Ain't It Cool News: The best in movie, TV, DVD, and comic book news.

Wow... VHS is going the way of the dodo...

It wasn't dead? by Thrillho77	Dec 29th, 2008 10:38:03 PM
Coulda fooled me...
What I wouldn't give by landosystem	Dec 29th, 2008 10:39:52 PM
to see some of those tapes of cartoons, complete with original commercials...
as long as tapes were made by HEADGEEK	Dec 29th, 2008 10:40:41 PM
it was on life support
This article was relevant... by Gus Van Rant	Dec 29th, 2008 10:41:49 PM
4 years ago...thanks you big ape! But seriously, how is the battle of the bulge going?
It's still not dead by catlettuce4	Dec 29th, 2008 10:41:55 PM
It'll be alive as long as there are tapes in circulation and there are geeks with VCRs to record on them.
I used to beat off to Titanic on VHS by Fat and Curious	Dec 29th, 2008 10:42:15 PM
I knew right where to fast forward that tape to the drawing scene, I could do it in my sleep. The masturbation, that is.
Oh yeah... by landosystem	Dec 29th, 2008 10:42:28 PM
my first VHS was probably a bootleg copy of New Wave Hookers that my cousin dubbed from his moms boyfriends vast porn collection...
Childhood by styles99	Dec 29th, 2008 10:44:04 PM
It's brings back my entire childhood. I remember watching combo tapes of Superman, The Lost Boys, and Porky's. Where would you ever find that type of mixed tape again. Only in the eighties.
I miss beta... by havocSchultz	Dec 29th, 2008 10:45:26 PM
I watched First Blood and Up The Creek for the 1st time on Beta...I remember a video store back in the day that rented both Beta and VHS...I was so disappointed that we only had a betamax...cause all the good films coming out seemed to be on VHS... Then I felt the same way again when DVD's came out... RIP VHS...you allowed me many a compilation of random late night cable nude scenes...
VCR = ADD by electricjones	Dec 29th, 2008 10:46:40 PM
i will be forever in its debt for this, a thousand looney tunes later..
damn capitalism by kinetickoala	Dec 29th, 2008 10:47:21 PM
if it wasn't for that, we wouldn't have lost this amazing format
Bootleg of Ghostbusters by bah	Dec 29th, 2008 10:47:22 PM
Let's not forget that without VHS, we wouldn't have Quentin Tarantino.
And without Tarantino... by Fat and Curious	Dec 29th, 2008 10:50:10 PM
We wouldn't have one more smug, dorky cunt of a film maker in the world.
Star Wars by Loosejerk	Dec 29th, 2008 10:50:50 PM
I remember going to some friend's house when their parents got Star Wars on VHS when it first came out. I remember it being at least $100 and I was mesmerized by the cover/case to the tape (not sure why, I like shiny things too). I think I watched the movie with them multiple times a day when I got to go over.
My first VHS was by master bitchfist	Dec 29th, 2008 10:51:20 PM
Star Wars. I don't believe a new hope was mentioned anywhere. Was there a VHS without episode iv? If so I think that's the one I had. It was a present on my 5th birthday :)
cool story, harry... by ugh	Dec 29th, 2008 10:51:54 PM
...despite the fact it's week old news (damn holidays!!!)
first tape by Giphangster	Dec 29th, 2008 10:53:16 PM
The very first video tape I ever owned was "Back To The Future." I got it Christmas of 89 and I was six. It was my absolute favorite movie of all time then- and now, almost 20 years later, it's still my all-time favorite film.
I have no opinion on this. by Cotton McKnight	Dec 29th, 2008 10:53:50 PM
Other than to say that I have had a vcr sitting on a desk for about 6 years, unused. I don't want to be one of those dorks who says that beta is better, but i have watched some beta videos on youtube and the differences between it and vhs.
My first VHS was Top Gun by Fat and Curious	Dec 29th, 2008 10:54:53 PM
No wonder I get so much pussy
It was 1983 for me... by SuburbanJedi	Dec 29th, 2008 10:55:08 PM
And a dubbed copy of Star Trek: The Motion Picture along with The Making Of Star Wars/SPFX: The Empire Strikes Back. We literally wore those out within a year...
Virgin by Mr. Lahey	Dec 29th, 2008 10:59:13 PM
My first home movie was Orca on Beta. My mom knew a guy in it who had a walk-on part.
