Word: vcr
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...comes an even more sophisticated effort to tame the VCR. The VCR Voice Programmer, a voice-activated remote-control device being launched nationally this week by Voice Powered Technology, eliminates button pushing almost entirely. Just bark commands into the microphone -- channel number, day, time -- and the machine does your bidding. A viewer can call out commands for a variety of other VCR functions as well, from "rewind" to "zap it" (whiz through the commercials...
These programming devices, of course, are hardly hassle-free. VCR Plus+ must be programmed in advance before it can respond to the codes, not a simple process. (Ken Sander, who hosts a New York City cable show and dubs himself "the Cable Doctor," will do the job for confused viewers in a $45 house call.) The VCR Voice Programmer is also complicated to set up (it must be trained to recognize the user's voice) and costs a hefty $169, nearly as much as some low-priced VCRs. The device is being sold only through a toll-free mail-order...
...VCR so intimidating? One problem is the ever changing technology, another the lack of universal standards. Cable has complicated things enormously; with some hookups, programming the VCR requires two separate sets of instructions -- one for the cable converter (to switch channels), another for the VCR (to turn on at the proper time). And even if the machine is programmed exactly right, any one of a host of pitfalls can scuttle the enterprise. Frustrated VCR users can recite them through gritted teeth: forgetting to put in a cassette; failing to turn on the timer or (on some machines) switch...
...Peter McWilliams, who has written several best-selling books about personal electronics, resistance to VCR technology reflects the fact that "people don't care enough about it. If it really is important enough, then we'll learn how to do it." Compounding this is the irony that in order to master a VCR, the defining device of the video age, one must first master a nearly antiquated, pre-MTV skill: reading an instruction book. Says David Dewalt, a salesman at Brands Mart in Kansas City, Missouri: "Reading the manual is something most customers don't understand...
...defiant ignorance voiced by many VCR-phobics may be a sign of technology backlash. "I'm electronically incorrect," says Kathy Harrison of Raleigh, North Carolina, who got a VCR for her birthday four years ago and hasn't taped a show yet. "I don't like appliances." Or it may be merely another case of American don't-know-how. In City Slickers, Billy Crystal spends much of one day on the trail fruitlessly trying to explain to Daniel Stern how to tape one show while watching another. "He'll never get it!" cries their partner, Bruno Kirby...