What was the first Doctor Who you videoed?

[SiHart]

Inspired by a question I just asked on the Question Time thread, I', asking you all...

What was the first Doctor Who story you videoed?

Si xx

[Dirk Gently]

And as I answered there... Battlefield, then Ghostlight, The Curse of Fenric & Survival.

[Pip Madeley]

My grandma taped a late night showing of 'Death to the Daleks' on UKGold back in 1996/1997 - unfortunately the tape ran out about two minutes before the end so I never knew what happened to the Dalek spaceship after it took off...

First one I taped was Robot, back at the start of UKGold's Tom Baker repeats during '97.

[Antony Cox]

Remembrance, I think.

[Lissa]

It would have to be the pilot episode during BBC2's Lime Grove tribute day in August 1991.

[SiHart]

We were early converts to the video in my family, and so the first episode of Doctor Who I ever recorded was Castrovalva part one.

The first story I was allowed to keep on tape was The Five Doctors, which was obviously special, and is of course why I know it so well to this day.

Si xx

[Jon Masters]

I got a friend who had a magical video box to record the 5 Doctors on CiN night, and subsequently The Awakening and Resurrection of the Daleks.

I remember feeling very odd going into a shop to buy a couple of precious video tapes, and of course I couldn't watch them except at my friends house.

I think we got our own video in time to record Time and the Rani.

[Matthew T]

Time and the Rani for me!

[Dave Tudor]

We didn't get our first video recorder until September 1987, but it took us while longer to work out how to record, so unlike you lucky souls, I never got to tape 'Time And The Rani', or any of Season 24 for that matter (what a shame! ). However, when the following series came round, I chose to record 'Remembrance' and 'Silver Nemesis' (but not the other two, for some reason), but was so distraught when I missed 'Remebrance' Part Three (I had the recorder set to the wrong channel, and just had a blank screen) that I even considered writing to the BBC to ask them to repeat it!

I went on to record all of Season 26, and pretty much most of the repeats during the nineties.

[Si Hunt]

My Dad used to work as an electrical engineer and he brought home a really early video tape player one night in 1967. It was the size of an Austin Elegro and Grandma had to sit out in the snow for a whole evening to fit it in the lounge. We only ever taped one thing, some bollocks with lots of people drowning in foam, and the funny thing is, to this day we keep the tape in the back garden under a bowl of petunias.

Si.

[Wayne]

None. We didn't have a VCR in the 70's.

[Jonno]

We got one around April 1983 - probably because I'd made a lot of fuss over missing lots of episodes in S20 due to having swimming lessons on a Wednesday night which I eventually gave up halfway through Terminus!

The first story I taped was the repeat of The Visitation that summer, plus Kinda and Black Orchid though I ddin't keep any of them. The big event though was recording the 5 Doctors as my first new story to be recorded, and then rewatched many times!

I only had a couple of blank tapes which, at around £10 each, were extremely expensive (probably the equivalent of £30-40 now). I therefore had to pick and choose what to tape and keep, and I ended up with Resurrection and the omnibus repeat of the Awakening (which handily filled up one tape) in 1984 and went for Attack, Two Doctors and Revelation the following year. Those six stories were watched in rotation through the 18 month hiatus - they were all I had to keep me going!! Remembrance joined them in 88 and that was about it as I was starting to collect the official releases after that.

Our first VCR was a Betamax BTW - and I was instrumental in making my parents buy a VHS some 5 years later when the video releases started coming out in VHS only!

[Andrew Curnow]

The first episodes we recorded were TOATL 13 & 14 - as you can imagine, they got a lot of rewatching!! However, memory tells me that it was my bruv who bought the blank tape for that occasion, whereas the following year I took over the tape-buying duties. So on that basis the first story I personally videoed was... Time and the Rani. It's over 20 years old, but certainly last time I watched it, it was as sharp and clear a picture as ever.

