Dude you and me both. My parents bought a combo VHS/DVD player that as it turned out could also handle VCDs, and I was able to watch a pirated version of AI with it. Eventually I got hold of a PowerMac 8500 with RCA in/out and really got cooking.

Seeing content created on my computer actually play on a TV really felt like a miracle in the 90s.

They were best sourced form a relevent alt.binaries. groups. Two I recall were Movies and Videos, which had TV show rips.