premium programming, including big movies available a year after theatrical release, with a paid subscription.

How did people watch movies before VHS tapes?

Before videotape became the preferred video format, film, particularly 16mm and 8mm/Super 8 were the reels of choice by consumers.

How did people watch movies in 1994?

There was no YouTube. There weren't even DVDs. People saw movies in theaters. They watched TV shows as they aired.

What was used before DVDs?

The LaserDisc (LD) is a home video format and the first commercial optical disc storage medium, initially licensed, sold and marketed as MCA DiscoVision (also known simply as "DiscoVision") in the United States in 1978. Its diameter typically spans 30 cm (12 in).

How did people entertain themselves before movies?

People found entertainment and information through various means such as reading, listening to the radio, attending live performances, and spending quality time with friends and family.

Was VHS the first way to watch movies at home?

If we look back at the history of home movies, most people didn't even have the ability to make them until around the 1980s--that is, until a magical device called the VHS tape made recording home videos easy, fun, and basically foolproof. That doesn't mean there weren't video formats before the VHS.

When did movies start talking?

The first feature film originally presented as a talkie (although it had only limited sound sequences) was The Jazz Singer, which premiered on October 6, 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the leading brand of sound-on-disc technology.

What did they call movies in the 1910s?

By 1910 the motion picture industry had run through a series of experimental terms and words. However, all those names turned out to be awkward misfits, and simpler terms like “moving picture” and “picture show” had crept into common usage.

How long were movies in the 1930s?

It's true that in the first decades of cinema movies were shorter, they were on average 90 minutes long in early 1930s and reached 100–110 minutes in mid-'50s.

How long were movies in the 1900s?

In the 1900s, movies were typically around 15 minutes long — that was the length of one reel (depending on playback speed and a few other variables).

Could people watch movies at home in the 1950s?

1950s–1970s

Dedicated home cinemas were called screening rooms at the time and were outfitted with 16 mm or even 35 mm projectors for showing commercial films. These were found almost exclusively in the homes of the very wealthy, especially those in the movie industry.

How did people know movie times before the Internet?

Search for movie times in the newspaper

If you wanted to know what time your movie was playing at, you had one place to search for the answer — the newspaper.

How did people watch movies in 2005?

Leading up to the economic downturn, there was a big boom in DVD sales. Between 2001 and 2005 customers had transitioned away from VHS and were buying up not only new films as they came out, but older films that were being released on DVD.

Did people watch movies during the Great Depression?

Even at the Depression's depths 60 to 80 million Americans attended the movies each week, and, in the face of doubt and despair, films helped sustain national morale. Although the movie industry considered itself Depression- proof, Hollywood was no more immune from the Depression's effects than any other industry.

Did people watch movies in 1940?

Cinema's Golden Age

The advent of sound secured the dominant role of the American industry and gave rise to the so-called 'Golden Age of Hollywood'. During the 1930s and 1940s, cinema was the principal form of popular entertainment, with people often attending cinemas twice a week.