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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

#151

Post by nl »

onlypassingthru wrote: post #127
YesBox wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

In terms of actually _known_ in the meaning meant (people have some awareness of what they did) probably the Pharaohs Djoser (born 2686BCE) who built the stepped pyramid at Saqqara.

Maybe Gilgamesh, who may well have been a historical king of Uruk sometime between 2900 – 2350 BCE.

Enmebaragesi[1] probably existed around 2600 BCE but not much is known about him other than he was a King of Kish.

Figures in the old testament Bible are hard to track but the stories of Nimrod (grandson of Noah) seems to have been placed around 2000 BCE

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enmebaragesi

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

#152

Post by kvmet »

lynx23 wrote: post #134
chongli wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not just a male thing! [1] It might be the case that men are more likely to be collectors/hoarders in general but there definitely are women who partake. I will also say that the type of thing being collected matters. Go to an estate sale for a woman (especially one born before 1960) and you may see collections of dolls, tea services, certain types of paintings, etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marion_Stokes

If women get known for their hoarding, its typically for animals, not living things. Which is, if you think about it long enough, a lot more creepy!

Did you misspeak? Animals are generally living things

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

#155

Post by iforgotpassword »

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…

At least the tendency seems more pronounced in men, but that might just be perception. Anyways:

> Apparently there were so many tapes because the original owner, a now elderly man, had made the recordings for his neighbour.

Really made me chuckle. "hey Billy, can you like, record 500 days of continuous TV program for me that would be great, thanks!"

Likely asked him to record a few shows in the beginning and then the hoarding kicked in? Otherwise I'm wondering why a) the tapes were still at his place and not his neighbor's and b) why he didn't keep taping over the same few tapes. :-)

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

#157

Post by thowawatp302 »

wholinator2 wrote: post #123
jodrellblank wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The person who they are is the one who spent the time and effort to collect them.

The collection is a /product/ of that time and effort, not the other way around.

People who didn’t do this are someone else

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

#158

Post by ArnoVW »

sneak wrote: post #129
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.

I thought the same but then I remembered that the noise will make it pretty hard to compress (no?)

Would be interested to have a more quantified idea of the sizes involved.

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

#159

Post by achairapart »

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…

And today you can listen to (most of?) those John Peel sessions again:

https://davestrickson.blogspot.com/2020/05/john-peel-session...

The circle has been closed!

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

#160

Post by rcarmo »

api wrote: post #78
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…

I hoard interesting digital media a bit since stuff does disappear from the Internet, but don't hoard anything physical. Takes up too much space.

https://archivebox.io/ For those with an interest. My del.icio.us collection (what was still online) lives on my NAS now.
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