30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
1–10 of 28 posts
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#2I upvote because it's interesting, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it's all wrong. Home video didn't disappear, it went to YouTube. Browsing still exists, as active who has looked through Netflix, Hulu, or any other service can attest to. Having that right image is sill an important conveyance of style.
But yet, I still upvote. I can't help but feel this potential loss of so much film can be avoided. Maybe someone at Archive.org can work to verify rights holders who want to donate their work to the public domain and have their work soured there. So what if most of it's bad?
We live in the first time in history where we actually can save everything. Why not do it?
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#3I upvote because it's interesting, but I have the sneaking suspicion that it's all wrong. Home video didn't disappear, it went to YouTube. Browsing still exists, as active who has looked through Netflix, Hulu, or any other service can attest to. Having that right image is sill an important conveyance of style. But yet, I still upvote. I can't help but feel this potential loss of so much film can be avoided. Maybe som…
Because the laws of entropy show that's not quite right?
The notion that we have the ability to save everything doesn't seem to account for the placement of such technology in a wider context. For example, take dimensions such as the political and economic - which are themselves subject to physical entropy such as fundamental communication and informational limitations manifested by the physical laws underpinning our 'reality'. It seems to me these are examples of some significant hard barriers to reaching such utopia’s of permanence.
So we have a socio-political-economic system that gives rise to things like intellectual property, which in turn leads to allocation of social energy in endeavours such as prohibiting, rather than facilitating, the perpetuation of the content for posterity.
Of course this is a gross simplification, but hopefully functionally illustrative. Down with IP!
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#4Officially.
Yet many of them will live on in "pirated" digital form.
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#5People who have VHS should digitize. There is a lot on Youtube but for how long... Old films/series are lost and will be lost forever that way. It's not even actually only VHS: some things never made VHS and is rotting on tapes in dark vaults under tv studios. Possible already damaged beyond repair. Stuff like 'secret valley' (AU tv series) is unfindable. Xenon (Flemisch scifi) is only in the BRT vaults; I mailed them about that and they responded that it would cost E49 per episode where you have to order per post PER episode (you cannot order multiple at the same time) and only for private use. I just would like to see an episode for nostalgia sake; if I could buy / view it online I would, but E49 per episode and all the hassle.
What does it matter to THEM to just have some students digitize EVERYTHING and put it online for free or a small fee? I imagine there are 100s of 1000s of these series and movies around the world going to waste. No matter if popular or not, what DOES IT MATTER to put them online, it's not as if it's expensive to do so esp if you charge some monthly or one-off fee to watch them.
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#6Officially. Yet many of them will live on in "pirated" digital form.
And many of them don't.
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#7People who have VHS should digitize. There is a lot on Youtube but for how long... Old films/series are lost and will be lost forever that way. It's not even actually only VHS: some things never made VHS and is rotting on tapes in dark vaults under tv studios. Possible already damaged beyond repair. Stuff like 'secret valley' (AU tv series) is unfindable. Xenon (Flemisch scifi) is only in the BRT vaults; I mailed the…
When I moved, a couple months ago, I packed up — not a series, not a tape — the box I have that can turn VHS into digital video thinking, "Maybe I should just throw this out." I hung onto it for purely sentimental reasons, I think. I can't really remember the last time I saw a VHS cassette, let alone used one.
And yet there must be hundreds of thousands of hours of human creation which will, without preservation, be utterly destroyed. There's definitely something tragic there.
This, ladies and gentlemen, is the wretched work of copyright. This is the still-unfulfilled promise of the information age. Let's not forget that.
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#8People who have VHS should digitize. There is a lot on Youtube but for how long... Old films/series are lost and will be lost forever that way. It's not even actually only VHS: some things never made VHS and is rotting on tapes in dark vaults under tv studios. Possible already damaged beyond repair. Stuff like 'secret valley' (AU tv series) is unfindable. Xenon (Flemisch scifi) is only in the BRT vaults; I mailed the…
When I moved, a couple months ago, I packed up — not a series, not a tape — the box I have that can turn VHS into digital video thinking, "Maybe I should just throw this out." I hung onto it for purely sentimental reasons, I think. I can't really remember the last time I saw a VHS cassette, let alone used one. And yet there must be hundreds of thousands of hours of human creation which will, without preservation, be…
Well, the studios themselves have the rights, so why they don't digitize it is strange to me. Well, the big ones I can see, obviously they don't see enough $ in it. But small, national ones like the BRT in BE or something, they have a duty to the tax payer (who pays to make these shows happen) even to do this in my eyes.
I would pay for 'series and movies' nobody wants to see and so would many others, so if not only for posterity, then do it for some profit. I wouldn't sign up for some modern subscription, but if these were included I would. It's just a matter of being complete.
But yes, you are right, the copyright issue sucks; no-one cares about these series/movies, so why not remove the (c).
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#9Officially. Yet many of them will live on in "pirated" digital form.
And many of them don't.
Case in point: Even the BBC has managed to "lose" a lot of the early Dr Who (they taped over a lot of it before someone started thinking about archival), and have resorted to recovering some of it from versions taped from broadcasts, but bits and pieces are still missing and will likely never be found.
A large part of what has been recovered has only been recovered because of a lot of effort from both the BBC and volunteers.
This is a series with massive cultural impact in the UK.
Now consider all the less popular series that don't have scores of fans pushing to ensure as much as possible of it is restored and made available...
Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format
#10People who have VHS should digitize. There is a lot on Youtube but for how long... Old films/series are lost and will be lost forever that way. It's not even actually only VHS: some things never made VHS and is rotting on tapes in dark vaults under tv studios. Possible already damaged beyond repair. Stuff like 'secret valley' (AU tv series) is unfindable. Xenon (Flemisch scifi) is only in the BRT vaults; I mailed the…
>Stuff like 'secret valley' (AU tv series) is unfindable.
This makes me really, really sad. Although I would likely find it juvenile and not as good as I remembered it, it was one of the best things on TV growing up and I'd love to share it with my future kids. Flour-bomb fight!
Edit: So it's listed on the AFSA website... does this mean the masters are still in the archive?