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EL BROMANCE
Jun 10, 2006

COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬



EugeneJ posted:

Other than a couple home movies, a few TV specials I can't find anywhere else and old NFL games - my entire giant VHS collection is worthless

I'm on a Facebook VHS group because occasionally some cool old stuff gets posted, but man those people get beyond pissed when people like me throw all our old, worthless tapes into the trash in their hundreds. Weird, angry bunch are VHS collectors.

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SOME PIG
Aug 12, 2004

Hittin' Switches,
Twistin' wigs with
Phat Radical Mathematical type Scriptures

Blue Train posted:

tape is still the best backup medium and flash has limited number of write cycles plus like a decade lifespan iirc

This is true. I work in television, and we still use VCRs to record a backup of every performance for the archives, after we're done recording it to an HDD and a DVD for better quality.

A few months ago our digital system went down and I actually got to punch from the VCRs, live on TV. It was kind of cool.

SOME PIG fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Jul 24, 2016

EugeneJ
Feb 5, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

Hrist posted:

I have an old Kool-Aid VHS tape I got from a KB Toy Store when I was really young that my parents got for me with Kool-Aid points.

Anytime I describe the video to people, they swear it sounds like someone on acid made it or something. My dream is to one day convert it to digital format and upload it online. In case someone already did, I think the title was something like, "Wacky Wild Kool-Aid Style" and featured a segment of a man blowing up a building with a cross walk button, which was pre-terrorism, so it was okay. Also it had the Kool-Aid Rap, and that might be cool still.

It's online - because of course it is

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x424w0j

A goon even used it to make a music video years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61YyOHYKTRk

theperminator
Sep 16, 2009

by Smythe
Fun Shoe

Autumn Angel posted:

It seems like VHS tapes lose fidelity upon further rewatchings pretty easily. I found this out the hard way when buying some older Disney animated movies on VHS a while back. I imagine that has something to do with the mechanism required to read the contents of the cassette. As far as I can tell, the only really stable data storage method today is flash memory which pretty much never degrades.

Leave your flash memory without power for a decade and let me know how reliable it is.

Guy Mann
Mar 28, 2016

by Lowtax

JediTalentAgent posted:

While it exists now, I'm sort of wondering if an even more ultrahipster market of people who horde and collect old VHS recordings of everything from local TV broadcasts to home movies will become a bigger thing. There will be a special rarity to these literal never-to-be-seen-again contents that they won't even make copies of them so as to not dilute their value. Like someone will have a complete and unedited rough cut VHS copy* of The Day The Clown Died that only they and they alone can possess. They will unsheathe it now and then for private viewings with close, like-minded collectors, until the day someone who desires it more bashes them over the head with vase to claim it as their own.

The one big goldmine of weird old VHS recording is the archive of everything that's been sent in to America's Funniest Home Videos, and even they are letting some internet people poke around in it now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9BZzmhkD28

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtNlJ24QV5s

Boinks
Nov 24, 2003



There's still value in horror movies on VHS. Decent sized collecting community exists.

Tape won't just dissolve in time but there is a mold that can grow on it. The spores can get into your entire collection. Gotta keep them dry. I've seen it on cassette tapes too.

EugeneJ
Feb 5, 2012

by FactsAreUseless

EL BROMANCE posted:

I'm on a Facebook VHS group because occasionally some cool old stuff gets posted, but man those people get beyond pissed when people like me throw all our old, worthless tapes into the trash in their hundreds. Weird, angry bunch are VHS collectors.

The best place to find stuff used to be Goodwill, but about 10 years ago they changed their policy and now they only sell commercial VHS tapes that were donated in their original box.

You used to be able to find tons of home-recorded VHS tapes that were obviously donated from dead-grandma's house. Everything from 8-hour long MTV recordings from the 1980's, to NFL games, to 6-hours of movies recorded from HBO, to home movies people took at DIsney World,

Best thing I ever found was some tape where the person recorded Family Ties as it aired in like 1987, but they just let the tape run all night until it ran out of space. So I had like 6 hours of infomercials - I should find those and put them on YouTube.

Blue Raider
Sep 2, 2006

i had a laserdisc you podunk motherfuckers

Three-Phase
Aug 5, 2006

by zen death robot
There was an episode of this British TV show called the Secret Life of Machines that went over how a VCR and video recording in general worked, it was pretty cool.

