When I was in high school, I recorded old movies onto VHS like there was no tomorrow. Back then, AMC was AMC (you know what I mean) and TNT showed old movies in prime time (gasp). Ahh yes, I remember setting up the timer on the VHS player, adding five minutes at the beginning and an hour at the end, just so I wouldn't cut off the precious conclusion.
I just realized that I recorded ton of movies that are rarely played on TV now.
And I threw them all out.
I'm not quite sure I remember why I did that. Introduction of DVD? Broken player? Clunky & hard to store? That stupid tracking knob that would (or would not) remove the snow from the screen? Probably all of the above.
How about you? Did you keep your VHS tapes?
Grr....
Update: As I think more about this topic, I have keep all of my laser discs and know exactly where they are! There's a handful that haven't been released on DVD yet!
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
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12 comments:
I'm still in the VHS age...I'm working on weeding out the last of my Beta tapes, LOL. (Most of my Beta collection has now been duplicated on DVD or VHS, yay!)
I don't yet have a DVD-R recorder (maybe for Christmas...) and transfer the movies I keep from my DVR to VHS. Which is a lot easier and more precise, at least, then having to set tapes to start early and run long to be sure everything was recorded! Storage space is definitely a bit of an issue. :)
Best wishes,
Laura
I used to do that, too... but I threw them all out too :( Maybe we didn't want to deal with all those tapes so we thought we'd start anew with some DVDs...
I have about a dozen left, mostly AMC pre-commercial days. Seems so long ago now...I don't have a VCR anymore, either.
Sometimes I chuckle remembering the cord on the remote to my first VHS player, circa 1984.
I had kept a lot of those bulky home recorded tapes in my parents' basement where over time ... and the occasional flood ... a white mold developed on the inside of the reel--disgusting! Those long ago went to the trash but probably had most of the best treasures, ie: 80's and early 90's AMC recordings.
As for the regular issue tapes you buy in a store I'd built my classic collection up to gigantic proportions through eBay about 9-10 years ago. Prior to that remember when a movie would cost $80? Thankfully they came down to $20-$30 over time, and by those eBay days could be had for a few dollars each in bulk. I swear I must have had about everything in issue, not that I ever found the time to watch them all.
Anyway, when I finally accepted the reality that the DVD player had killed the VHS and the spools finally sputtered out on my last old machine I broke down and sold off all the VHS tapes once again through eBay.
Little did I know we'd be able to transfer the tape to disc eventually. Grrr!
Oh no! You threw them away? :(
I still have mine in the basement, actually. Now that I'm moving I'm going through and transferring to dvd any rare ones TCM never plays, but then I'm going to try to unload them on another classic film fan. I don't know if I could bare to throw them in the trash!
By the way, even with my dvd recorder I still add extra time to the beginning & end if I can. After missing the endings of more films than I'd like to admit, I've learned my lesson :)
You threw them out?!
I kept mine. I go through them on occassion and get rid of any in which the films are on DVD. No point in keeping the movie on VHS if I can rent it or buy it. However, most of my VHS tapes contain multiple movies taped off of TCM so it's hard to get rid of one if only 1 out of the 4 movies is on DVD.
You'll be interested to know, that I have one VHS tapes with four rare Robert Montgomery movies! :-)
I have a ton of vhs tapes! (And I still record on them... and then transfer them to DVD) lol... and yes... storing them is such a pain!!
I've kept most of them, though I must concede I haven't really watched any lately. However, I note there is a product on the market that enables one to convert VHS tapes into DVD form (saw it at OfficeMax); haven't bought one of these devices yet, but I recall it costs about $79. It would be good to get all those things I taped off the late movie on UHF stations in the late 1980s, or movies shown on AMC in its old days or on TNT in its infancy, when it was an embryonic version of TCM, albeit with commercials and without Robert Osborne.
I was kinda stuck between two worlds, so I threw about half of my VHS cassettes out and kept the other half just in case. Now the half that survived has been stacked away in the basement, probably to face eternal oblivion. Since my son stuffed the player full of ginger bread men, the repair guy went out of business, disappearing with my VCR I have nothing to play them on anyway. I guess that's life.
Wow, thanks everyone for the comments! Interesting to read how everyone is working through VHS!
Oddly enough, I recorded zero Robert Montgomery films - back in the day it was Cary Grant. Got over that ;0)
I had just been thinking about getting rid of some of them. There are so many and they get so grainy after awhile. Still, I have alot that aren't on DVD. I'm not sure the quality of some of them are worth going to the trouble of transfering to DVD. What to do, what to do.......
I still live in the stone age and tape old movies with VHS since I don't have a DVR. I am really wanting to get a DVD recorder though since I have like 100 tapes and they are taking over haha. I would love to get rid of them.
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