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Descartes
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14 Jul 2010, 12:32 am

VHS tapes have long ago been replaced by DVDs. These days, movies no longer come out on VHS, only DVD and Blu-Ray. But I was wondering if anybody still prefers VHS tapes?

I would still have my collection of Disney movies on VHS had my dad not been an a**hole one day and given them all away to Half-Price Books despite my objections. When it comes to movies I used to like as a child, I'd probably prefer them on VHS, simply for nostalgia purposes.



mikey1138
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14 Jul 2010, 12:57 am

I collect vhs tapes. I like them for nostalgic purposes, but now certain titles have become quite the collectors' items so I have to pay exorbitant prices on ebay, etc. To get my hands on some of the more rare vhs releases.



auntblabby
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14 Jul 2010, 1:06 am

when i was the age of most of the folk on WP [read: teenage] videocassettes were still a new and somewhat exotic technology, and even professional users like television networks routinely erased and reused their videotapes, which back in the early 70s were expensive. so looking back at that from several decades in the future, i am amazed that it is now considered something akin to a disposable antique thing- this blows my mind.
anyways, i transcribed my videotapes [some off-air tv recordings from 3 decades ago] onto DVD several years ago, and boxed the original tapes up and they are in storage now. when computerized digitization becomes foolproof i will take 'em out again and digitally clean 'em up then re-dvd 'em.



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14 Jul 2010, 2:06 am

I hate having to rewind them and stuff, so no.


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Descartes
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14 Jul 2010, 2:10 am

Pistonhead wrote:
I hate having to rewind them and stuff, so no.


Yeah, rewinding them was always a pain. I enjoy VHS tapes mostly for the nostalgia they give me. It's always fun for me to watch through the opening previews and hear that "Coming soon to theaters" and "Coming soon to video" voice. :)



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14 Jul 2010, 2:16 am

I don't mind rewinding, but DVDs last longer so I prefer to get those if I like the series.

That said, however, I do have a lot of things I like on VHS still, so would hope that they last a wee while longer yet.

Still have a few things on cassette as well, but those tend to stretch in the sun, so I prefer CDs.


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14 Jul 2010, 9:28 am

Hell no! The image quality, sound quality, rewinding, the occasional tape getting wound up inside the VHS then having the fishing it out then reassembling the tape, the flashing 12:00 when the power goes out... none of it is worth my time.


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14 Jul 2010, 11:10 am

auntblabby wrote:
when i was the age of most of the folk on WP [read: teenage] videocassettes were still a new and somewhat exotic technology, and even professional users like television networks routinely erased and reused their videotapes, which back in the early 70s were expensive. so looking back at that from several decades in the future, i am amazed that it is now considered something akin to a disposable antique thing- this blows my mind.
anyways, i transcribed my videotapes [some off-air tv recordings from 3 decades ago] onto DVD several years ago, and boxed the original tapes up and they are in storage now. when computerized digitization becomes foolproof i will take 'em out again and digitally clean 'em up then re-dvd 'em.


Remember those Beta tapes? I wonder how many people still use those? :D


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Asp-Z
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14 Jul 2010, 11:17 am

VHS tapes were crap. I dislike most physical media, storing all your media on hard drives/SSDs is the future.



Friskeygirl
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14 Jul 2010, 11:43 am

spooky13 wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
when i was the age of most of the folk on WP [read: teenage] videocassettes were still a new and somewhat exotic technology, and even professional users like television networks routinely erased and reused their videotapes, which back in the early 70s were expensive. so looking back at that from several decades in the future, i am amazed that it is now considered something akin to a disposable antique thing- this blows my mind.
anyways, i transcribed my videotapes [some off-air tv recordings from 3 decades ago] onto DVD several years ago, and boxed the original tapes up and they are in storage now. when computerized digitization becomes foolproof i will take 'em out again and digitally clean 'em up then re-dvd 'em.


Remember those Beta tapes? I wonder how many people still use those? :D

Sony Beta Cams were still in use with a lot of news stations till a few years ago. Now its in a new form, the HDCAM which is a an HD version of Digital Betacam, The Beta never really died out, it was always a higher quality recording format then VHS
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDCAM



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14 Jul 2010, 12:28 pm

It took me some time to get used to DVD, because I had grown up with VHS. Plus, sticking to anything familiar is after all an autistic behavior. And even when I had finally broken down and bought a DVD player for my wife and me, I still preferred buying tapes while still available. Now that new tapes are no longer being made, and I no longer have a working VCR, I've become used to discs, and now even prefer them.

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14 Jul 2010, 12:58 pm

I like them for nostalgia but only for keeping them around... Have you tried watching a VHS nowadays? I can't go back to that... Video and Audio quality make it unwatchable...



Descartes
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14 Jul 2010, 8:06 pm

Xenu wrote:
I like them for nostalgia but only for keeping them around... Have you tried watching a VHS nowadays? I can't go back to that... Video and Audio quality make it unwatchable...


I still have some VHS tapes that I've had for years. Every now and then I might go back and watch one of them, and I have noticed the inferior quality compared to DVDs. But I actually like the inferior quality, because it makes me feel more nostalgic. :roll:



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14 Jul 2010, 8:08 pm

Descartes wrote:
Xenu wrote:
I like them for nostalgia but only for keeping them around... Have you tried watching a VHS nowadays? I can't go back to that... Video and Audio quality make it unwatchable...


I still have some VHS tapes that I've had for years. Every now and then I might go back and watch one of them, and I have noticed the inferior quality compared to DVDs. But I actually like the inferior quality, because it makes me feel more nostalgic. :roll:


I understand that. I mean I will go back and watch one of my simply Rugrats Cartoons or other 90's shows on VHS every now and but to watch a full movie is just impossible.



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15 Jul 2010, 1:48 am

Descartes wrote:
Xenu wrote:
I like them for nostalgia but only for keeping them around... Have you tried watching a VHS nowadays? I can't go back to that... Video and Audio quality make it unwatchable...


I still have some VHS tapes that I've had for years. Every now and then I might go back and watch one of them, and I have noticed the inferior quality compared to DVDs. But I actually like the inferior quality, because it makes me feel more nostalgic. :roll:


that is the same reason given by many baby boomers for preferring the sound of phonograph LPrecords [you know, those flat black discs with the great large album artwork?], because the clicks and pops and hisses and rumbles and such brought them mentally back to earlier happier times in their lives. their parents in turn preferred the sound of 78 rpm records over LPs for the same reasons.
anyways, the key to successful VHS/Beta watching is to watch those old tapes on an old-fashioned boxy CRT standard def monitor, just like in the old days. watching videotapes ['cept for SVHS, DVHS and ED-Beta] on a modern hidef monitor is just like examining a newspaper halftone photograph using a magnifying glass- all the limitations [analog video noise, limited resolution, coarse scan line structure] become abundantly clear. videotape audio quality was fuzzy until they invented hifi [fm] audio tracks, at which point except for tracking [crossover] distortion, the sound quality improved greatly. i used to record several hours of high fidelity audio on each $1 discount store videotape, which provided vastly better sound quality at SLP than my old reel-to-reel audio recorder could at 3&3/4 inches per second.



auntblabby
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15 Jul 2010, 3:08 am

spooky13 wrote:
Remember those Beta tapes? I wonder how many people still use those? :D


my first vcr was a sony betamax. it offered better picture quality than any vhs machine i ever owned.