We got a video recorder back in 1981. My Dad was flushed and also forked out for some pre-recorded videotapes. He paid £39.99 for 'Star Trek - Shore Leave' - released on the Mountain Video label. It was amazing at the time that I was able to watch an episode of Star Trek at my leisure and not have to rely on the whims of a BBC Scheduler. The fact that the video quality and the film print of said episode were something akin to a Super8 film that had spent the past decade on the floor of a public toilet, was incidental. It was just magic! Fast forward (do you see what I did there?) to in the mid-eighties and BBC Enterprises were also quite impressed by the new technology. They decided to release a selection of Doctor Who episodes on their new BBC Video label.
Top Doctor Who producer JNT was given the task of connecting up two VHS recorders and editing together omnibus versions of classic stories (or at least the ones that had been stored on the bottom shelf at BBC Archives to save getting the steps).
Once done, he headed off to the BBC Enterprises portakabin at Television Centre with the de-tabbed master tapes - together with a box of blank VHS's he'd got from Woolies with Gary's discount card - and after much scratching of heads, the first of the new hi-tech releases were made available to very rich fans.
It was a start anyway...
