Video Rental Shops - who do you remember locally?

[G6Tanuki]

With the coming in the mid/late-70s of cheap-to-buy-or-rent VHS players, video-rental shops also became a big thing.

Someone I know who opened one described it as pretty much a licence to print money - the excess charges for late-returns of the most-popular videos being a major profit-centre, as was the markup on the sweets/popcorn/crisps/soft-drinks that people inevitably bought when renting an armful of weekend-viewing movies on a Friday night.
He used to stay open late Friday/Saturday nights to catch the "going home from the pub, let's grab a video to watch!" free-spenders.

Round here, "Video Solent" was the local brand for rental-stores - they seemed to have a branch in even small towns like Wantage or Wallingford - looking at Companies House they came into existence in 1983 and were dissolved some time in the very-early-2000s.

What video-rental outlets were there in other parts of the country, I wonder?

[Let's not include Blockbuster here... they were ubiquitous]

Who remembers MVC - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_and_Video_Club ??

[Eidolon]

I get sick of the 'younger generation' constantly referring to Blockbuster as if they were the only video rental outlet, and claiming they were great. They were awful, and killed off so many far better independent stores.

[its ur aerial]

Working for DER at the time and we had a fair Tape library, for our Rental Subscribers, the staff borrowed them free of charge to watch at home, or us Engineers did to watch in the Workshop when it was not busy.
I remember Confessions or a Pop Performer, with Jill Gascoine was a popular choice for Work Shop Viewing
Other tapes suitable for the more discerning Gent, were also popular and copied.
Local to were I lived at the time was a small chain of Off Licences, called Dansini Wine, they rented VHS Tapes and also sold cheap Beer, that was just out of its best before date, no surprise then, that his shops were always busy.

Ken, G6HZG.

[electronicskip]

In the Town of Chipping Norton where i lived at the time there was a small independant video hire shop (Georges video i think it was called) which did a good trade for many years as i remember being a member .
I used to be able to order and buy laserdiscs from him too for my Philips Laservision unit.

Working for Rumbelows in the town at the time i also had access to videotape hire through our own mail order hiring system.
Weird system where you ordered in the shop through a catalogue and they were sent through the post to you and then returned to the shop when finished with.

[emeritus]

There was one called "Channel 5" in "The Vineyards" shopping precinct at Great Baddow, Chelmford until the early 2000's. AFAIK no connection with the TV channel!

[kevinaston1]

At the musical instrument company I worked for, the MD suddenly announced he was going to open JHS Music Video, selling Thorn, JVC and Mitsubishi, along with a fair selection of our musical instruments - and video tape rental.

It never occurred to him to ask if we could service such products. He just assumed we would be able to. It was an interesting few years for us service wise, but we all enjoyed it immensely.

[Eidolon]

This short film about an 80's video store which is still in business might be of interest?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tfQjMHtuMVU

[bionicmerlin]

I live is a fairly small town . I can remember we had a very well stocked small video shop. It was eventually taken over by blockbuster. When it was a independent video shop , I can’t remember it’s name but one thing I do remember is when you signed up you had to give the name of the machine you was going to play the tapes on. Apparently I don’t know if this is true I sas told by a 3rd party that if you had a Amstrad vcr they wouldn’t let you join.
We had a small Radio and tv shop as well at the top or town.i remember they were really convinced that the Philips 2000 was going to take off . They stocked the machines and also had maybe a dozen tapes to rent.
I was walking in town the other day and I couldn’t believe it a small electrical shop had blank vhs tapes for sale in the window. Ma they are coming back. Andy

[electronicskip]

Actually that's now reminded me, there was a video rental shop in Gloucester called V2000 or something that had V2000 videotapes for rent although I never went in there myself as I rented from Blockbuster.

[stacman]

Where I live in Sheffield, there was a video rental shop called Video City, a larger double fronted shop that was well stocked usually busy, VHS and beta, and what was handy was it loaned CD’s, again a good selection, very handy.

