I was in the Navy from 2002-2010 and that’s the most accurate post so far. A ship is a military device so things like internet are there when we are operationally allowed too. If we are within theater then no internet at all for obvious reasons. When we do have it its very slow and anything like YouTube is out. Streaming just won’t happen with the bandwidth allocated for recreational use, most is for the mission, like 95% plus for the mission.
Personal media players like iPads or ipads , tablets, etc are the norm. On a big ship people will pool together resources and we’ll build up a multimedia PC or the like or maybe even a XBMC. There is a ship CATV when where we watch movies when we are of watch. Pr0n aplenty on personal devices. Paying games like StarCraft on private LANs is also big.
Well, I meant more along the lines of “No porn on the internet”, presumably both for bandwidth reasons and for not wanting to be within 50 miles of accusations that the Military is somehow providing porn access for the troops.
Back in the mid-80’s, of course, videotapes were the norm. The official ship’s CCTV system received Betamax tapes, which went on a rotation schedule between ships until they were destroyed per some agreement with Hollywood (we received them after their theater runs, but slightly before Blockbuster). Why Betamax; because Beta was more compact than VHS, and stowed in a smaller space.
The all-time most popular thing we ever showed was Shaka Zulu.
Porno was a favorite way to earn favors with crewmembers who could help you later. They would rent tapes in town for their duty days, then sit and watch them in the little CCTV studio. One had to be very careful not to flip the little toggle and send the video out to the ship-wide system. Another toggle would send the audio out over the ship’s loudspeakers. Both of these occurred, but not on my watch.
For obvious reasons, the ship’s Masters-at-Arms (the ship’s cops) had their own berthing compartment. Six guys’ bedroom, in which they’d had VHS tape shelves installed wall-too-wall, floor to ceiling (bulkhead to bullhead, deck to overhead) chocked with hundreds and hundreds of porno: naked women on the covers with 80’s big hair and landing-strip pubes. They’re all somebody’s grandmother now.