Forty years. That’s roughly how long we’ve been immersed in what remains our primary source of home entertainment: video. From Betamax to VHS, VCD, DVD, and now streaming via online platforms like the dominant Netflix, it has been a fascinating evolution. We’ve watched countless movies and television series, some we forget after one viewing, but others stay with us. In my case, one such film is Field of Dreams, starring Kevin Costner. I’ve kept copies of it in every format over the years.
But in the beginning, I remember two specific Betamax tapes, both surprisingly crisp for their time. Back then, we didn’t have high definition, but my Sony Betamax player delivered images as clear as the five local television channels we had: 2, 4, 7, 9, and 13. This was 1985, years before UHF stations like RJTV 31 and ABS-CBN 23 arrived.
One of those early Betamax tapes was Casablanca, which had just celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1982. I was captivated by its black-and-white cinematography and the unforgettable chemistry between Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman. Truly one of the greatest films of all time. The second? Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Mere days after its 1983 U.S. release, a copy had already made its way to my neighborhood Betamax lady, Aling Cora. We were, no other word for it, thrilled. John Landis had directed a masterpiece.
The Betamax era thrived for a while, but by the early 1990s, the Philippines had begun embracing the VHS format, just as the United States had. Two memories stand out: first, my membership with Video City, the go-to video rental chain of the time. Second, my even more cherished membership with Max, an Indian gentleman who ran a small shop near St. Scholastica’s College in Manila. While Video City offered original titles, Max had the latest and greatest, albeit bootleg, films. For a cinephile like me, it was paradise.
A decade later, DVDs arrived, changing the game completely. The Digital Versatile Disc (DVD) could store entire movies in what was then considered high definition, 4.7 GB of data on a single disc. Homes across the country either had a DVD player or its more affordable counterpart, the VCD player. Suddenly, places like Quiapo, Greenhills, and Makati Cinema Square became hotspots for film collectors. From 1940s classics to the biggest box-office hits of the moment, everything was available, DiBiDi! DiBiDi!
By 2015, another seismic shift had taken place. The era of streaming had begun. Netflix, which had started as a DVD rental company in the early 2000s, had fully transitioned into a digital platform. Today, it’s the world’s leading subscription-based streaming service, with more than 301.6 million paid memberships across 190 countries as of 2025. My first real dive into Netflix was through House of Cards, starring Kevin Spacey, and from there, the library only expanded. It’s estimated that Netflix’s global catalog includes at least 3,600 films and television series, with competitors like Apple TV+, Disney+, Max, and Amazon Prime continuously growing their own offerings.
With today’s lightning-fast Wi-Fi and an endless supply of content, the only real limitation is us.
So it’s the weekend — what’s on your Netflix and chill?
