Vhs Tapes

[MissNathalieVintage]

I have a medium size and growing vhs tape movie collection, granted some of the vhs tape films I own are on DVD and some are not on DVD. For me, I do not see any reason to spend more money for a DVD version of a movie I already own, unless the vhs tape is to damaged to play then I'll consider buying the movie on DVD.


Currently I have my vhs tapes stored in the sleeves they came in. And stacked up against the wall in a corner with a few vhs films sitting in a big plastic bin with the lid on, not getting much use (since I tend to forget they are stored there).

Most of my DVD collection is housed in a binder with sleeves. One can not do this with vhs tape films.

It is hard at times when I pick out a movie to watch. I mostly end up having to pull a vhs tape out from under the stack of vhs film tapes and hope the other vhs tapes do not come crashing down on me. I'd like to be able to store my vhs movie collection in a way that will allow me to see the titles and not have to risk injury when choosing a film to watch.


How do you store your vhs tape(s) movie collection?

 

[GoetzManor]

I have a bookcase, and I line them up as if they were books, so that way when I want to watch one, all I have to do is find it and pull it out. I learned real quick that stacking became a major pain. "Stack" horizontally, not vertically.

 

[Jaguar66]

I had a large collection, so I had a custom made cabinet made of multiple drawers, that would hold them stacked front to back, 20 deep, and 3 across. 8 drawers high, and 2 sets of drawers side by side. So 60 VHS tapes per drawer. I saw this setup in a video store back in the old days. Each drawer was also designed to hold CDs/DVDs (height-wise).

 

[Doctor Damage]

I simply jam them into a drawer any old way they fit. I have the entire Avengers on VHS and can't get rid of them (or replace them). Interestingly, sometimes VHS versions are worth keeping around: I remember reading that the VHS director's cut of Blade Runner was the version which showed the most of the original film, whereas all other versions cropped slightly to fit the formats.

 

[John in Covina]

You could actually get a video digitizer and download all of them. The thing is that VHS has only so much detail, if you get a big screen you may find that VHS seems kind of blurry. DVD bumps up the detail and blue ray makes a huge jump in sharpness. A good bluray or dvd player can up sample a regular DVD and make it look great on a big screen. There is a reason films weren't delivered to the movies house on VHS.

 

[gtdean48]

I have a DVD burner that has a VHS player, so I transfer VHS to DVD to preserve the tape...

 

[2jakes]

I've read that the vhs tape is supposed to be played at least once a year to prevent the
tape from sticking to itself over time.

 

[LizzieMaine]

It depends on the brand of tape -- those cheap drugstore brands from the '90s that came six in a brick for $2.99 tend not to wear as well as name brand quality tapes. It also depends on the storage -- if you keep them in a humid environment like a cellar or an unheated garage you can count on having problems.

I've got good quality tapes from the '80s that still play fine, and I've got tapes I recorded last year that have already quit, so I get the feeling that the tape currently being manufactured is on the lower end of the quality scale.

 

[Captain Nemo]

I have a DVD burner that has a VHS player, so I transfer VHS to DVD to preserve the tape...

I have been meaning to do this as well. I bought an adapter and computer program that allows data transfer, but somehow have not found the motivation to tackle the stack of tapes. Unfortunately, I have instead been acquiring more history VHS tapes from used book stores and flea markets.

 

[2jakes]

I have a DVD burner that has a VHS player, so I transfer VHS to DVD to preserve the tape...

I have a Sony DVD burner that will transfer VHS to DVD .Which was fine until the Sony broke down.
Unable to find a Sony replacement, I purchased the JVC DVD player with the same format. Although
I'm able to watch some of the Sony DVD transfers I made , the JVC will not accept all of them even
though it's the same DVD-R format. I also formatted the DVDs so that they could be watched on other
players. Also, I'm seeing less & less DVD players & recorders on the stores. The clerk told me that
everyone is now into computer videos. Lets see…there was betas, vhs & now computers…
I wonder what will be the next thing [huh]...

 

[The Wolf]

My Samsung DVR broke down and I replaced it with a Toshiba. The DVDs that I partially recorded on the Samsung cannot be read by the Toshiba. Man, I wish I had finalized them.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

 

[2jakes]

My Samsung DVR broke down and I replaced it with a Toshiba. The DVDs that I partially recorded on the Samsung cannot be read by the Toshiba. Man, I wish I had finalized them.

Sincerely,
The Wolf

For me , even after I had the DVDs finalized….not all can be read by the new DVD player.[huh]

 

[Gingerella72]

For me , even after I had the DVDs finalized….not all can be read by the new DVD player.[huh]

Really? Good thing for me to keep in mind, as we have a DVD/VHS combo recorder and it was my intention to burn DVDs of the movies I had taped off of AMC and TCM that aren't available to buy on DVD. I guess I'll hang onto those VHS tapes a little longer then....

