I still have many and recorded many programs on VHS and Beta back in the day, along with having bought many movies. Many of them have musical concerts and such, along with some PBS stuff. The hardest thing as someone said is keep a working VCR. It's amazing that they still work pretty good.
The other night when I watched THE LONG HOT SUMMER (1958-Drama) it was on a 1978 Magnetic Video Corporation VHS tape. No way to tell how long it'd been since this tape was played, but I'll guess 20 years. Needed a bit of tracking; should play better the next time I watch it. From my observations/experiences the vast majority of really old tapes extant have not been played in a couple of decades. They want to work and do their job, but they need a willing 'watcher'!
18 VHS cassettes and 1 Beta. All are prerecorded concerts, music video or music documentary that are copied to DVD or replaced by a DVD a long time ago. My VCR makes a purring sound like something could be wrong with it, but it does work with no problems.
Yep, probably around 100 or so dating back to the early 80’s, network TV shows, cable, etc. I need to sit down and go through them sometime.
That looks like a sea of blank tapes, Vidiot. Is the date 'Oct. 22, 2010'? @RickH: You might find some interesting nuggets among those recordings.
Still have probably 12-15 VHS cassettes left. Some prerecorded original movies and concerts like “Wings Rockshow” or McCartney's “Give My Regards to Broadstreet”, some Queen concerts, “Magical Mystery Tour”, “Help!” and “The Compleat Beatles” documentary. Just can't make myself to get rid of them, maybe someday I will. Also have some blanks - BASF “superhighgrades” "made in Germany”, 180 and 200 minute ones. They just look and made so much better, than regular stuff that was usually sold in US.
I remember watching several 'Thorn/EMI' video releases and Paul McCartney's 'WINGS ROCKSHOW' was a preview on them. There was also a preview of a music video of THE TUBES as well. I don't have either of those music releases from 'Thorn/EMI', but I did buy a Thorn/EMI release of the 1982 Cheryl Ladd music video "FASCINATED". Runs just short of an hour with 10 or 12 songs.
I have a bunch with family cookouts and home made comedy skits.I also have some with movies and shows taped off tv onto the blank tapes.They are stored away and I’ll probably never be interested in seeing the past.It feels too strange because everybody has long passed on.There are only about a dozen or so.
I gave away to charity most of my VHS tapes, I dumped the vast majority that were not pre-recorded except for those I want to digitize (or digitize part of) and some rarities. I find the photo of all the VHS tapes being dumped though depressing. Ironically, times for me were SO much better in the days when it was VHS tapes I was watching, rather than the Blu-rays of now (I don't have 4K myself), or even DVDs; as technology progressed, the world got so much WORSE.
Maybe, 15-20 and a "working last time I checked" VCR. Some music VHS stuff, some TV and movie and then stuff I shot or edited.
@Michael: I have a Panasonic VCR; one of those industrial units that plays NTSC's, PALs and SECAMs. Definitely a tank of a unit.
I've played so many PAL tapes in that machine it began to beg for mercy . . . BUT . . . there is NO mercy! Tapes must be played!
I have probably 100-150. A lot of horror & sci-fi. All the classic Universal horrors. A bunch of 50s Superman and Honeymooners. I don't know what to do with 'em. I don't feel like doing the Ebay thing. So, I'll just hold on to 'em.
I have maybe a couple dozen plus tapes (last time it was plugged in) a working stereo VHS tape player. About two thirds home taped and a third commercial releases (Beatles Anthology,Don't Look Back, Filth And The Fury, a few Kino releases), also some greyish British PAL shows converted to NTSC and big-eye cartoons mailed from Japan or Hawaii. I did make DVD-Rs from a few commercial VHS tapes I owned, so some of my off air stuff is those commercial tapes recorded over or I sold them (like more than one Krofft multi-tape set). I might be more 50-50 otherwise. I even made VHS copies from rented DVDs, I'm a mess of formats in all media it seems.
There is a subculture of people buying such home-brew tapes for entertainment (looking for surprises/weirdness?) and sometimes to upload and preserve ephemeral local channel content, and vintage ads (and if the rest of us are lucky upload to youtube). They will find them in junk stores at very cheap prices, those tapes you see and wonder why is that even around like anybody would want it. That lot would be heaven for some!
...do you have any of those 1/2 hour infomercials from the 80's?...the Ron Popeil ones are epic ...spray paint your bald spot...so is the Hair Club for men with Sy ?...so ..and ..so
I picked up a few VHS nuggets from eBay last week. Nothing Earth-shatteringly valuable or insanely rare . . . I bought a couple of copies of BUSTIN' LOOSE (1981) on the 'MCA Videocassette, Inc.' label. Also picked up a 1983-issue tape of THE OWL AND THE PUSSYCAT (1970) from Columbia. I do enjoy rounding up (very) old video nuggets of the past. I shall play "Bustin' Loose" very soon. Haven't seen it for many, many years. Next on my 'Tapes to Buy" list is SUMMER RENTAL (1985) on Paramount and ARMED AND DANGEROUS (1986) on Columbia. John Candy Flix! (I used to have a tape of "Armed and Dangerous" but I messed up the tape so I need another).
I Goodwill'ed about 100 VHS tapes 3 years ago when I moved and 'scaled down'...the only stuff I kept was around 20-25 VHS dubs of 8mm tapes that Bruce or Art Brooks shot of local San Jose shows back in the early 90's. I'm down to 1 working VHS player, a Panasonic that indeed, is a tank...
I've been fishing out various W/S VHS tapes to watch over the past couple of days. I hauled out the 1997-issue Warner Home Video •W-i-d-e-s-c-r-e-e-n• release of UNFORGIVEN (1992). In 2.35:1. ▬ Black Bars ▬! I watched it last night. Enjoyed it quite a lot so that was worthwhile viewing. The other widescreen videos I fished out were VOLCANO (1997), WYATT EARP (1994), WOLF (1994) and SILVERADO (1985). Have to plenty more to watch, too, but these will do for the time being. The WYATT EARP release from Warner was a 2-tape set "Expanded Version - Deluxe Widescreen Edition" running 212 minutes. If memory serves the 'regular' theatrical version of "Wyatt Earp" was issued in 'full frame' by Warner and only the expanded version was W/S. So I bought the 'Deluxe' version from eBay.
Gone. A long time ago. We had a video store in Piermont NY which was crazy. A lot of film people lived around there and frequented the store. He had more VHS prerecorded tape than I ever saw in one place. (This isn't far from NYC so I had occasion to hit some of the stores that had deep inventory back in the day). He finally lost his lease, sold off the inventory and I have no idea what's in the space now. I loved the fact that I bought the same movie on VHS, VHS HiFi, Laser Disc, and DVD, let alone BluRay. I got rid of all of it when I moved. Too much for too little return. I did have fun with big video for 15 years or so. I was traveling so much for work, I didn't want to deal w/ VTA or record cleaning. I wanted to press "play" and be entertained. So, I used that content to project, over an high end CRT projector that had modified boards, into a line doubler, and did a whole thing. That was my first foray into projection. I did a few systems. They were very involving. But I got to a point where I didn't need the theatrical experience. Now, I'm content to stream-- if 4k it is better than 1080 but HD range is good, and played back over a Sony 4k screen with good 5.1 audio supported by separate components- pre-pro, amp(s) and a good sub with 5 discrete speakers. Not the ultimate, but good enough.
