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First DVD player announced Sept 26, 1996

Dave Farquhar Video September 25, 2026September 20, 2026

On September 26, 1996, Toshiba announced the first DVD player, the Toshiba SD-3000. It was released in Japan in November 1996 and initially cost ¥77,000, equivalent to about $770 US. It was the first consumer DVD player in the world, and of course, DVD became the successor to VHS. Ironically, the first DVD player was announced very close to 20 years after the first VHS VCR.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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A Roku alternative streaming device

Dave Farquhar Video August 29, 2026August 30, 2026

The privacy, or lack thereof, around streaming media has been bothering me lately. I’m sure some people would ask what took me so long. And I’m sure others would say I am overreacting. But it is a problem not very many people have talked about, and even fewer have tried to solve and then talk about. For me, the tipping point was the acquisition of Roku, a company I have long admired, by Fox, a broadcasting company. A media company, Fox or otherwise, tracking what I watch and injecting ads is way too Max Headroom for me, which led me to seek a Roku alternative.

Dave Farquhar

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Insignia RCA to HDMI converter not working

Dave Farquhar Video October 31, 2023October 29, 2023

The Insignia RCA to HDMI converter or analog to HDMI converter is a convenient way to connect old devices to a new HDMI TV. I’ve reviewed it before, and I like it. In this blog post, I’ll talk about things you can try if you have an Insignia RCA to HDMI converter not working.

Dave Farquhar

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Connect a VCR to a smart TV

Dave Farquhar Video May 30, 2023September 15, 2023

It’s not always obvious how you connect a VCR to a smart TV. But just because it isn’t obvious doesn’t mean someone won’t want to do it. In this blog post, I will explain how to connect your old VCR to your new smart TV.

Whether you have a Samsung, Sony, LG, Vizio, Hisense, or some other brand of smart TV, for these purposes, they all pretty much work the same. Manufacturers followed the same standards in the 1980s and ’90s, and they still do today. You could connect any brand of VCR to any other brand of TV and it worked. All that’s different today is that we have some new standards, along with legacy standards.

Dave Farquhar

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Record video in VLC

Dave Farquhar Video April 19, 2023April 8, 2023

You may have heard you can capture video with VLC, the popular open source media player. But how you do it isn’t intuitive and there’s some advice out there that doesn’t work. That said, it’s possible, and works well for certain use cases once you get used to the steps. In this blog post, I explain how to capture video with VLC, or record video in VLC.

VLC is primarily a video player, but it can act like a lightweight video capture tool. You can record video from VLC in 10 steps.

Dave Farquhar

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FFMPEG can merge videos, here’s how

Dave Farquhar Video July 20, 2022March 31, 2023

Sometimes you need to merge some MP4 video files from the command line. Here’s how to use a command line tool, ffmpeg, to merge video. It may be a little harder to learn than a GUI tool. But it’s much easier to automate, which is helpful if you have a large number of video clips to merge or concatenate together.

Dave Farquhar

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Filmora not recognizing MP4 files? The fix.

Dave Farquhar Video February 15, 2022February 6, 2022

My son does a lot of video editing. His friends recommended Wondershare Filmora as being more stable than the other things he’s been using. But he had a problem. It wouldn’t see his MP4 files. If you have a problem with Filmora not recognizing MP4 files, here’s how we fixed it.

Dave Farquhar

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FFMPEG can remove audio: Here’s how

Dave Farquhar Video May 26, 2021July 27, 2022

FFMPEG is a very versatile command line video editing tool. You can use it to do lots of things, and the last time I used it, I used it to convert between formats. But you can also use it to remove audio. Here are two options to use FFMPEG to remove audio, depending on what exactly you want. But most importantly, both options are fast and you won’t lose any quality.

Dave Farquhar

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What is Roku TV?

Dave Farquhar Video June 3, 2019October 23, 2022

What is Roku TV? It’s a smart TV with Roku hardware built in, so you don’t need a separate Roku box to stream. Should you buy one? It depends.

A Roku TV is a smart TV with the convenience of Roku hardware built in, making it a good all-in-one streaming solution. But the downside is it loses usefulness once the built-in hardware goes obsolete.

Dave Farquhar

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Are VHS tapes worth collecting?

Dave Farquhar Video April 25, 2019September 10, 2023

If you’re looking for a nostalgic hobby that won’t cost a fortune, VHS tapes are very underrated. Although not as cheap as they once were, VHS tapes haven’t exploded in value the way other 1980s technologies have. Are VHS tapes worth collecting? I think they have a lot of potential.

VHS tapes have not increased in value to the extent that video games and computers from the same era have. The days of buying the titles you remember as a kid for pocket change may be past us, but you can still buy the majority of the movies you remember for a few dollars.

Dave Farquhar

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