[Outrun_uk]

I grew up in the Kensington area of Liverpool. My older brother loves cinema and movies so when video became affordable our first machine was a Sony SL8000 betamax which replaced the projector and 15 minute edited short versions of films. My first memory was arriving home from school and my brother had recorded Hong Kong Phooey for me, I had great fun pausing him in mid-air karate kick!

Initially there were only 2 local-ish rental shops, Fletcher's on Walton Vale and High Street video on Picton Road, both a fair trek as no one in the family drove and no direct transport links. When it became more mainstream we were spoilt for choice, Videorama on Kensington, a smaller shop on Molyneux Road and Video Merseyside on Prescot Road. There was also lots of Video City shops in Merseyside but nothing near us, probably too much local competition. A great memory was when the girls at one of the shops found out I did video repair they had me look after the shop's machines and as a bonus they would hold a copy of new releases for us ��

It's come full circle now as we have Videoddessy in Toxteth run by a great guy (Andy) where you can rent machines and tapes. My brother and I donated our collection there which had been in storage for years since DVD arrived.

Happy days!

Kev

[Station X]

My local library rented out VHS Cassettes and still rents out DVD's and CD's.

[simpsons]

During a mid-life crisis, one of many, my wife and I decided in the early 2000's that we should move to a village, buying a sub Post Office with a small shop attached so leaving the rat race, for me, of working for a multinational. My parents had such a business so no big deal.

We were amazed at how many such opportunities were on the market. We were spoilt for choice. Village life was going to be for us; except it wasn't to be.

It was only looking at the accounts that the true picture became clear, no pun intended. The village Post Office business's, we looked at, relied on the video rental market which was in decline. If the village was off the gas grid, perhaps the purchase of Calor Gas might tempt some into the shop but otherwise it was either collecting a pension or the video which made the door bell ring.


Chris

[dragonser]

Hi,
I remember a video shop called Apollo Video film hire,in Wallington. It seemed they closed in 2007.

[Richard_FM]

Marple had 2-3 in the early 1980s, I remember one seemed to have as many varieties of sweets as videos. I can't remember the name but their logo was like the Ghostbusters logo. It closed in the 1990s but the shop stayed empty for years after.

Other local one I remember was Chic Video in Woodley, which later became Jack Beanstalk Video which had a few local branches.

Bredbury had Avva Video for many years.

[whiskas]

We had one called Soopervision in St George, Bristol where I used to live.
It was a great video shop - If I recall correctly, they sold sweets too - a logical add-on sale!

[Tractorfan]

Our video rental outlet used to be in the foyer of a local supermarket. When we wanted a video, we had to state what format we wanted; VHS, Beta or V2000 (which was ours). It was a Philips VR2020 rented from Visionhire.
Cheers, Pete.

[dglcomp]

I remember the one in Severells Park Avenue in Crewkerne that was also the local convenience store (the convenience store still exists), though we personally would never have rented anything from there as it was only when we went to my Dad's parents that we ever went to the shop.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@50.87...7i13312!8i6656

I believe there was also one next to the Co-Op in Weston on Portland that's now just a sweet shop, and possibly one next to what was Gibbs Newsagents in Easton.

[OscarFoxtrot]

We had Motac Video. I think they were local independent with a couple of branches. They also did photo processing and did the mini-prints for estate agent property schedules.

The local Premier Shop still does Videos according to its sign.

[dtvmcdonald]

Here in the USA, in Champaign Illinois, a big college town, we had a place called
"That's Rentertainment" that rented VHS's, and later DVDs, and more importantly,
VHS/DVS players that would somehow play 625/50 (or 60!) PAL material on our 525/60 sets,
some in color.

They had a huge selection of stuff ... it was not a big store, but the
had narrow aisles and floor to ceiling "book"shelves. They had all the American
titles, but also a vast selection of stuff from Europe, Central/South America, and
Japan, all undubbed to English (and even many US titles dubbed to a foreign language).
They had a gigantic selection of pre-1950s stuff. I remember a
Bunuel/Dali "L'Age d'Or" in a French direct copy release.

They are gone now, and I wonder if their vast stock was somehow donated to the University library.

Oh yes ... they did not rent English language, or non-speaking, porn,
but foreign near-porn or even some real foreign porn was there to some extent.