VHS collections of recorded TV?
Posted by gimmeslack12@reddit | Xennials | View on Reddit | 31 comments
I visited my parents house recently and starting thumbing through the cabinets full of VHS tapes with recorded shows. It's quite a time capsule of content sitting there, though it'd be a slog to somehow convert it to digital, and very unlikely to be worth it.
Also, pretty sure the VCR's been dead for a decade or two.
SayItAgainLucas@reddit
Digitize it and through it on YouTube. People love watching old tv and old Commercials.
gimmeslack12@reddit (OP)
I agree with the sentiment, but i can’t see how doing that would be worth the effort.
SayItAgainLucas@reddit
Well you could probably hit up one of the folks who already do that and see if they want your tapes. Or you could check out one of those places you just send everything to and they digitize it for a fee. But it seems that once it’s digitized and put online you might have an easy revenue stream?
gimmeslack12@reddit (OP)
I was considering the revenue stream side of things. Worth a little investigation I suppose.
Decent-Plum-26@reddit
How would monetization work? Asking for a friend
gimmeslack12@reddit (OP)
I guess through youtube ads? Otherwise I have no idea.
On one hand I'm all for exploring these VHS archives yet on the other hand if there isn't any value to the time spent, then I just don't need to do this.
no1kn0wsm3@reddit
I got my Sony DCR-TRV520 and iMac DV SE in 2000 and I wished I digitized my Video 8 & Betamax tapes from the 80s & 90s and put them up on 2005.
washburncincy@reddit
Agreed. I am people.
El-Royhab@reddit
There are entire communities of people who collect and digitize this stuff. I'm sitting on a few hundred tapes myself that I'm slowly slogging through.
gimmeslack12@reddit (OP)
How do you “slog” through them?
El-Royhab@reddit
digitizing them is done at 1x speed, so getting them digitized is a slog
gimmeslack12@reddit (OP)
Ah, yeah that’s the part that’s keeping me from doing this.
El-Royhab@reddit
It's worth it for what you find. I put in a tape today that just said Hedgehog on the label, it was full of Saturday morning cartoons from 1993 like Sonic and Captain Planet, and episodes of the Simpsons. Creepy Crawlers, McDonald's Halloween chicken nuggets toys and other commercials were on there. It's about having a setup that's ready to go when you feel like throwing one in. OBS is decent for recording because you can set the output timer to stop recording at the tape's maximum time (2, 4 or 6 hours plus 5-15 minutes typically), so you don't always have to babysit it to the end every time.
gimmeslack12@reddit (OP)
Good point, I did just setup a NAS with a crap load of space so this idea is starting to get a little traction. Just a matter of figuring out the proper end game as well as if there are ways to automatically catalog what is on each tape (after digitizing).
El-Royhab@reddit
I use a python application called VHSToolsVHSTools that has tools to handle a lot of post-digitization processing.
gimmeslack12@reddit (OP)
Sweet. I was hoping tools like this were out there.
jholden23@reddit
I got rid of almost everything but I used to do a ton of recording, quite dilligently. I have the 1996 and 1998 NBA finals as well as the show 24 and all the clips and extra stuff that used to get aired still in my storage unit. I digitized all my old photos this summer. Maybe next is the VHS tapes.I got rid of almost everything but I used to do a ton of recording, quite dilligently. I have the 1996 and 1998 NBA finals as well as the show 24 and all the clips and extra stuff that used to get aired still in my storage unit. I digitized all my old photos this summer. Maybe next is the VHS tapes.
tomloofery@reddit
I’m not trying to dissuade you, but this exists in a way.
https://90s.myretrotvs.com/
gimmeslack12@reddit (OP)
Consider my dreams crushed.
Gloomy-Moose-4367@reddit
bound to be a few hidden pornos in there
xtlhogciao@reddit
I recently popped in the few blank tapes we still have left, and one of them was entirely just tiny segments of scenes of good looking women/“sexy for basic cable and network tv scenes.” I don’t remember doing it, but either my bro or I clearly had the record button at the ready while watching tv.
e.g. Woman from Kingpin in white dress and then distracting bowlers montage; beginning of Pretty Woman when she’s still in that short dress; hot nurse from Saved By the Bell; random hot chick on Elimidate; Aunt Becky showing her legs etc.
Gloomy-Moose-4367@reddit
a true man of culture
1jamtrying@reddit
When people upload old VHS tapes to youtube it's the commercials that end up being the most interesting. Here's a good example.
thelazyporcupine@reddit
I recorded nearly the entirety of Star Trek Voyager as well as random episodes of other shows and still have the tapes. Got my hands on a vcr recently and honestly I had more fun watching the commercials than the shows.
Scott_R_1701@reddit
Dude it's worth it for the commercials.
Dazzling-Pace-7134@reddit
I recorded a bunch of homemade VHS Tapes from 1999-2009. I recorded everything. The Superbowl Football Games, 9/11 Coverage as it happened, Miss Universe, Miss USA, and Miss America Pageants. Various Travel Channel, History Channel, History Channel International, CMT, VH-1, VH-1 Classic, MTV, MTV 2&3, Biography Channel, and other Channels which don't exist anymore. I would like to digitize them. But, I don't know how.
El-Royhab@reddit
if you can swing it, a retrotink 5x does a great job converting the analog signal to HDMI. then you can use any HDMI capture device to pull the signal into a PC. I prefer an internal card over usb to reduce lag that can desync audio and video, but USB-C is pretty fast these days and might be up to it.
midnight-dour@reddit
About twenty-five years ago, we spent the Christmas holidays at my uncle’s house. He had a ton of VHS recordings and I spent most of one night digging into them. I found recordings of USA Up All Night and Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In among them.
I’ve been saying since then that when he passes, I WANT those tapes.
FoppyDidNothingWrong@reddit
I have a collection up in my dad's attic, not sure if they threw anything out up there
usernames_suck_ok@reddit
In my father's room/office, I was noticing a bunch of VHS tapes and wondering what was on them. Might be "Sanford and Son"...there's no reason for him to have tapes, honestly, since he didn't watch them. But he liked that show and was given either those tapes or DVDs once. I know I used to tape sitcoms and music videos as a kid, but I don't know where those tapes are. And all of that should already be on YouTube or elsewhere.
psilosophist@reddit
The shows may be of varying interest but if the commercials were recorded, especially local ads, that would be fantastic ephemera to digitize.