Posted on 06/06/2022 6:33:57 PM PDT by Magnatron
June 7 is National VCR Day.
Yes, you read that right. Videocassette recorders are still around and there are enough of them to justify a spot on the National Day Calendar — the national day marketing calendar under digital media company Zoovio, Inc.
While most people have retired their VCRs, not everyone has gotten rid of these devices or the VHS tapes that worked with these physical video players.
Some might even be holding onto the retro gadgets after seeing that a sealed, mint-condition "Star Wars" VHS tape from 1977 sold for $57,600 in New Jersey by Goldin Auctions, a collectibles auctioneer, in December 2021.
If you have a collection of a limited-edition or unopened VHS tapes, you could be in ownership of a small fortune.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxbusiness.com ...
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Yeah, that’s why I like following your posts. I’m a former Broadcast TV Producer/Editor/DP but I’ve only been on the fringes of Hollywood. Started out in the days of 3/4”, but I’m sure all those masters have decayed now, too. By the way, I’m one of the few first gen AVID editors. Our facility boasted a whopping 125gigs, the second largest video storage array at that time. Today, that’s a puny thumb drive. Sheeesh.
I’ve noticed in two Walmarts near me that they have record sections with 33-1/3 RPM LPs in them - probably have the 45s, too. They also are selling small record players (the kind in little suitcases). I guess young people ‘tuning digital out’ find them kitschy...
Me too. According to this fan site, star wars wasn’t even released on tape until 1982
“By the way, I’m one of the few first gen AVID editors.”
there are segments in the bix which still uses AVID, believe it or not. The reasoning is that the production schools churn out easier platforms but the people behind the production are numbskulls, so the earlier versions though flaky are reliable.
Think of it as people still using Photoshop CS6 as an example. If it works and you are comfortable with it, go ahead.
One problem I identified with the non-Luddite population (nearly everyone but me)is the loss of information rather than the gain of it as the years pass.
If someone in music had let’s say 10 albums, there was a new cassette or cd of “Best of” “Greatest Hits” or similar title. The other songs and albums were never put on cd or streaming services. One good trend is a few places create “5 classic albums” etc of artists from the past including nearly forgotten ones. I now have the lost Electric Prunes albums that way (hope that doesn’t make everybody jealous)
Same is true of some old drive-in and grindhouse movies and the early silent films and theater newsreels. There is some belief Al Jolson performed for the Thomas Edison “Black Mariah” early film studio. No saved or duplicated film evidence, though.
Bob Dylan’s earliest performances included his trip to England to perform on stage in a play on TV but the policy of the network was to destroy all such videos in order to save storage room.
Newspapers, books, magazines: all in danger.
Amazingly in the library at U of Cal. Berkeley in the mid 1960s they set up a “deselection” plan (all do that to get rid of books today) to throw out useless books and make room. Categories that were destroyed outright as everyone knew they were never going to be needed later were women’s history and new age (astrology witchcraft, magic, shamans) and mind drugs. Funny.
I believe cures for diseases and the solution to some technological mysteries were lost when old scrolls or oral information was not preserved. The loss of the Library of Alexandria and others is in this category.
“I remember seeing one of the 1st VHS players at a car dealership. The player was top loading, like a giant cassette player. It was about the size of a writing desk.”
I bought an RCA VCR (VHS) in 1978. A top loader, it was huge and very heavy, had a wired remote. I paid $750 for it if memory serves. I kept it 10 years and it still worked great when I got rid of it for a newer Hi-Fi Zenith.
One interesting thing about the old RCA is that it was immune to copy protection, I could record rental videos. I was excited about that at first, but the process was tedious since it had to be done in real time, and there was degradation of the image since you were dealing with transfering analog signals. Add in the fact that you could rent a movie for less than the price of VHS cassette and it just wasn’t worth the effort.
Not quite. Vinyl refused to die and audiophiles preferred the sound. They hung on long enough that when the labels turned to only putting out rap-tards and cookie monsters that many youth went out looking for something they enjoyed and found it in the past recordings. Records made a legitimate comeback some years ago already. Some bands are releasing some recordings on vinyl only. I know some teenagers and 20s that have some surprisingly large collections from old vintage stuff across genres to new releases.
“I have a few from the mid-1080’s”.
Any filmed at Agincourt?
Regardless of the diehard “phile” aspect it did disappear from from a commercial aspect in that Walmart, Target, KMart et al did not carry LPs the whole time.
1977 must have been the copyright date on the content, not the release date of the VHS tape.
It’s sloppy reporting by Fox or a sloppy description by the auction house.
Certain vintage video game cartridges are bringing insane amounts of money right now, as are certain Pokemon cards, and vintage rock concert t-shirts. What's next? Your guess is as good as mine.
Vinyl records are back in popularity. I just bought a new turntable and have been finding many albums are back in production. I’ve even lucked out finding some original 1970’s albums.
A few years back, a post-apocalypse video game series “Fallout” arrived which featured an assortment of vintage songs. The original recordings of those songs, many on 45 or even 78 rpm disks, have shot up in value as the kids playing those games are hearing them, liking them, and are now out trying to find the originals.
How about the collection of every John Wayne movie that was ever available to VHS? And I believe there are 2 pirated videos that are not of very good quality. I can’t remember the name of it because they are my husband’s. I don’t think he’ll part with them.
I had a few one inch reels from that time of mass throwing away just to have.
That was about 2006 or so.
Last year I took a decent container weight of aluminum to the scrap yard. It had no sentimental value to me.
I have the Star Wars trilogy that are unopened. They’ll remain that way since we don’t have a vcr machine to play them.
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