 

[2jakes]

Really? Good thing for me to keep in mind, as we have a DVD/VHS combo recorder and it was my intention to burn DVDs of the movies I had taped off of AMC and TCM that aren't available to buy on DVD. I guess I'll hang onto those VHS tapes a little longer then....

I would stay away from the low priced bulk DVD blanks to record. A good quality DVD will,
be best . Hang on to the vhs tapes . I think someone earlier mentioned how to safely store the vhs tapes
And if you haven't used the DVD/VHS recorder in a long while…it wouldn't hurt to use a cleaner to remove
dust accumulated on the recording heads or you might ruin those precious tapes . Perhaps someone here can tell
us which is best method .

Also , be wary of old VHS tapes that someone may be selling or giving away. They will contain
dirt & will contaminate your recorder. I know , it happened to my recorder. I had to clean my
recorder so that I could play my own tapes again & threw the bad tape away ! :eusa_clap

 

[Doctor Strange]

I still play VHS tapes... not to mention audio cassettes, LPs, reel-to-reel tapes, and Super 8 and 16mm films!

I stopped by my local library branch last week and discovered that they were giving away their VHS tapes, which no longer circulate. So I left with two armloads, including The Seventh Veil, The Ice Storm, The Wings of the Dove, The Searchers, Spartacus (2 tapes), Gone With The Wind (2 tapes), All About My Mother, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), and a couple of others!

I tested most of them, and they were all in good to very good condition apart from The Searchers. It was a double failure, having both lots of wear lines and glitches on the tape, and having obviously been made from a terrible print (it looked like a filthy, scratched, badly faded 16mm Eastmancolor - nothing like the gorgeous prints I've seen on TV in recent years). One loser out of around a dozen isn't bad...

 

[Captain Nemo]

I still play VHS tapes... not to mention audio cassettes, LPs, reel-to-reel tapes, and Super 8 and 16mm films!

I stopped by my local library branch last week and discovered that they were giving away their VHS tapes, which no longer circulate. So I left with two armloads, including The Seventh Veil, The Ice Storm, The Wings of the Dove, The Searchers, Spartacus (2 tapes), Gone With The Wind (2 tapes), All About My Mother, The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), and a couple of others!

I tested most of them, and they were all in good to very good condition apart from The Searchers. It was a double failure, having both lots of wear lines and glitches on the tape, and having obviously been made from a terrible print (it looked like a filthy, scratched, badly faded 16mm Eastmancolor - nothing like the gorgeous prints I've seen on TV in recent years). One loser out of around a dozen isn't bad...

And the price was certainly right!

 

[rjb1]

In addition to the library as a source of good and *free* VHS tapes (and by good I mean with classic movies on them), you might just ask any friends you have with similar tastes in movies whether they have any unwanted tapes. A friend of mine gave me several hundred VHS tapes for free since he had already transferred them to DVD.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Rest assured, I've already had some friends dump their VHS tapes on me! One of my old roommates recently gave me a whole pile - Hitchocks (Psycho, The Birds), science fiction (Planet of the Apes, Robocop, Close Encounters, Men In Black), comedies (Charade, Raising Arizona, M*A*S*H), plus True Lies, Silence of the Lambs, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade... Basically, if it's a movie I like that I don't already have on DVD/VHS/film, I'm always happy to take it!

 

[Gingerella72]

I would stay away from the low priced bulk DVD blanks to record. A good quality DVD will,
be best . Hang on to the vhs tapes . I think someone earlier mentioned how to safely store the vhs tapes
And if you haven't used the DVD/VHS recorder in a long while…it wouldn't hurt to use a cleaner to remove
dust accumulated on the recording heads or you might ruin those precious tapes . Perhaps someone here can tell
us which is best method .

Also , be wary of old VHS tapes that someone may be selling or giving away. They will contain
dirt & will contaminate your recorder. I know , it happened to my recorder. I had to clean my
recorder so that I could play my own tapes again & threw the bad tape away ! :eusa_clap

Oh we still use the VCR side frequently. I have a ton of tapes of old movies that I recorded off the TV and when we were getting ready to get rid of cable in 2011 (goodbye, TCM, sniff) I was recording stuff like crazy. I have a lot of old rare stuff too, from the AMC days 20,21 years ago. It's those older tapes I was worried about, because I know none of the stuff I have is available on DVD.

I'll keep the DVD quality in mind when burning and will definitely make sure my finalized DVDs can play on different machines before I get rid of the tapes. Or should I hold onto the tapes indefinitely? Our storage space underneath the entertainment center is overflowing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think it's good practice, if it's something that's important to you, that you always keep an analog copy. Digital formats change and evolve, and there's no guarantee that any DVD will still be playable twenty years from now. It's a lot easier to get a tape -- even a degraded tape -- to play at least well enough to see than it is to get a damaged or degraded DVD to work.