What Was the First Movie Rental Service?

Cartrivision, developed by a subsidiary of Avco, Frank StantonCartridge Television Inc. (CTI) entered the market in 1972, just three years before BetaMax. Cartrivision offered many benefits not available to the average consumer. It offered the ability to record and play color television programs. It could play pre-recorded videos bought or rented, as well as play home movies recorded on its camcorder (optional). If you had a camera, the Cartrivision also functioned as a closed loop security device. If you were worried that it wouldn’t connect to your existing TV, then you don’t need to. Cartrivision was built into a 25″ color TV and the whole set could be bought for a very, very low price of $1,350, which is only $9,797.61 today. This, by the way, was for the base model.

Cartrivision offered content and Hollywood agreed with it

One of the strengths of Cartrivision was ease of use. Although it was not possible to set a specific time or date for the recording, it did offer a countdown timer for the recording. A refillable 8-inch square refillable cartridge was available for recording, costing about $15 for a 15-minute tape. But the real innovation has been the availability of content available to buy or rent. From 100 to 200 items were available for purchase at prices ranging from $13 to $40. These titles, like subsequent formats, ranged from family titles such as Three puppets or Roger Ramjet cartoons, down to X-rated material such as Oscar-nominated classics private nurses (neither classic nor Oscar-nominated, really).

What’s more, Cartrivision has introduced Hollywood movie rentals for $3 to $6. This was the first time the films were released on video. The films available were old classics (true classics this time) such as Stagecoach, Dr. StrangeloveAnd Guess who’s coming to dinner, among other things, to which Avco’s parent company acquired the rights (Avco also owned Embassy Pictures at the time, so this catalog would also have been available). What made this development such an important moment in home video history was the fact that Cartrivision could offer Hollywood releases at all. The film industry was very suspicious of home video at the time, fearing it would negatively impact ticket sales. Cartrivision was able to get around this fear by offering two different types of cartridges. Black cartridges could be rewritable, and fast forward and rewind could also be performed. The red cartridges that were used in Hollywood movies could only be viewed once before they had to be returned to the retailer to be rewound on the equipment only they had access to. This meant that additional views were still being charged.

Cartrivision never caught on

For all that the system was in order, there were many, many problems with it. Video cartridges for the camera could not be transferred from the camera to the set-top box, so playback was only possible by connecting cables to the jacks. Similarly, the player itself could not be removed from the TV, so it was impossible to connect it to another TV. The system was sold at a number of retailers—Macy’s, Montgomery Ward, Sears—but the retailers knew little about it, selling it as a large TV rather than a video player/recorder. Machine tapes were often not even sold on the same floor as the machines themselves. The cost of the system didn’t help matters, the price far exceeded what most consumers could afford. To top it all off, shortly before Christmas and the expected surge in sales, tapes stored in warehouses were found to be decomposing, literally falling apart. This exacerbated the many financial difficulties the company faced.

Too much? Not yet. RCA would have fired Cartrivision while it was unavailable by announcing in the press the availability of the SelectaVision MagTape system, a separate component that would have cost significantly less. More insult for more trauma? In the end, RCA’s SelectaVision MagTape was never released after rumors of Sony’s BetaMax reached RCA. The odds were no longer in Cartrivision’s favor, if they existed at all, and the whole effort fell apart as soon as Avco ceased production, just 18 months after its launch. As a result, Avco wrote off the project as a whole for $1 million. Consumers intrigued by the technology did not have to wait long for the heirs to the throne to appear: Sony’s BetaMax arrived in 1975, and JVC’s VHS format in 1977.

Cartrivision flared brightly for a while and then quickly faded away, but its short existence has paid off. This proved that live TV recordings can be made with ease. It taught a valuable lesson on how to store these types of machines as separate components from the TV itself, rather than as a whole. Most importantly, it opened the door for Hollywood movies to be seen in the luxury of one’s own home. It still didn’t have a clear path forward, and studios struggled to keep up with the burgeoning VCR industry, as evidenced by the 1984 BetaMax case in which Sony Corp. opposed Universal City Studios. By the way, are the first three Hollywood films available on VHS? Sounds of music, PattonAnd M*A*S*H in 1977.