Anyway, in around the late 80s, two VCRs were getting common and so "Home" made AMVs started to appear... The trick back then was to try to make your edits without the "Rainbows" since Flying erase head VCRs back then costed you about $1200 US. I kid you not since my first 4 head Hi-Fi VCR cost me that much!
Back then as well, AMVs were a cult of a small group of people and AMV contests were shown in rooms the size of shoe boxes. Most people laughed at us and figured it was a novelty and would wear out. Boy were they wrong!
a Lot of AMVs on VCRs were made in the 90s.. a lot of them suffered from poor quality and audio/video drops. Getting clean and good footage was an issue due to the costs and availability.
What made the breakthrough in better quality videos in the 90s was Laser Disk!! Although 30 minutes of anime tended to cost about $50-75 US, most of us were silly enough to buy them. Heck, I bought all the Gundam 0083 discs at $60.00 per episode and used them to make my first Gundam video back in 1983... So there should be no whining about not being able to afford your sources!! Also keep in mind that if you adjust for inflation, ot would be like buying your anime discs for $100.00+ a pop!
Ironically, some of the first digitally "Home Made Videos" started to appear as early as 1983, but you were editing with resolutions no better then 320x240 and crashes would happened almost after every second edit (you guys are way to spoiled today).... And rendering ment a coffee break so visual effects weren't even a consideration. (No wonder us old editors are so addicted to coffee)…
What do I remember of editing on two VCRs... Hmmmm sore back from bending over the two units... having to listed to the songs 1,000,000 times over a weekend since after 1 or two edits you needed to review things before going on.. Walking 30 miles to the only anime VHS bootleg rental place to get sources
Well, there you have it, History of AMV 101...
BTW, sad thing is, less and less people these days seems to watch the older stuff or figure it's not very good... At Anime Evolutions I had a hour of oldies and the attendance tended to drop off
.... And yes, half the people here where in diapers when I edited my first Music Video 
Vlad
