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30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

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Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#11

Post by ig1 »

tluyben2 wrote: post #5

People 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…

They often don't have the rights to do that, actors contracts and the like often have clauses with regards to royalties from video sales and repeat showings, most of them don't have any structure to allow for online streaming (plus you have legal issues over music used, etc). The legal work involved would cost far more than the technical work required.

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#12

Post by anonhacker »

I had a bunch of old VHS tape that i threw away. Although I would have liked to keep them, the biggest annoyance was the fungus/mold that grows on them if you live anywhere with some humidity.

The point being: VHS tapes destroy themselves, its not necessarily always a choice to not convert them.

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#13

Post by tluyben2 »

panacea wrote: post #10
tluyben2 wrote: post #5

People 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?

They probably have the masters; I think they usually do, at least they think so. There are stories of leaks in the back of basements etc rendering 1000s of hours of series/movies useless. That's why they should take action NOW and not waste time. Even if they only keep it locally and not sell it, it needs to be preserved! Damn it!

Brendon Chase (UK, 80s) is another one.

And there was a series in the 80s I remember as being called 'Saturday' (UK I think, about children growing up in some village and (very young) puppy love, very innocent series which I liked so much I quit my swimming lessons for it as it was on the same night and we didn't have a VCR; it was aroudn the same time as the Tripods on TV me thinks) which, due to the title, I never found anything about :( I would love to find that back as well. Hmmm. Must... Go... To... TV... Forums...

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#14

Post by tluyben2 »

ig1 wrote: post #11
tluyben2 wrote: post #5

People 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…

They often don't have the rights to do that, actors contracts and the like often have clauses with regards to royalties from video sales and repeat showings, most of them don't have any structure to allow for online streaming (plus you have legal issues over music used, etc). The legal work involved would cost far more than the technical work required.

Doesn't prevent them from digitizing and storing on something less volatile than old film reel.

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#15

Post by delinka »

tluyben2 wrote: post #14
ig1 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They often don't have the rights to do that, actors contracts and the like often have clauses with regards to royalties from video sales and repeat showings, most of them don't have any structure to allow for online streaming (plus you have legal issues over music used, etc). The legal work involved would cost far more than the technical work required.

Doesn't prevent them from digitizing and storing on something less volatile than old film reel.

But it does prevent exactly that. It costs money to do the conversion. Costs must be offset by revenue, and of course if revenue is involved in business, there must be enough revenue to generate profit. And if the legal agreements with the talent don't allow anything other than VHS sales and rentals, then it's not worth the effort to convert.

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#16

Post by tluyben2 »

delinka wrote: post #15
tluyben2 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't prevent them from digitizing and storing on something less volatile than old film reel.

But it does prevent exactly that. It costs money to do the conversion. Costs must be offset by revenue, and of course if revenue is involved in business, there must be enough revenue to generate profit. And if the legal agreements with the talent don't allow anything other than VHS sales and rentals, then it's not worth the effort to convert.

Guess you have a point there. I'm thinking way too much from a 'good for the world' POV. So only thing we can do is start a 'closed off' site which connects people interested in this, so we can coordinate buying of DVDs for 'personal' use from studio's (as I said before, I tried that in NL, BE and FR and they are willing to accomodate for high prices) and then copy them for interested parties. Yes, i'm advocating copying here, but how else to force them to digitize them? What can be done?

On a slightly related topic; HN (and Reddit) is FULL with domain experts; where are the people who work at these studios and television makers? Do they actually ever come here? Why don't they chime in ever? I would love to have a discussion with people working in the industry. They seem to be so focused on money that they don't want to hear reason, so I would definitely like to know if all management thinks like that for instance.

And slightly related to that last part:

In the Netherlands we have this idiot who is the ceo of Brein which is the Dutch anti piracy organisation; he sometimes does some comments or interviews, but he just quits after he is torpedoed down as the guy knows nothing. (And probably cannot do anything either tbh.) But one of the things he can never answer is; 'people will pay for anything, if you make it easy; as long as BitTorrent is 100x faster/easier than going the legal route, people will download illegally'. Must be industry people who have some ideas about that.

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#17

Post by talmand »

For me, a huge justification for piracy: archives. If the content license holders won't do it then someone has to preserve this stuff before it disappears.

I've never understood why a content creator would not digitize their archives and then offer it through streaming somehow. After a while it would seem the eventual revenue might offset the cost of the archiving. Free backup.

Imagine if one of the older studios suddenly offered every bit of content they had in their vaults, that still could be digitized, on Netflix, Hulu or even their own site? In some cases that would be five decades of content. We're talking hundreds/thousands of movies and tv shows that the current generation doesn't even know exist.

But no, the film sits in a salt mine somewhere slowing rotting away.

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#18

Post by jlarocco »

Cushman wrote: post #7
tluyben2 wrote: post #5

People 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…

It seems a bit of a stretch to blame copyright for this.

People upload content for which they don't own the copyright all the time.

In this case, the people with the videos just don't want to go through the effort of digitizing and uploading. Even if the studios said, "All of our old stuff is public domain," it wouldn't change anything.

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#19

Post by etcet »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #4

Officially. Yet many of them will live on in "pirated" digital form.

I'm not too sure. The Pirate Bay gives 890 results for "VHS" but Karagarga (private tracker) gives 5776 films with VHS sources. I'm sure there are plenty of VHS's on YouTube but YouTube feels ephemeral with the possibility of a DMCA request at any time.

So some of it is being archived by a very small subset of the pirate population. It would certainly be a lot easier if we didn't have to do it so far underground.

Re: 30 to 40 Percent of VHS Films Will Never See Another Format

#20

Post by tluyben2 »

jlarocco wrote: post #18
Cushman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems a bit of a stretch to blame copyright for this. People upload content for which they don't own the copyright all the time. In this case, the people with the videos just don't want to go through the effort of digitizing and uploading. Even if the studios said, "All of our old stuff is public domain," it wouldn't change anything.

I think it would. If the studios would say that, they could have the local film academy students in to digitize; they like that and they can study stuff which hardly anyone saw before. They did that in the Film museum in Amsterdam and that worked fine. So yes that would work.
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