Word: vcrs
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Ever since VCRs began to catch on, industry gurus have predicted an explosion of fare specially made for the home-video market. The explosion has arrived, in quantity if not in quality. No one knows how many nonmovie tapes have been released, but estimates hover between 7,000 and 10,000. A few genres -- notably exercise tapes, children's cassettes and rock-concert videos -- have established a niche in the market. But the rest are fighting for a relatively tiny number of viewers. Usually produced on a shoestring, these made-for-home-video cassettes are doing well if they sell...
Donald A. Norman is a noted psychologist, yet like many people he switches on the wrong lights, scalds himself in the shower and stands dumb before the mysteries of VCRs. The culprits, he says, are designers who fail to provide visual cues to the operation of a host of gadgets that influence the quality of life. A look at some things that don' t work and some that...
...Sarafina! have seen their parents, their friends, or the green hills of Zululand. In the Hotel Esplanade (where they settled after guests at the Mayflower didn't take to rock music at 3 a.m.), they visit back and forth like in a college dorm. Their rooms are filled with VCRs, miniskirts, Japanese cameras and fluffy pink stuffed animals, but they are far from feeling at ease. "I miss the chickens that used to play on the ground at home," said Ntomb'khona Dlamini, 17, the tiniest cast member at less than 5 ft. Her television is turned to MTV, where...
...hottest-selling angler's aids are electronic depth sounders like the one Poveromo used to locate his amberjack. Similar systems have been employed by commercial fishermen since World War II. But like VCRs, fish finders have jumped in sales as their prices have plunged, to as little as $99 for the simplest units. Today some 20 manufacturers turn out more than 200 sounders designed for freshwater and salt water. One of the largest, Alabama-based Humminbird, has doubled its sales during the past four years, to more than $50 million in 1987. Its chief rival, Lowrance Electronics of Tulsa...
...fact is that movie buffs seem ready to plunk down their bucks almost no matter what is on the tape. With VCRs in 54% of U.S. homes, an estimated 65 million movie cassettes were sold in 1987 (up from 51 million in 1986), and 3.3 billion were rented (up from 2.2 billion the year before). Newly minted cassettes of Hollywood classics are flooding the stores, and TV ad campaigns now alert buyers and renters to the release of recent hits. Notes a bullish Louis Feola, senior vice president of MCA Home Video: "There is a generation of kids growing...