It doesn't seem like to many years ago that I was recording and watching movies on a huge video cassette recorder (VCR). The tape was a huge cassette with a three quarters of an inch wide tape. It was really heavy and you did not want to haul it around. The VCR had two types of formats. One was the VHS format by RCA, and the other was the Beta format by Sony. After a few years of competition and unbelievable technology advancements, both companies developed a smaller version of the bigger video cassette recorders. Then the VHS format system started outselling the Beta format system dramatically, and then the Beta format system basically vanished. For years the VHS format dominated the market. The companies designing the VCR's worked on making them smaller more compact with more and better features.

Then digital technology was developed and came into high demand. At the first the advancement of digital technology was directed toward quality music. The cassette evolved into a four and a half inch plastic round disk, about a sixteenth of an inch thick with a hole in the middle. There was a laser reading device placed in the machine. Because it was laser read, it created high quality musical tones. The plastic disk was called a CD (compact disk). Many people said that it would not sell. When I saw the little disk, it reminded me of the thirty-three and a third (331/3) record. The exceptional quality sound and the amount of songs that were stored on the disk helped make it a big seller.

The CD was originally sold with songs already burned onto the disk, and you could only buy CD players to listen to the music. A few years later, the popularity of the CD, and the demand for wanting to place your own favorites songs onto the CD created the writeable CD burner. This was developed with the computer technology that had advanced to where the CD was being loaded with video movies. The same size disk was used for the video versions. So the CD was for music and the DVD (Digital Video Disk) was for videos.

The DVD player developed into a weekend favorite for millions of people and families that loved to watched movies. The DVD not only gave people a chance to watch their favorite movies, but it gave the movie industry another outlet to bring in revenue. The DVD player technology developed the player that could play movies and now they developed DVD recorders to copy movies from television and computer. Where the DVD has helped grandpa, is when we travel with the grandchildren. I have them choose a couple of movie DVD's they like, we put them into the DVD player in our Chevy Tahoe, and I don't hear a sound out of them til they have to go to the bathroom, or we have to change movies in DVD player. Many times we will get to our destination and the grandchildren will want to stay in the vehicle til the movie is over.

At first there was a problem; I only had two headphones and if we had four grandchildren riding with us, there weren't enough headphones to go around. I would have to put the sound on the speakers in the Tahoe so all could hear. It was a pain driving and having to listen to a movie and not be able to watch it. I went out and bought four more headphones, so now all the grandchildren traveling with us can watch their movies and not disturb my fifty's music.

That little DVD player in my Chevy Tahoe has had a calming affect and has been a life saver for my sanity. That is why I call the DVD player in Chevy Tahoe "Grandpa's Best Little Helper".

You can purchase many kinds of DVD players and recorders at JT Mall of Electronics (jtmallofelectronics.com). I know that there is one out there to be a "Little Helper" for you, too.