THE STUNTMAN by gotilk	Dec 29th, 2008 10:59:41 PM
It's an odd first purchase, but I had been told it was amazing.. a filmmaker's film. So I had to finally have it. I remember it was expensive. "GET THE SHOT!! GET THE SHOT!!" I still love that film so much.
making vhs copies by bluebottle	Dec 29th, 2008 11:00:43 PM
i was the first kid on my block that figured out how to hook two vhs players up so you could copy the movies you rented... this was before copy protection... the copies always looked like shit, but it was worth it. RIP: VHS
'83 for me too by buffywrestling	Dec 29th, 2008 11:01:35 PM
I remmeber it was this big sliver thing that was almost as wide as the tv and the tape popped out on the top. Had the remote attached with a wire too. It was were I first saw Bladerunner, Mad Max, Deer Hunter. I watched Evil Dead so many times, I memorized it and would say the lines along with the film. I think it is safe to say, I fell in love with Rewind button. (Today, he has been replaced by Slo-Mo. Slo-Mo, I love you, baby.)
my parents still tape tons of stuff by jccalhoun	Dec 29th, 2008 11:01:54 PM
I was home for a week this Christmas and they still have 3 vcrs and tape tons of stuff. Last year they bought a vcr/dvd combo but rarely use the dvd recorder part. They also don't have broadband. I swear, I feel like I'm living Life on Mars when I go home!
My parents owned a video store in the 80's... by FuckMichaelBay	Dec 29th, 2008 11:02:15 PM
...I know what it's like to swim in a sea of Beta and VHS. Ahhhhhhhh!
VHS by Spyhunter	Dec 29th, 2008 11:05:17 PM
We would rent a VCR (top loader!) from Curtis Mathes and I would almost always have mom rent Star Wars and one of the Voltron tapes. RIP VHS, it was fun while you were relevant. :(
wired remote to a top loader! by chromedome	Dec 29th, 2008 11:05:59 PM
and could set up to 3 different recording events within a seven day period!! It was AWESOME (then) Beta was still better--killed only by 4 hour tape length instead of 6 for vhs.
Beta by Unscripted	Dec 29th, 2008 11:07:22 PM
What, no one's jumped on the soapbox to tell us how superior Betamax was? I mean... VHS only had about 200, 210 lines of resolution while Beta had *240!!!* How did we ever suffer along so?
I Only Owned A Few Pre-Recorded VHS by smallerdemon	Dec 29th, 2008 11:07:49 PM
But I have hundreds of tapes of things I recorded regularly from television, mostly notable is MST3K. I have a DV converter to capture those, and reading this reminds me I had better get back on that project before I have to start combing the back streets just to get a good player (I have been seeing players on the street outside of apartment buildings this year at an alarming rate) or just buck up and order one of the VHS USB players from Think Geek now and set it aside. VHS certainly wasn't the best, but indeed, as Harry points out, at the time it was a godsend to those of us who wanted to timeshift our lives and watch at our own convenience. The only VHS tape I owned that was pre-recorded that I ever gave a damn about was my horrible SLP super awful quality release of NIGHT OF THE COMET that I eventually converted to DVD (to be followed by an official DVD release two years later). There's no love lost, though. VHS was expensive and gigantic and storage... hoo boy. I have many, still, stuffed up in the top closet with things like the entire run of BRIMSTONE, and of course the MST3K collection has a prominent spot to remind me "DO THIS!" in regards to the conversion. So, the goodbye is bittersweet to a large degree. VHS was always outclassed (but outrageously overpriced) by LaserDiscs (I still have a few of those too, and a working player). In 1986 when I got my first CD player I remember very clearly thinking to myself "One day it will be movies in this format. Until then, I'm not buying movies." and I never did. I owned only a few VHS movies in my entire life and never regretted that decision to not buy them. DVDs came along and were a great confirmation, and now Blu-Ray is basically underscoring the decision I may twentysomething years ago.
First VHS by CGI_Pants	Dec 29th, 2008 11:08:06 PM
First VHS was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was like 4 or 5. My parents owned many tapes before that and taped my cartoons for me every Saturday morning so I could watch them all week. Also, I recently had a legal obligation to do some community service and elected to do it at the local Goodwill Store. Allow me to tell you from my experience that VHS is not dead and neither are cassette tapes. People (around here at least) buy both of those things by the fucking handful. For the most part this Goodwill doesn't even put out very many DVDs or CDs. They simply don't sell like the VHS and cassettes. Crazy. I never would have guessed it. I had to take a cart of cassettes out and stock them on the shelf and I had people fucking swarming me to search through them. It kinda tripped me out.
