I have a question for teh intertubes:
In obtaining footage of a British performance artist I want to teach, I ordered 2 videos from a British arts agency. I popped in the tapes tonight, and found that neither one played on either of the two working VCRs I own.
Did I miss something? Is the British VHS format different from the North American one? Is there a quick fix? By 4 pm tomorrow?
Help!
ETA: Help indeed. After confirmation of my fears by commenters (who are clearly smarter than I am!), I found that the European format is called PAL, and after doing a quick Google search on PAL and my university, I got to the university's Classroom Technology office, who now have the two tapes, a blank VHS, and my gratitude. I should have a VHS (for classroom use only, of course) with the necessary material by 4pm, just in time for class!
3 comments:
Yes, they're different. I had a British prof who had this issue every time. The only fix is to see if your AV/library has a British VCR you can check out or get or whatever. :) Good luck!
Also try the film and/or theater depts.
There are different "regions" and you can only play North American region tapes or dvds on a NA player. There's also a separate Asian region so don't go asking the East Asian languages department cause it won't solve your problem.
Same is true for DVDs, by the way, just so you know. Sad but true.
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