These really old video recorders for broadcasting basically used gigantic reels of razor wire. They spun very fast and it was dangerous if the metal tape broke.

max4me
Jun 15, 2003

by FactsAreUseless
I thought the metal tape was for audio recording

Autumn Angel
Jan 18, 2014

Blue Train posted:

tape is still the best backup medium and flash has limited number of write cycles plus like a decade lifespan iirc

Really? It thought that if you never re-wrote data to a flash drive, it would last more or less indefinitely. Re-writing it shotens it's life span quite a bit though.

criscodisco
Feb 18, 2004

do it
I think it loses save atoms or something.

Gaz2k21
Sep 1, 2006

MEGALA---WHO??!!??
I have a whole bunch of old horror movies and punk/metal VHS Tapes including a few bootlegs of gigs


VHS is good poo poo

JetSetGo
Jan 1, 2011

to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022
I miss using VHS cassettes to record porn off our black cable box that had access to all PPV channels back when that poo poo was common (I didn't have access to the Internet until high school). Whelp, thanks for reading

Samuel L. ACKSYN
Feb 29, 2008


vhs is cool and you'll have to pry my windows 95 video guide tape from my cold dead hands

Samuel L. ACKSYN
Feb 29, 2008


slide

clink

clunk


whiiiirrrrr


*jurassic park*

Samuel L. ACKSYN
Feb 29, 2008


this my current deck, what u all rockin


The Human Crouton
Sep 20, 2002

I have Orca on betamax and I still watch Orca on betamax. The way the old lass skips is so haunting.

PromethiumX
Mar 5, 2003
we had a machine at my house that was dedicated to rewinding VCR tapes.

thats all it did. rewind them really fast.

CaptainSarcastic
Jul 6, 2013



I really need to get around to digitizing some of the stuff up at my folks' house. There is stuff on VHS tapes up there that would be difficult if not impossible to replace.

Gaunab
Feb 13, 2012
LUFTHANSA YOU FUCKING DICKWEASEL
You can hide booze in a vcr

Video Nasty
Jun 17, 2003

What will this mean for the lost tapes of Super Horino Brothers??

Only registered members can see post attachments!

Volcott
Mar 30, 2010

People paying American dollars to let other people know they didn't agree with someone's position on something is the lifeblood of these forums.

Bill NYSE posted:

What will this mean for the lost tapes of Super Horino Brothers??



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdrlALQVEKM

nigga crab pollock
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax
i got a vhs-c camcorder for like a dollar to maybe make bad green screen videos at some point in the future

the entire thing just seems mad over-engineered. so many moving parts, i wonder why they didnt just split it into a camera/viewfinder and fanny pack the tape deck cause its a size of a drat football itis not compact in the slightest

its got a seemingly good lens but i guess its also not hard to get 240p into focus

nigga crab pollock
Mar 26, 2010

by Lowtax

Three-Phase posted:

There was an episode of this British TV show called the Secret Life of Machines that went over how a VCR and video recording in general worked, it was pretty cool.

These really old video recorders for broadcasting basically used gigantic reels of razor wire. They spun very fast and it was dangerous if the metal tape broke.

are you sure it was video? cause before there were tapes they used wire in p much the same way. they werent super great but in 1950 tape heads were fuckin cutting edge, wire recorders were way simpler/cheaper

EL BROMANCE
Jun 10, 2006

COWABUNGA DUDES!
🥷🐢😬



Samuel L. ACKSYN posted:

this my current deck, what u all rockin




Very similar to my last deck. Self cleaning so picture quality was great, but I plugged it in one day and something had blown and it refused to do anything. A sad day.

Risky
May 18, 2003

Crow_Rodeo posted:

goddamn are these videos loving dumb

I'd like to see Kidz React to being flogged with a switch

Metanaut
Oct 9, 2006

Honey it's tight like that.
College Slice

Lime Tonics posted:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mES3CHEnVyI

Taping from VCR to another until, well just watch.

ah the childhood memories of watching action movies in gen 5/6 quality with no subtitles because thanks to our lovely censorship laws, local versions were cut of everything even remotely violent, like too firm handshakes :finland:

Cat Hassler
Feb 7, 2006

Slippery Tilde
I have a VHS player and also videotapes of stuff I taped the 1983-87 era

A lot of Letterman- Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld before they got famous and a bunch of Pee Wee Herman as a guest

I should probably digitize it

kazr
Jan 28, 2005

Keith Atherton posted:

I have a VHS player and also videotapes of stuff I taped the 1983-87 era

A lot of Letterman- Jay Leno and Jerry Seinfeld before they got famous and a bunch of Pee Wee Herman as a guest

I should probably digitize it

digitize this *tugs genitals in upward motion*

Bulgaroctonus
Dec 31, 2008


Friginator posted:

Ah, the joys of rewinding will be forever lost.