After working at Blockbuster in high school... by Heckles	Dec 29th, 2008 11:08:34 PM
I will say: fuck off VHS. Back in the day, if the title wasn't available for sale as well then it was upwards of $90 if some asshole lost it. They would flip the fuck out on me every day. Or if the tape would get caught in their player, the mouth breater would drag it down for me to fix. Un-screw the video, splice, put back together... won't miss you, VHS. Fast forward to '08 and I'll snap a DVD in half for laughs and buy another for $10.
The first video for me was 1984's Romancing the Stone. by GQtaste	Dec 29th, 2008 11:12:05 PM
At ten yrs old that was a magical moment for me realizing you could watch a movie at home at your convenience whenever you wanted. And more than once or twice if you felt like that too. Bytheway, Harry has all these stories of his up bringing, such as in his "W." http://tinyurl.com/43lzz5 "The years I spent in North Texas – dealing with Oil men, rounding up cattle, raising Quarter Horses – and coming from a family that made its money in Oil, Land & Cattle – and constantly being pressured to go into the “family business” I got who George appealed to, at least in Texas. I was just surprised how much further that “redneck charisma” took him. I always thought he’d be perceived as too hick. Kinda how everyone is reacting to Palin these days. Also of personal note, my father worked in the Texas Republican Party in the late Sixties – working with the George H.W. Bush’s campaigns and even trying to get him on Nixon’s ticket way back when. For those that know my father, the idea that he was Republican is like trying to convince most people these days that Bush was a coke snorting, womanizing heavy drinker. It was just a different era. But I grew up my entire life hearing stories about what a fuck up George H. W. Bush’s son was. How he was an embarrassment to his father in the late sixties and early seventies."------ With all these stories Harry brings up half the time I think he's making this shit up.
I remember by NYSCO6390	Dec 29th, 2008 11:19:39 PM
retiring the old Sears CED player and copying all the movies onto VHS tapes. And then taping over part of Empire Strikes Back with some awful basketball game.
No Retreat, No Surrender by Josh Town	Dec 29th, 2008 11:20:12 PM
The one VHS I still have and will always keep. Muppets Weird Stuff, too, but that's copied. Has anyone seen either? That and my "water pipe" would make for a wicked Sunday afternoon.
An overwatched ex rental copy of The Blues Brothers by Bobman46	Dec 29th, 2008 11:22:27 PM
Half porn, half rental shop in town was closing down. I had rented that film over and over out of there and was there in a shot when I heard they were actually selling their films- to buy a vhs movie cost something like 70 pounds in those days. Got it seconds before someone else was going for it. Think my folks still have it. Its very very old now. Sadly, the first film we ever rented wasn't quite as cool. The Birds rip off........bu with the birds replaced with Lions.........Roar! Still, it was watching a movie you controlled yourself in your house and that wasn't half bad. My folks saw I was disappointed - I was wanting a Ray harryhausen film- have no idea if they were even available on vhs back then but in my head, that's what I thought was a deserving first vhs movie. Jason and the Argonauts would have been great......but Roar! man!
wow I loved hearing how rich you where by Bishop6	Dec 29th, 2008 11:23:18 PM
when at the same time I was watching a coin operated TV. We didnt get VHS until 1984'ish and that first movie was StarCrash I think, with david hasslehoff..what a corker
VHS by one9deuce	Dec 29th, 2008 11:24:15 PM
It was such a big deal for our family to rent a VCR (that came in a huge case) and rent some movies. The first one we rented was CLASH OF THE TITANS, which I still love to this day. Of course I wanted my family to get STAR WARS but it was rented out that night. I remember being so excited when VHS finally was "available to purchase". My first movie was TOP GUN for $26.95, and my second was CROCODILE DUNDEE for $29.95, and it came with a poster and lobby card. For a movie geek it didn't get better than that!
My dad was a Beta guy... by Chishu_Ryu	Dec 29th, 2008 11:24:48 PM
We owned bootleg copies of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Blade Runner, and Return of the Jedi and I must have watched them each about 100 times growing up...ah, memories...
