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I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

takes.jamesomalley.co.uk

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Re: I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

#51

Post by dylan604 »

ToDougie wrote: post #38
adamrezich wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for this link! My mom went through hell trying several “professional” commercial services both locally and elsewhere, just trying to get our couple dozen or so family video VHS tapes converted into some digital format. They all suck ass —not that my mom cares, of course, she's perfectly content watching videos of her children hideously stretched from 4:3 to 16:9, among many other issues. But now at least I…

This was so charming. I wish my parents had more recorded content of us, but it was a rare day that someone would get out the camcorder, and even rarer that the files would get transposed anywhere. But I do think there are some really old hard drives (anywhere from 10G to 40G) sitting somewhere in a garage, full of JPEGs of us.

It is something that is funny to me. By the time VHS camcorders came out, 8mm film cameras were much smaller. Almost point-n-shoot sizes. Then VHS came out with the shoulder mount bricks. It took forever for VHS-C palmcorders to make them much more portable.

Re: I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

#52

Post by dylan604 »

Sakos wrote: post #41
dangsux wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

Why the BBC? It should go to archives like archive.org and publicly accessible "pirate" archives, so corporations like the BBC can't stick it in a vault and bury it.

Because the BBC might actually be interested in plugging holes in their own archive.

Re: I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

#53

Post by ghaff »

Sakos wrote: post #40
cortesoft wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Luckily, hoarding digital media is a lot easier and doesn't take up much space.

Yeah, my 30TB of digital media fits in a shoebox and even doubling that would still fit in the same shoebox. It's also not something that takes up a lot of time unless you let it take over your life. Maybe a few hours a week of gathering new media (movies, shows, games, YouTube videos, etc.), then I move on with my life and do other things. I've effectively given up on collecting DVDs or anything else that takes up t…

Yeah, the correct answer is to basically chuck it all. If you have a bit of possibly unique content, perhaps contact a relevant archive (which I did recently) but otherwise accept that you don't need to find a home for everything. Books, DVDs, and CDs can go to your local library's book sale though most will end up pulped. VHSs are mostly just trash at this point even if someone, somewhere might want them.

Re: I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

#54

Post by VoodooJuJu »

fallinditch wrote: post #21

It can become a compulsion to record and collect media. Seems like a male thing, normally it's blokes who create these archives. I met a bloke once in the 90's who made recordings on to C-90 tapes of anything interesting that was on BBC Radio 4 and 3, and he found most things interesting. He was surrounded by piles, thousands of tapes everywhere and he was desperately trying to catalog everything. As I spoke to him h…

>Ultimately, having and keeping stuff just weighs you down.

This, so much this! We should own nothing. Then we'll be happy!

Re: I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

#55

Post by faangguyindia »

fallinditch wrote: post #21

It can become a compulsion to record and collect media. Seems like a male thing, normally it's blokes who create these archives. I met a bloke once in the 90's who made recordings on to C-90 tapes of anything interesting that was on BBC Radio 4 and 3, and he found most things interesting. He was surrounded by piles, thousands of tapes everywhere and he was desperately trying to catalog everything. As I spoke to him h…

Tangent but I've huge collection of comics. I am waiting for AI to get good enough so that I can turn it into knowledgebase

Re: I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

#56

Post by Clamchop »

cj wrote: post #24
DaveChurchill wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Get a FireWire cable and rip the data straight from a dvcam to get the raw video files. Then compress with desired settings

Ah actually they’re 8mm cassette tapes and vhs-c. From 20-40 years ago

The advice for video 8 when I did this was to buy a quality camcorder for the desired format (note, there's Video 8, Hi 8, and Digital 8, all using the same cassette form factor), in good condition, and capture the S-video output. Results were surprisingly good.

VHS-C can be played in a normal VCR, with an adapter cassette, but the process will otherwise be the same. Excellent VCRs in good condition had gotten expensive last time I checked, though.

When I did it, vhsdecode didn't exist and I know nothing about that, but I'm completely satisfied with the results I achieved.

if they're digital 8, then of course ideally you would get a digital capture.

Re: I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

#59

Post by userbinator »

dylan604 wrote: post #52
Sakos wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the BBC? It should go to archives like archive.org and publicly accessible "pirate" archives, so corporations like the BBC can't stick it in a vault and bury it.

Because the BBC might actually be interested in plugging holes in their own archive.

They can do that from archive.org

Re: I have 2000 old VHS tapes in my garage and don't know what to do with them

#60

Post by throwanem »

QuadrupleA wrote: post #43

Probably an age-old theme, but as a guy now in my 40s, it's humbling and a little sad to see how many things that were so vital, alive, and relevant in my childhood (and past eras) that are now dead and almost gone from the collective memory. As the Buddha said, all is impermanent.

Right there with you.

But hey, it's not all bad. We might be the last generation in living memory, for a while at least, who could ever say "you had to be there" and mean it.

And for all it pangs our hearts to see our ephemera tend to dust, we also I think are, of any human generation to date, probably best able to hope that the things we really love from our time will be preserved. (I hope that's a distinction we don't end up holding on to...)

In just the last little while I've been getting to see that peculiarly ingenuous sort of joy again, as someone half my age discovers a show I first binged 25 years ago from a friend's handmade VHS dubs.

That's a show that makes a habit of trying to tell the audience things they'll hope never to forget. It does so wonderfully. It's a story I cherish, and if someone half my age will perforce love it at least somewhat differently from how I do - so what? That the story remain loved is enough.

I dunno if any of that's any use to you, but share it in the hope it'll do you the same small good it did me, thinking on this of a quiet evening.

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