The videocassette recorder is 1984's I machine of the year." So says Reporter-Researcher Peter Ainslie, in a smiling reference to TIME'S designation of the computer as Machine of the Year for 1982. Ainslie has a point: in his extensive reporting for this week's cover stories on the video revolution, he learned that VCRs are outselling personal computers by 1 1/2 million units this year. The revolution has touched all those involved in preparing the cover package. "A new video store seems to open every month in a New York neighborhood," says Ainslie. "Some of them even deliver." New York Correspondent Barry Kalb, an avowed movie freak, bought his VCR to catch up on all the films he missed during nine years as a foreign correspondent. "In Hong Kong, where we lived from 1975 through 1978," he says, "no movie that didn't feature large amounts of action and violence played in local theaters for long, if at all. Since we bought a VCR in Rome last year, I have made a good start on catching up."

Reporter-Researcher Cristina Garcia, who looked into trends in the Chicago area, does not own a VCR. "But," she says, "I already find myself browsing for films in video stores the same way I shop for books." San Francisco Correspondent Dick Thompson rented a machine to see what all the furor was about, and promptly ODed on movie tapes. "Strange things happen to rational people when they are faced with rack after rack of ad venture and romance in a video store," he muses. A VCR now heads Thompson's Christmas wish list. The children of Christopher Porterfield, the senior editor who supervised the cover package, also hope for a VCR. He already has one, but it is hooked to a master-bedroom TV and not to the one the children watch. "Parents have some privileges," he says, "but as a result, my wife and I are under more or less constant siege. And this state of affairs promises to continue, as I know for a fact that Santa is not going to come through this year."

Staff Writer Richard Zoglin, who wrote the main story as well as a story on the industry, has owned a VCR since 1980. For him it is primarily a professional tool: he has been writing about television for nearly ten years. Zoglin was the TV critic of the Atlanta Constitution for four years before joining TIME in 1983. "At first I didn't want to own a VCR," he recalls. "There is so much on TV, and there are only so many hours in the day. With a VCR, I thought I'd go crazy trying to watch everything I taped." But Zoglin soon learned restraint. "I tape shows on Friday nights," he says, "and then I force myself to stay up Sunday night to watch them. I refuse to let one week's shows carry over into the next week. That way lies madness."