The Pilot Episode for Dinoriders by JustSomeguy1	Dec 29th, 2008 11:24:50 PM
I remember recording a ton of old GI Joe, Dino Riders, Beast Wars, and others on VHS so I could watch them when I got home from school. Years later I used VHS to record the late night Adult Swim anime like Trigun so I could watch them when I got back from work. I really should get a Tivo...
Mega Force by Bobman46	Dec 29th, 2008 11:27:56 PM
got rented a load in my house...........then the Thriller video.....Aligator........Bask et Case.....Evil Dead.....The Thing...causing years of nightmares starting immediately afterwards causing my friends mum to have us banned from renting from the Corner Video. Ah great times
Still, though. . . . by Barrymore Yorke	Dec 29th, 2008 11:34:26 PM
That was about the last distributor of pre-recorded VHS tapes. Wouldn't the true death-knell for the format be the end of production of blank VHS tapes?
My boss will be pissed... by Athenor	Dec 29th, 2008 11:35:45 PM
I work at a college bookstore. The university's speech class mandates that everyone turns in their assignments on VHS. We are pretty much the only place in town that stocks massive quantities of blank VHS tapes, and we sell hundreds of them in a given year, even though CD-R's are cheaper. Yeah. This news will change things. You won't see me crying, but my boss will -- this is going to hurt his bottom line.
Hmmmm... by Stormshadow4life	Dec 29th, 2008 11:35:49 PM
I think my earliest VHS memory might have been The Last Unicorn...in the early 80s
My First VCR by Bramton1	Dec 29th, 2008 11:36:21 PM
I was probably 8 or 9 and my parents asked me if I wanted to watch He-Man. I said that it wasn't on, and my parents said "Yes it is, because we got a VCR!" It was like Christmas and a birthday all wrapped up in one. They rented He-Man. The next day, we rented a Care Bears video tape. Sigh...good times. Farewell, old friend.
Worked all summer mowing lawns for a VHS player by RedwingsHoolihan	Dec 29th, 2008 11:36:50 PM
Guy at the pawn shop threw in some dubbed Cheech & Chong movies. First movie I recorded was Re-animator off HBO. Good times. Great oldies.
Fat and Curious by Stormshadow4life	Dec 29th, 2008 11:37:20 PM
agreed, Tarantino just pisses me off (HIM and his movies)
my vcr is still hooked up! by shogunshin	Dec 29th, 2008 11:39:37 PM
i still watch some of my video tapes, especially my the recordings of music videoes from the past. MTV is no longer 'music' television, so the only way i can watch classic videoes is with tapes i recorded back in the day.
No love for Laserdisc? by SnapT	Dec 29th, 2008 11:45:52 PM
I don't remember my first VHS but I remember watching a Laserdisc of Mickey Mouse cartoons on a LOOP. I must've seen "Mickey's Trailer" 4,000 times. It's still great.
Free Cinemax Weekends and Night Flight by Dataset	Dec 29th, 2008 11:47:21 PM
were what I will remember most. Blame it on Rio and Educating Rita on a tape with Victory made me believe Michael Caine was in every other movie ever made. Then there's "The Children", a flick I recorded off Night Flight that gave me horrible nightmares of having my hands cut off. "Urgh! A Music War" on Free Showtime Weekend turned me on to so many great bands. Then there's that witch movie with Mary Ingalls in it. Oh, 120 Minutes on MTV! I would record and meticulously archive "Meatballs and Spaghetti" and "Gilligan's Planet". As I got older I would record MST3K and Twin Peaks. And, for all of you Dallas kids out there, I'd record Dr. Gene Scott, drop some acid at Level 5 or Metropolis, and go home and freak the fuck out to the recordings until Mr. Peppermint came on and I got a better grip on the world. First Purchased Tape: Summer School. Second: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Because they talked about it in Summer School. Even bad movies can open a new world of film. Third VHS: Taboo II that I swiped from the video store and wore out. I'll miss VHS. About as much as I miss New Wave Theater.
by MikeTheSpike	Dec 29th, 2008 11:53:38 PM
Ha, that Kugler guy in the article sounds like one funny son of a bitch. Very honest about his work. As for me, the family got a VCR and Roger Rabbit back in Christmas of... 1988, was it? I'm passing that tape on to my grandkids.