[SiHart]

My Dad used to work as an electrical engineer and he brought home a really early video tape player one night in 1967. It was the size of an Austin Elegro and Grandma had to sit out in the snow for a whole evening to fit it in the lounge. We only ever taped one thing, some bollocks with lots of people drowning in foam, and the funny thing is, to this day we keep the tape in the back garden under a bowl of petunias.

Good thing too. No-one would want to see that kind of rubbish again.

Si xx

[Rob McCow]

I'm sure that we haven't chucked out my video of Battlefield / Survival yet. It's in the house somewhere.

Ghost Light was messed up because I was out one evening and it was up to my parents to record it. I missed the first five minutes of part two! Nightmare! We went on holiday during Fenric, so I didn't get all the episodes of that.

However I had a lovely time lining up the video to make compilation-style recordings, just like the BBC Videos.

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Timelash......................oh, the shame!!!!

Mind you I didn't keep that on tape. After that it was TOATL, which I kept until I taped over it with Time and the Rani (a crime that I was severely reprimanded for when I first became friends with Ant Cox)!!!

[Antony Cox]

Timelash......................oh, the shame!!!!

Mind you I didn't keep that on tape. After that it was TOATL, which I kept until I taped over it with Time and the Rani (a crime that I was severely reprimanded for when I first became friends with Ant Cox)!!!

Notice I never moaned about you not keeping Timelash, though...

[Ian Lethbridge-Stewart]

Notice I never moaned about you not keeping Timelash, though...

Naturally!!!

[shada pavlova]

The first one I taped was The Parting of the Ways. Because my mum wanted to see it, but was entertaining guests. (She still has Sea Devil-phobia even now, so I have to watch it with her. )

I subsequently taped The Christmas Invasion, The Idiot's Lantern, The Runaway Bride, Turn Left and The Stolen Earth, and I also recorded Utopia on my Freeview HDD box.

[Stuart Wallis]

I got my video Dave T, after Dad talked me into it. I'd told him I couldn't see myself watching videos that often, and I don't, but he rarely listens to people...

The short answer therefore is Paradise Towers.

[Captain Tancredi]

We acquired our first VCR on 30th March 1985. I know this because the first thing we attempted to record was Part 2 of Revelation of the Daleks, however Dad got the tuning wrong so we recorded 50 minutes of BBC2 instead.

I do however still have my original off-airs of the Trial and don't intend to chuck them anytime soon.

[MacNimon]

And as I answered there... Battlefield, then Ghostlight, The Curse of Fenric & Survival.

Ditto! Although for some reason I edited out the opening and closing titles to make them omnibuses similar to what was being released by BBC Video at the time. It seemed to make sense at the time...

[SiHart]

Did we all do that then? I remember my Mum suggesting it when they repeated The Visitation because it would save space on the video and I did for all the stories I recorded after that- my Trial tape was a 10 episode omnibus epic!

Si xx

[Simon R]

I used to cut the titles too! I thought I was alone.

The first one I taped was "Trial 13" but I think we only had one or two blank tapes at the time since the video recorder was new so it had to be taken over...although I have vague memories of watching it a few months or even a year later.

The first one I taped "for keeps" was "Delta" then everything onwards. I cut the credits and titles and recaps but was so fussy that since I missed part one of "Remembrance" because the BBC didn't advertise it very well I didn't bother taping the rest. Likewise I stayed at my nan's during part 4 or 3 of "Greatest Show" and my dad failed to cut the credits out of the recording at home so I junked the rest of that one too. I was like a mini a Pam Nash.

I'd changed my harsh policy by "Battlefield". Our telly was at the repair shop (do they still have those?) when part one was on so I had to watch it on the old black and white portable but the video wasn't hooked up so I couldn't tape it. I taped the rest though and kept them and until the repeat in 1993 I enjoyed a the 3 part version many times.

Those were the days of our lives.

I've still got all the tapes along with the 90s repeats. There worth keeping just for the assortment of old adverts, Brooksides and crap at the end!

[Pip Madeley]

I used to cut out the ad breaks/reprises when I taped the UKGold omnibuses but whenever they showed anything episodic I kept the credits intact