My mom still asks me how to rewind DVDs. Wish I were joking. ( :

Guy Mann
Mar 28, 2016

by Lowtax

PromethiumX posted:

we had a machine at my house that was dedicated to rewinding VCR tapes.

thats all it did. rewind them really fast.

but was it shaped like a racecar?

this is important

a star war betamax
Sep 17, 2011

by Lowtax
Gary’s Answer
You rewind DVDs by putting them into the DVD player upside down

Number_6
Jul 23, 2006

BAN ALL GAS GUZZLERS

(except for mine)
Pillbug
Laugh all you want at VCRs, but show me a modern mainstream recording device that will easily and affordably record content, especially HD content, from cable or OTA TV, for permanent archival purposes. DVD recorders are all but dead, and as far as I know, recorders that support HD cost a fortune. Not to mention the Orwellian copy protection built into everything now.

Edit: why doesn't every loving DVR have "burn this recording to disc" function integrated right into it? I mean Christ its the most basic idea, that some programs you want to record onto media for permanent storage. Its a loving travesty how the industry and the government has allowed the consumers "fair use" recording rights to be ripped away.



Number_6 fucked around with this message at 11:37 on Jul 24, 2016

Light Gun Man
Oct 17, 2009

toEjaM iS oN
vaCatioN




Lipstick Apathy
my boss gave me a side job to do at home that is running a bunch of tapes through a VCR/DVD recorder unit thing.

yeah i'm sure the kids really wanna watch like 40 year old cartoons ripped from VHS onto DVD but whatever i'm gettin paid for it so why not

Been trying to find interesting tapes around the house to rip for myself while I have it but nothing terrible interesting is turning up. Must have stowed all my cool poo poo somewhere hard to get to or something.

hemale in pain
Jun 5, 2010




Number_6 posted:

Laugh all you want at VCRs, but show me a modern mainstream recording device that will easily and affordably record content, especially HD content, from cable or OTA TV, for permanent archival purposes. DVD recorders are all but dead, and as far as I know, recorders that support HD cost a fortune. Not to mention the Orwellian copy protection built into everything now.

Edit: why doesn't every loving DVR have "burn this recording to disc" function integrated right into it? I mean Christ its the most basic idea, that some programs you want to record onto media for permanent storage.

just download it from the internet? why even own a tv

spud
Aug 27, 2003

by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

dethkon posted:

This is true. I work in television, and we still use VCRs to record a backup of every performance for the archives, after we're done recording it to an HDD and a DVD for better quality.

A few months ago our digital system went down and I actually got to punch from the VCRs, live on TV. It was kind of cool.

How can this be true? I watched Akira so much on VHS the tape wore out.

e: I mean "why use videotapes when they seem to just wear out", not "How is it true you work in TV".

spud fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Jul 24, 2016

Number_6
Jul 23, 2006

BAN ALL GAS GUZZLERS

(except for mine)
Pillbug

hemale in pain posted:

just download it from the internet? why even own a tv

Because it's a pain in the rear end, thats why. And unless I'm mistaken, lots of TV programs are not really available for free, legal downloads from the internet.

"Why even own a TV?"? Well, I dont want to use a 50"" viewing device to surf the web, and I don't want to use a 23" device to watch movies. And I dont have whaterver magical streaming/casting poo poo that is needed to send poo poo from my computer to my TV,

Fumble
Sep 4, 2006

Number_6 posted:

Because it's a pain in the rear end, thats why. And unless I'm mistaken, lots of TV programs are not really available for free, legal downloads from the internet.

"Why even own a TV?"? Well, I dont want to use a 50"" viewing device to surf the web, and I don't want to use a 23" device to watch movies. And I dont have whaterver magical streaming/casting poo poo that is needed to send poo poo from my computer to my TV,

Get a long rear end HDMI cable off amazon. or get a cheap ps3 and stream though that with an app. the ps3 doesn't even need to be able to play games.

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RocketSurgeon
Mar 2, 2008
Hello I hope you enjoy this mans vcr collection.
https://youtu.be/-z4iw8Ppo1o

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