Croome Court
The gardens are very good, well worth a visit.
6857 publicly visible posts • joined 5 Mar 2009
I have done it many years ago and to be honest was tiring, tents on the hills overnight.
These days if I could I would drive, but the rules include do it with at least one another vehicle. Walking distances is out with a damaged back.
However I carry lots of OS maps and it is not windy inside.
Oh and the sat nav is useless away from tarmac roads.
VhsC
I remember it too, quite small but not that much smaller than my Sony portable, but picture quality, it was shocking, even the camera was not great compared to mine, which was known to be a bit average.
Back in those days the portable VCR market had about 4 or 5 main entrants. 3 most well known were, Jvc did a VhsC portable, Panasonic the NV180 which was reckoned to be the second best domestic portable. Sony the SL-F1 portable, which was the best, by a long way.
Others were from Hitachi, a full size Jvc and Sanyo/NEC.
Cameras, the best early camera was a top end Jvc*, best late a CCD Panasonic. There was some not very good cameras. But the Sony I had was basic but good, colour rendition was good, low light usable but not good, however it kept colour unlike early CCD chip cameras.
Done some digging GX-N70E, and Panasonic F10 I think.
People often mixed and matched which meant that running a top end camera from company A with recorder from company B, most common mix was JVC camera with Sony recorder. There was never a market for Sony cameras away from their recorders.
Kit differences were surprising, a cheap Jvc camera I have seen in use always ended up green tinged. Beta third generation were similar to Vhs edit masters. So the final product was better.
Raw footage -> Edit master -> final copies. Each one has generational loss.
Just ended up with Beta being so much better for this than Vhs some many little differences ending up making it a much better format for the job.
Blockbuster were killed off by being rubbish.
I used to use a small shop a couple of miles from home (parents) then a big one in the local city who was a specialist in Beta rental, used them until I moved, had quite a few HiFi sound rentals as well.
Early 90s, moved quite a few miles for work, managed ONE rental at new place before the big argument and card destruction in store.
Was VERY early DVD adopter had to buy them, couple of small rental places, then a chap started up doing door to door, used them for a few years, was also part of LoveFilm DVD trial.
All this time Blockbusters were open, but never took on DVD, and never rented any of the decent cassette formats.
The gap between end of Beta rental and the release of DVD was not that big!
I was happy to see the rental shops here go under, if they stop the product they can lose my custom. Also slow to take on DVD, just go bust you pricks!
Was better at my parents area.
Oh and I have NEVER used a Blockbusters, they never met my requirements.
Now renting a film is as easy as selecting a film on a programming running on a games console made by the same company as my old Video Recorders, watched on a TV of the same brand.
I remember renting some great films.
Did cause an upset at a film night once, I supplied the hardware and the film.
I arrived with my TV strapped onto the pillion seat, my video recorder in the tank bag, and a copy of Robo Cop.
Well I liked it!
Was surprising in late 80s how many people did not have a video or TV then.
I used to back in the 80s, then suddenly they stopped. Arguments with the tossers which ran the places.
Didn't help that I moved from a place with good rental to one with crap rental.
Then on next visit home found my favourite place shut.
Started renting again I think in 1999 or 2000 after bullying some rental places to get with the times.
I think it was 8 years with no rental options. Just waited for TV to show them.
And yes I did blow £800 on a VCR and £500 a few years later on a DVD player.
They used to make good HDDs then sold the plant to WD.
My boss had a Samsung TV, had to swap it due to naughty HDMI ports.
My TV has been reliable and trouble free, but is a Sony.
However my Sony video camera failed about 15 years ago, the pick up tube wore out. Apart from that I had to have its lead replaced once, and they also serviced it. Mind you its partner recorder still works but is not quite 40 years old.
I use multiples.
Newcomer Google annoys me, they keep trying to change the way it works, removing + annoyed me.
Then the way it decides that looking for XXXYXX word I really mean XXXXX word just because XXXXX is a zeleb.
Sometimes I just give up!
And it keeps demanding to spy on me!
I am sure the pre Google search engines were more useful, but Yahoo is now not as good as it was.
I have recently been upgraded at work to a new PC infected with Win 10.
And so far due to a poor UI.
I sent a part written message to a customer as I thought the button was on teh dialog I was currently on.
Possibly moved rather than copied our source code.
The UI for 10 is horrific and is slowing me down and stressing me out.
We have a person at work who goes to Europe a lot, so of course he voted to leave.
He said he doesn't mind it costing more to go, He is happy to pay.
But for some stupid reason or other he is not willing to pay for my daughters EU funded research project.
Also he went blank when I said "Good Friday Agreement"
He knows I consider him an idiot.