I still tape some tv on my combo by buffywrestling	Dec 29th, 2008 11:55:39 PM
because I can't be arsed to figure out how to record on the dvd.
I still... by BicNowler	Dec 29th, 2008 11:56:36 PM
...fall asleep to the VHS version of Shawshank on a nightly basis...& have no intentions of altering my routine.
Phoebe Cates from Fast Times at Ridgemont High by Ronald Raygun	Dec 29th, 2008 11:58:27 PM
The generation before me had Playboy but I had the bikini scene in Fast Times. Used to rub my weiner raw to that one.
Hm. by TheHumanBeingAndFish	Dec 30th, 2008 12:00:43 AM
My GF just bought a whole bunch of VHS tapes for her 4-year old, making the following point: a VHS tape can be throw to the floor and abused, and it'll still play, and any 4-year old can easily be taught how to insert it and press the "play" button without getting their dirty nasty little fingers all over the disk. Additionally, now that DVD has been around for a few years, you will have to admit that despite the fact that you take good care of your disks (and despite the lack of visible scratches!), some of them start skipping after a few years - essentially rendering them worthless. Well-cared for DVDs have less of a halflife than VHS tapes, in my experience; I don' have any Blu-Ray experience but I suspect this problem is far greater with Blu-Ray; I wonder what the halflife of a Blu-Ray disk is, compared to a regular DVD. I guess the consumers will only be able to tell when they've been around for a few years. Anyway, watching Star Wars on VHS after coming home from school ... awesome, awesome memories.
Remember the Pizza Hut commercial before the TMNT movie video... by SnapT	Dec 30th, 2008 12:02:28 AM
...about the kid playing little league? "I play right field, it's important ya know, ya gotta know how to catch, ya gotta know how to throw..."
My RCA VCR by moviemenace	Dec 30th, 2008 12:02:38 AM
The first movie my dad brought home was "A Christmas Story". My dad borrowed the dubbed copy from a co-worker (who must of been a deck-to-deck pioneer). I remember my cousin and I getting caught watching "Porky's" right at the Kim Cattrall barking like a dog scene, giggling under the coffee table while his mom flipped out behind us. I remember hearing a rumor that the laser inside the VCR could malfunction, shoot out of the deck and kill you. That freaked me out. I remember wearing out my copy of "The Naked Gun" with my older sister complaining, "He's watching that again?!?!?!". VHS is dead, the VCR is buried out in the shed, but my memories live on.
Can they be recycled? by CherryValance	Dec 30th, 2008 12:02:51 AM
Cause that's gonna be one big pile of junk. That's why I haven't gotten rid of what I have. I don't want to just put it in a landfill.
First Tapes..... by boogalooshrimp	Dec 30th, 2008 12:03:05 AM
Mine were Honey We Blew Up the Kid and The Last Crusade. Both from the bargain bin at West Coast Video.
I'm not a chicken.. by boogalooshrimp	Dec 30th, 2008 12:06:48 AM
You're a turkey!
I'm converting my Blu Rays to VHS by JoeSixPack	Dec 30th, 2008 12:09:22 AM
VHS is better. I refuse to adapt.
Amazing to think VHS outlived HD DVD by pax256	Dec 30th, 2008 12:12:32 AM
Or almost did as Im not sure production of hd dvd disks is still completely done yet everywhere... And I still hate the studios for dropping that format for no good reason and then not offering us a trade up program for BR.
First VHS = Throw Momma from the Train by paralyser-pro	Dec 30th, 2008 12:13:14 AM
I recorded it off SuperChannel and watched the crap out of that thing. The first commercially released VHS I owned was Tim Burton's Batman, and my first porn was Oriental Oddballs #2.
Life of Brian by morganmorgan	Dec 30th, 2008 12:13:21 AM
Had to have been mid-80's. Came in a HUGE plastic snap case and cost me around $60.00! It all seemed worth it at the time-- you were owning a movie you could watch anytime you wanted! Crazy, crazy, insanity...
laserdisc by omega_786	Dec 30th, 2008 12:14:26 AM
I went from VHS to laserdisc albeit shortlived, but surprisingly those large 2 sided discs were beteer than some early DVDs. Cliffhanger and T2 were the best!
