Can Anybody Work This Thing?

By Richard Zoglin

Peter Jennings can't do it. Neither can Katie Couric. Tom Brokaw at least ! gives it a try. "Yes, I can program my VCR," he says, "but only for the 1956 version of What's My Line?"

Tipper Gore hasn't even figured out how to set the clock; she finally had to cover it with black masking tape to hide the relentless blinking -- 12:00/12:00/12:00 -- that is the unmistakable sign of a VCR illiterate. Barbara Walters has three VCRs and can't program any of them. "I'm reduced to asking friends to tape for me," she says. "I am deeply ashamed."

Ashamed, perhaps, but hardly alone. The dirty little secret of the VCR age is that almost nobody can work the darn thing -- at least for anything besides plunking in a movie from the corner video store. Much of the befuddlement, understandably, afflicts older folks who have never really cottoned to the computer age. But many younger, technology-savvy people also seem utterly defeated by the maze of buttons and pages of instructions. Authoritative statistics are not available, but estimates are that as many as 80% of all VCR owners have never learned how to set their machines to record a program.

The situation has given rise to a new industry: devising still more elaborate technology to make VCR operation less daunting. Two years ago, Gemstar Development Corp. introduced VCR Plus+, a remote control-size gadget that simplifies programming by assigning each show a code of one to eight digits. The user punches in the code numbers, which instantly program the VCR to record at the proper time and channel. Sales of VCR Plus+ have reached about 6 million worldwide, and 600 U.S. newspapers, along with TV Guide, now carry the code numbers in their TV listings. The device is being incorporated into some new VCRs. "I'm not mechanically inclined," says TV producer Dick Clark, a VCR Plus+ enthusiast. "But you just punch in the numbers, and it makes you feel like a genius."

Now comes an even more sophisticated effort to tame the VCR. The VCR Voice Programmer, a voice-activated remote-control device being launched nationally this week by Voice Powered Technology, eliminates button pushing almost entirely. Just bark commands into the microphone -- channel number, day, time -- and the machine does your bidding. A viewer can call out commands for a variety of other VCR functions as well, from "rewind" to "zap it" (whiz through the commercials).

These programming devices, of course, are hardly hassle-free. VCR Plus+ must be programmed in advance before it can respond to the codes, not a simple process. (Ken Sander, who hosts a New York City cable show and dubs himself "the Cable Doctor," will do the job for confused viewers in a $45 house call.) The VCR Voice Programmer is also complicated to set up (it must be trained to recognize the user's voice) and costs a hefty $169, nearly as much as some low-priced VCRs. The device is being sold only through a toll-free mail-order number (800-788-0800), to avoid further markup in stores.

Why is the VCR so intimidating? One problem is the ever changing technology, another the lack of universal standards. Cable has complicated things enormously; with some hookups, programming the VCR requires two separate sets of instructions -- one for the cable converter (to switch channels), another for the VCR (to turn on at the proper time). And even if the machine is programmed exactly right, any one of a host of pitfalls can scuttle the enterprise. Frustrated VCR users can recite them through gritted teeth: forgetting to put in a cassette; failing to turn on the timer or (on some machines) switch off the VCR; accidentally leaving on the mute button; coming home to discover that a presidential press conference has put the whole evening's schedule out of whack.

To Peter McWilliams, who has written several best-selling books about personal electronics, resistance to VCR technology reflects the fact that "people don't care enough about it. If it really is important enough, then we'll learn how to do it." Compounding this is the irony that in order to master a VCR, the defining device of the video age, one must first master a nearly antiquated, pre-MTV skill: reading an instruction book. Says David Dewalt, a salesman at Brands Mart in Kansas City, Missouri: "Reading the manual is something most customers don't understand."

The defiant ignorance voiced by many VCR-phobics may be a sign of technology backlash. "I'm electronically incorrect," says Kathy Harrison of Raleigh, North Carolina, who got a VCR for her birthday four years ago and hasn't taped a show yet. "I don't like appliances." Or it may be merely another case of American don't-know-how. In City Slickers, Billy Crystal spends much of one day on the trail fruitlessly trying to explain to Daniel Stern how to tape one show while watching another. "He'll never get it!" cries their partner, Bruno Kirby. "It's been four hours. The cows can tape something by now." Yes, and those moo-activated VCRs are just around the corner.

With reporting by Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles and William Tynan/New York