My parents bought a new VCR in 1983. It was an RCA that came with a big, heavy video camera. My sister and I were too young to really appreciate how tech-saavy mom and dad were, but we loved the idea of watching movies at home without commercials.
For well over a decade, VHS tapes became the centre-point of entertainment media in our household as we rented movies, recorded stuff from television and even filmed our own little shows. That VCR was busy and worked like a champ.