Do you actually watch VHS tapes?

[plumpan]

(It's not clear if this belongs here or in Tech Talk, or a yet to be made "old stuff" subforum? Mods please move if needed)

I'm fortunate enough to have a 32" CRT and a VCR, and it's very surprising how good stuff looks on it. It's not a fancy TV at all, nor are the tapes fancy, but it all looks perfectly fine, there's never an obvious lack of fidelity or any blocky/stairsteppy stuff. Just looks like TV! Huge recommendation to anyone with the means to try it, really put in perspective for me how unnecessary the modern "4K ultra HD 65 inch OLED TV" stuff is.

I've got a pack of VHS tapes I've been needing to copy some media onto but never had something that really gave me the urge to copy them over. Since it's hard to find tapes nowadays I also overthink it and worry about "wasting" a tape.

I don't have the cash to do so at the moment but buying "used blank" tapes on ebay might still be a thing? I picked up a ton of Hi8/Video8 tapes for camcorder reasons a few years ago and they all arrived with various TV shows on them. No idea if that was done by the seller or previous owner, but it was pretty cool.

There's a lot of appeal of having a small collection of tapes of things to watch when company is over rather than trying to find something amongst the depths of youtube, netflix, etc.

[Mandrake]

I've still got my VCR and some VHS tapes, but I don't watch them - most of them are Disney films which were later re-released on DVD or can be watched online. The problem is that is because they're so hard to get rid of, since most charity shops don't accept them and they can't be recycled, so they just end up in landfill. Perhaps I should just throw them up on eBay and see if anyone's interested...

One thing that I did do last summer is digitise some of the tapes which weren't re-released on DVD using a cheap video capture card and threw them up on the Internet archive. I also found a bunch of advert breaks and continuity announcements, some of which I've turned into compilations and plan to upload to the Internet Archive as well (they're also up on YouTube, even though dealing with copyright claims is absolutely miserable). I still have a ton more that I need to process and upload, but I never seem to have the spare time...

[plumpan]

Digitizing stuff is great! Thank you for your service.

Yeah we have a small box of kids movies that were just on the curb. I need to find a few I actually care to watch sometime. The thrift stores here still have some VHS tapes, got a really nice copy of a wallace and gromit movie from one and watching that was what made me go "wow, this actually looks perfectly fine, what's the point of HD?" when watching it.

I think there's absolutely value in using physical tapes still, even for stuff that's otherwise available. I guess the same argument can be made for DVDs too, they hook up to an old TV just fine. But I think functionally the benefits of that would be, they take up less space and don't degrade as easily + bonus features on releases, rather than picture quality.

Now if I wanted to put a 6 hour long race broadcast onto a single physical medium, perhaps that would work out better on DVD than VHS lol.

[xwildwhirlx]

Ah, VHS tapes… I’ve got a small collection of childrens shows and movies on some, and I sometimes put them on in the background for nostalgia, but it’s been awhile since I’ve taken one out…

[Mandrake]

Yeah we have a small box of kids movies that were just on the curb. I need to find a few I actually care to watch sometime. The thrift stores here still have some VHS tapes, got a really nice copy of a wallace and gromit movie from one and watching that was what made me go "wow, this actually looks perfectly fine, what's the point of HD?" when watching it.

Out of curiosity, does this tape happen to be "The Wrong Trousers"? If so, keep hold of it because that's the original version! From 2001 and onwards, nearly every re-release and TV broadcast of this short has had some music replaced with inferior alternatives thanks to copyright issues. (Annoyingly, this includes Happy Birthday to You , a song which has since been rightfully returned to the public domain, yet Aardman Animations has yet to release a version with even this scene restored.)

[ARKYmouse]

Someday, I'll have to get my parents' collection of VHS tapes and a working player. I have no idea what condition those tapes are in, but they've not been touched in decades, and kept in cool, dry storage. Once I'm settled in a new place, I plan to get my old archive together and take an hour or two out of my time to explore some of those tapes once I have them again. Assuming my parents didn't get a wild hair up their asses and decided to throw them out or something.

[hanalei]

I do watch VHS tapes and I enjoy them very much! I had to get a VCR from eBay a couple of years ago, but it's here and works well. Haven't had much of an opportunity over the past couple of months to use it, but that's cuz I've been busy with lifestuff, leaving me not much time to watch movies in general.

Virtually none of the tapes I have now are the originals I had as a kid, but it's not difficult to find replacements. Disney Renaissance-era VHS tapes are super easy to come by in the thrift shops in my neighborhood, and I can usually find the common titles for $3 or less a pop.

Most of my tapes are animated movies from my childhood (The Lion King was an early furry gateway drug for me) but my collection has grown to include all kinds of movies, which caters to my wide-ranging tastes.

I'm just glad that the little CRT from my high school days still works.

[MewMus]

Literally had a movie night just the other week with the polycule where we watched my VHS copy of the Mummy! We're also planning to do another movie night with my copy of Jurassic Park soon!

I have a reasonably large and well kept collection and there is something really fun about watching from physical media

Eventually I do plan to back all the tapes up to something digital as nothing lasts forever. But that being said all of my tapes are still just as good as the day they where printed :>