End of The VCR

[dr lopez]

ok nerd lol

[Amen Warrior]

I haven't read closely about but it may be possible for tapes to have a form of media rot. I recently bought a TV and a Blu Ray. Found what appeared to be a new Daewoo VCR at Goodwill for $15 and was excited to dig into the old tapes I had squirreled away. After watching and rewinding Vanilla Sky, the retractable slat fell off upon ejecting. Little bits of plastic and metal spring/hinge things went with it. It's like it disintegrated in my hands. Maybe it was bad luck or the tape was damaged but it made me curious about how much longer tapes will be able to hang in there

If stored properly tape should last longer than optical media, i think

[Nebraska]

with all the amazing streaming sites out there who needs vhs?

 

[melancholera]

I remember when we got our first VCR. My dad had rented some movies from his youth to give it a go, I think they were Bullitt and Papillon. Guess he was a Steve McQueen fan. Later when I got to go to the rental store, I think it was Ghostbusters and Alien that I chose, must have been 10 or 11 at the time. It was exciting a few years later when we got one of those TV/VCR combos and I could start copying rented movies.

 

And the movie industry has still yet to recover.

[dr lopez]

 

I haven't read closely about but it may be possible for tapes to have a form of media rot. I recently bought a TV and a Blu Ray. Found what appeared to be a new Daewoo VCR at Goodwill for $15 and was excited to dig into the old tapes I had squirreled away. After watching and rewinding Vanilla Sky, the retractable slat fell off upon ejecting. Little bits of plastic and metal spring/hinge things went with it. It's like it disintegrated in my hands. Maybe it was bad luck or the tape was damaged but it made me curious about how much longer tapes will be able to hang in there

If stored properly tape should last longer than optical media, i think

 

really?

[Salvatorin]

 

 

I haven't read closely about but it may be possible for tapes to have a form of media rot. I recently bought a TV and a Blu Ray. Found what appeared to be a new Daewoo VCR at Goodwill for $15 and was excited to dig into the old tapes I had squirreled away. After watching and rewinding Vanilla Sky, the retractable slat fell off upon ejecting. Little bits of plastic and metal spring/hinge things went with it. It's like it disintegrated in my hands. Maybe it was bad luck or the tape was damaged but it made me curious about how much longer tapes will be able to hang in there

If stored properly tape should last longer than optical media, i think

really?

I realized this recently while trying to watch dvds from the public library. Some of these dvds are 15 years old and they were full of errors. That is just from the weathering of use...but the tapes have held up despite frequent use.

[Amen Warrior]

Yeah CDs and DVDs etc will chemically degrade over time, manufacturers put their lifetime at 100-200 years but it's more like decades unfortunately. I work for a broadcaster and theyre still use tape for archival purposes, plus everything gets dumped on servers. The tapes are kept in fridges. Nothing is kept on optical discs

[mcbpete]

In the 80s we always rented out VCRs and VHSs - Think back when we got them the players cost like £400-£500 and each tape was about £25 (that's in mid 1980s money)

Seem to remember you could buy ex-rental tapes from where we used to get them (Circle K - RIP sweet price) for something crazy like £75 (again in olden 80s money)