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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

#121

Post by rasz »

WalterBright wrote: post #76

2000 tapes at 6 hours each, 12,000 hours. You can record them for about a gig an hour, so it ought to fit in 12 terabytes. Doing one tape a night, it'll take 6 years of calendar time. 3 years if you buy a dedicated computer to do it, at two tapes a day. The good news is that's calendar time, not your time, which is pressing "record" on your computer and "play" on the VHS machine.

https://github.com/oyvindln/vhs-decode + 10 of those $35 a pop https://github.com/oyvindln/vhs-decode/wiki/RSP1 + 10 VHS players + someone on a night shift feeding tapes every couple hours = ~100 days

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

#122

Post by cortesoft »

jacobgkau wrote: post #48
cortesoft wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Unluckily, that means there's no physical check on it to prompt you to stop like physical media has.

But if there isn't an issue with it, why stop?

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

#123

Post by wholinator2 »

jodrellblank wrote: post #109
Mistletoe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the sentiment but I think most people I know would be better off freed from their hoarded items and actually able to be somebody. Your comment does remind me of the replicants from Blade Runner and how they need their “precious photos” that aren’t even real as a touchstone to link them to the implanted memories.

> and actually able to be somebody. be who?

I can't tell if this is facetious or not, but be the person that they are. The whole rest of the person besides the obsession. Maybe with some extra freedom and time they can build up their other interests and relationships. Grandfather comment or so said the guys wife was upset with him. Without the piles of tapes he could replace "tape guy" with "happier relationship" and "successfully moved". Literally everything else about the person is who they are. Narrowing a persons whole identity down to a collection of objects is a neurotic and reductive take on personhood, in my opinion

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

#124

Post by lazyasciiart »

pessimizer wrote: post #49
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…

> Seems like a male thing, normally it's blokes who create these archives. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Stokes > Stokes bequeathed her son Michael Metelits the entire tape collection, with no instructions other than to donate it to a charity of his choice. After considering potential recipients, Metelits gave the collection to the Internet Archive one year after Stokes's death. Four shipping containers were r…

Surely someone in this thread can give an update on the status of that digitization project?

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

#126

Post by WalterBright »

femto wrote: post #80
WalterBright wrote: post #76

2000 tapes at 6 hours each, 12,000 hours. You can record them for about a gig an hour, so it ought to fit in 12 terabytes. Doing one tape a night, it'll take 6 years of calendar time. 3 years if you buy a dedicated computer to do it, at two tapes a day. The good news is that's calendar time, not your time, which is pressing "record" on your computer and "play" on the VHS machine.

Having digitised a few VHS tapes, the (personal) time consumer was verifying whether the capture was successful and of acceptable quality. Is anyone aware of a way to automate the quality control?

Just take a look at the first minute and the last minute. If they're OK, it's pretty assured the rest is.

For damaged cassettes, you can move the tape from one cassette to another. If the tape is broken, packing tape will get it spliced well enough. If the leader or trailer is bad, you can cut it off and reattach the end to the spool. If the recording is lousy, cleaning the VCR heads with alcohol usually will fix it.

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

#127

Post by onlypassingthru »

YesBox wrote: post #94
uptown wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Eventually, all our graves go unattended.” — Conan O'Brien

A similar quote, paraphrased, is "Every one dies twice. The first time is when they stop breathing, and the second is when their name is spoken for the last time".

This raises an interesting question: Who is the oldest person still alive to us that we know of by name?

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

#129

Post by sneak »

WalterBright wrote: post #76

2000 tapes at 6 hours each, 12,000 hours. You can record them for about a gig an hour, so it ought to fit in 12 terabytes. Doing one tape a night, it'll take 6 years of calendar time. 3 years if you buy a dedicated computer to do it, at two tapes a day. The good news is that's calendar time, not your time, which is pressing "record" on your computer and "play" on the VHS machine.

A gig an hour seems a bit high for VHS resolution and HEVC.

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

#130

Post by r-bryan »

jodrellblank wrote: post #109
Mistletoe wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the sentiment but I think most people I know would be better off freed from their hoarded items and actually able to be somebody. Your comment does remind me of the replicants from Blade Runner and how they need their “precious photos” that aren’t even real as a touchstone to link them to the implanted memories.

> and actually able to be somebody. be who?

"Always be yourself. Everyone else is already taken."
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