Stock up on VHS VCRs when can

[67Zenith]

Originally Posted by Combwork

Can anyone tell me how long pre-recorded tapes are good for? I was wondering if the signal would fade away in storage. I hope not; I've a wonderful old VCC (video compact cassette) machine that still works plus a few brilliantly un-PC cartoon tapes that I doubt will ever be broadcast again. I don't know if this format made much headway outside Europe; tape cartridges were only slightly larger than VHS but played both ways like an audio cassette. Definition was better than either VHS or Betamax but being late to market, VCC never really caught on.

My oldest series of VHS tapes are the ones in which I taped The Donna Reed Show off of Nick-At-Nite, I guess about 1989 or 1990. I also inherited a dozen VHS tapes of Leave It To Beaver as taped off of WNEW TV Channel 5 New York, from 1985 (they were bought by Fox TV January 1986). All these tapes still play just fine.

As far as VCRs - I have a 1992 RCA. It's fine but I don't use it anymore and it's in the original box in a closet. I bought a JVC DVD/VHS combo thing off of fleaBay about 5 years ago and I basically use it because I switch back and forth, some things I saved on VHS and some of the newer tv shows on DVD.

I think that the way the Obama administration wants everything old to be trashed (such as their program to scrap refrigerators built before 1995 and the "cash for clunkers" program, which means cars made before 1998 - well...they want us to trash everything vintage. Maybe this is their way to make consumers spend money to buy newly made junk. It's scary to wipe out our history but we live in these times. Maybe next they will say that VCRs are unsafe (LOL) and everyone has to scrap them and only use DVDs! In any case, I'd keep a few of ANYTHING vintage you can afford to keep now and hang onto them.

[DragonMaster]

You can still buy VCRs with digital tuners, I guess they're not going away anytime soon.

Bought a nice HS-U80 recently, without the remote though...

[RobtWB]

Always looking for CLEAN bpc vcr's at thrift and estate and yard sales.
Seldom find nice ones though, usually scratched and dent models, yellow'ed with nicotine and sticky from little childrens fingers with candy and soda pop.

Recently fell into 2 early 80's Sony betamax vcr's, PRISTINE contition, in original boxes and wrapping and packing. Hell even the boxes and packing are pristine. Anyone know what they are worth? I don't own a single beta tape, never have, never will.

Still searching for the early RCA Selectavision VHS machines to match my RCA consoles. Any new 30$ vcr will produce an infinitely better pix and be trouble free, but would still like to have a pair just the same.

[JohnVF]

We still use a successor of beta...digibeta...at work (advertising), archiving commercials.

[andy]

000

[Combwork]

Originally Posted by 67Zenith
[I

I think that the way the Obama administration wants everything old to be trashed (such as their program to scrap refrigerators built before 1995 and the "cash for clunkers" program, which means cars made before 1998 - well...they want us to trash everything vintage. Maybe this is their way to make consumers spend money to buy newly made junk. It's scary to wipe out our history but we live in these times. Maybe next they will say that VCRs are unsafe (LOL) and everyone has to scrap them and only use DVDs! In any case, I'd keep a few of ANYTHING vintage you can afford to keep now and hang onto them.[/I]

Interesting point. We've got the same program just started here (U.K.). So far it's for cars only and you have to have owned the clunker for 12 months or more but even so, saving £2000 off the price of a new car means the supply of cheap old cars for your kids to learn to drive on is drying up.

67Zenith and andy

Thanks for your assurances. As to the VCC, mine's badged GRUNDIG and even with a plastic case, it weighs a ton. When you look inside you can see why. There may be the odd IC hidden in there somewhere, but what you see are half a dozen full size stacked circuit boards with hundreds of discrete conponants on each one. Plus a heavily engineered tape transport and a good size mains transformer. Built to be serviced, not thrown away.

I've got to clean the heads and get that old cartoon tape copied to DVD; one of the things on it is the first broadcast of "The Snowman" with David Bowie doing the voice over. His are the only words on it, the rest apart from one song from a very young Aled Jones is music and movement. It's on TV every Christmas, but the voice over is by someone else.

[wilkes85]

Originally Posted by 67Zenith

I think that the way the Obama administration wants everything old to be trashed (such as their program to scrap refrigerators built before 1995 and the "cash for clunkers" program, which means cars made before 1998 - well...they want us to trash everything vintage. Maybe this is their way to make consumers spend money to buy newly made junk. It's scary to wipe out our history but we live in these times. Maybe next they will say that VCRs are unsafe (LOL) and everyone has to scrap them and only use DVDs! In any case, I'd keep a few of ANYTHING vintage you can afford to keep now and hang onto them.

Scrap fridges made before 1995?! cars made before 1998?!

But trust someone who has enough cash in his dresser drawer alone to buy a brand new Lincoln to propose something like that.

And it wouldn't surprise me if they made it illegal to even own anything over 10 years old. They'll probabally have cops rade your houses and give people heavy fines for owning older electronics/appliances/etc.
That sounds a lot like Canada, actually. I can totally see the RCMP doing that. because of course, who cares about the rapists, murderers, gang members, etc, when there's hard working honest people driving older cars with slight exhaust leaks.
And here in Saskatoon, they actually have spot checks all over the city, and the cops pull every car over 10 years old and inspect it. I know someone who's car got pulled off the road because it had a small rust hole in the back, the battery wasn't strapped down with anything, etc.
He doesn't have a lot of money, so he bought some cheap POS with a million things wrong with it, and it needs constant servicing. But hey, it's under 10 years old. His old car was very reliable and never gave him problems.
Now he's in debt, but hey, at least the pigs are happy.

[DragonMaster]

That sounds a lot like Canada, actually. I can totally see the RCMP doing that. because of course, who cares about the rapists, murderers, gang members, etc, when there's hard working honest people driving older cars with slight exhaust leaks.

It's not like that everywhere. Here, you just need to get an inspection check when you buy the car, nothing else after.

[wilkes85]

Originally Posted by DragonMaster

It's not like that everywhere. Here, you just need to get an inspection check when you buy the car, nothing else after.

Is that for every car you buy no matter what?

Because here in SK you only need a safety inspection if it hasn't been registered for over a certain number of years or it's been pulled off the road at some point.

Luckily, they don't keep track of pre-1980 VIN numbers, so I was able to plate my 1974 Ford LTD without an inspection even though it was pulled off the road because some son of a bitch decided it was a good idea to cruise the streets of Saskatoon with straight pipe.

[DragonMaster]

Is that for every car you buy no matter what?

Everything you buy used... They don't pull off cars though, at least, not without very good reasons.

[kx250rider]

If it's just the fact that someone has a large library of VHS (or Beta, for that matter), tapes, I say back it all up on a hard drive, or make DVDs, and forget trying to keep working VCRs around. Brand new ones in the box will fail to work from time, and it will be a lifelong burden to worry about always needing one. I see the future being all solid-state media; no tapes, or discs of any kind. You will have a one-type-serves-all media device, like an SD card or a thumb drive, and it will have room for zillions of hours of video, music, your tax and medical records, and whatever you want. Very soon too!

Now of course if the VCR thing is for nostalgia and you want to be able to have a working machine to play with, as we play with vintage TVs, then absolutely get the ones you want NOW while they still exist.

Charles

[kx250rider]

Originally Posted by wilkes85

And here in Saskatoon, they actually have spot checks all over the city, and the cops pull every car over 10 years old and inspect it. I know someone who's car got pulled off the road because it had a small rust hole in the back, the battery wasn't strapped down with anything, etc.

We need to meet in the middle somehow. In California, you can drive a car with bald tires, no steering wheel, broken windshield, body held on to rusted out chassis with zip-ties, and crabbing down the road sideways because it's so badly damaged from an accident, but it's perfectly legal if the car passes the smog test. There IS NO mechanical inspection in Caifornia for private cars and trucks. Thank goodness, there is for commercial heavy trucks and buses. I've driven along behind cars here with parts literally falling off; menaces on the highway. Heck; half of the cars here don't even have current license plates! And one more point: The older the vehicle, the less the smog inspection requires. Diesels are 100% exempt for any age, new or old, and all vehicles are exempt from all inspection if older than 1974.

Charles

[devoid]

Sting sang something about this...

Synchronicity is one of my favorite albums. And everyone thinks Every Breath You Take is a love song.

[wilkes85]

Originally Posted by devoid

Sting sang something about this...

Synchronicity is one of my favorite albums. And everyone thinks Every Breath You Take is a love song.

Exactly. it doesn't take a genious to listen to the damn song and realize it's about a guy stalking a girl, but all they hear is "Can't you see, you belong to me..." and think it's a love song. But to be fair, the masses are complete morons. Just look at the whole analogue-digital conversion, and I'll bet there's still people flipping through the channels and bitching to the TV stations wondering why their TVs don't work.

[devoid]

No, I interpret much more than that. But I'll leave you guessing then.

anyhow I've seemed to confuse my albums again. After a lite google session - It was Zenyatta Mondatta, When The World Is Running Down You Make The Best Of What's Still Around.