RCA top loader with punch-in audio dub feature and 1/4" mic jack by BrandLoyalist	Dec 30th, 2008 12:15:20 AM
At like 14 a friend and I dubbed goofy new dialog and random bits of TV audio over an episode of Trek. His lines were funnier. Sadly, this would-be treasure of my childhood was promptly destroyed by an older sister, who, motivated by a combination of ordinary teenage viciousness and raw Baconlust, used the tape to record Footloose from HBO. Footloose. Nowadays I have to stare at a set of useless tapes recorded on a Sony VHS hifi, which recorded its audio in an unconventional way that doesn't work on ordinary VCRs. Good machine, but after 11 years of service, it became carnivorous... now I'll never be able to cap my precious recording of "The Secrets of the Quetzals" (title?), a bizarre and hilarious documentary that offered UFO conspiracy theories as the explanation for cold war-era US policy in Latin America. People with VHS collections you wish to preserve: cap that stuff fast - you might still have a working VCR, but magnetic tape is hardly permanent. Tick tick tick!
I remember my first VHS! by omega_786	Dec 30th, 2008 12:15:33 AM
It was a Ginger Lynn special!
I still have my first VHS tapes. by 11ZOMBIES	Dec 30th, 2008 12:17:37 AM
It's the four tape set of The Star Wars Trilogy, slipcased with the hologram cover. The fourth tape is behind the scenes stuff. I got it for a birthday, I was SO! EXCITED! that all three movies were in letterbox format! I've kept the few VHS tapes that have actually meant something to me or are really rare, i suppose it's no different than my Betamax and Vinyl collections.
and Blank vhs tapes by Rufferto	Dec 30th, 2008 12:20:44 AM
are still expensive.
My older brother used to rent a vcr from Box Office Video by kravmaguffin	Dec 30th, 2008 12:23:00 AM
He'd have to leave a 100 dollar deposit. We'd rent all the Faces of Death movies, I spit on your grave, and any other cheapo horror movie they had... good times.
Shazam! by a rolling stone	Dec 30th, 2008 12:28:49 AM
I still hold onto two Filmation "Shazam! The World's Mightiest Mortal" VHS tapes, but I have no VCR to play them. There's "Best Seller", where Ibac kidnaps the Marvels using his Hissmen, and The Incredible Sinking City, where an experiment goes awry. I bet they're good. I can't remember, actually. The boxes are pretty, at least.
Distributor of pre-recorded tapes, right? by jeffv	Dec 30th, 2008 12:32:50 AM
I'm pretty sure they still make blank tapes. I still use VHS to timeshift my TV viewing. (It's quieter when the kids are in bed.) Anyway, I think this is the third major "VHS is dead" article I've seen in two years now. Possibly there was one when Blockbuster stopped renting them, too. Anyway, my father was in the company that started video distribution in our region. It was too expensive for the little stores to buy videos to rent, so they'd buy them and sub-lease them to the stores, basically. Probably 1980 or so. So, we had a few-thousand videos in our basement, all as soon as they came out. It was great. Only, my job was watching them periodically to make sure they weren't damaged. (Except for the X-rated ones. I was too young for him to know I was looking at those. I mean, uh... I was too young to look at those.) I can't say what was the first VHS movie I ever saw, but one of the first would've had to have been "9 to 5", which I would've had to watch 14 times in all because of this quality control job. I was OK with the movie the first time, but at this point I could probably still lip sync the dialog if I watched it today (though, I hope I never find out if that's true). The first video I personally owned was Star Wars (in linear stereo, which sadly plays mono on modern "hifi" stereo machines). That was the Star Wars my kids watched the first time. It may be pan-and-scan, but it's damn-well unmolested.
p.s. on that original-issue Star Wars VHS... by jeffv	Dec 30th, 2008 12:35:28 AM
...I think it cost $120 or something to buy movies back then. It was supposed to be strictly for rental. Nice plastic box, though.
Ummm... by Citizen Sane	Dec 30th, 2008 12:36:11 AM
...why is anybody surprised by this?
Hey, VHS... DVD is right behind you by Heckles	Dec 30th, 2008 12:39:18 AM
Everyone with that awesome DVD collection that's hundreds deep? Take a picture. It'll be gone in 3 years. Count it.
Not VHS, but... by Royston Lodge	Dec 30th, 2008 12:39:56 AM
In an amazing coincidence, I bought a decent Yamaha tape deck today for $30 at a pawn shop so I can convert all my old music cassettes to MP3. My plan is to digitize my old VHS tapes as well, as soon as I find the key to my storage locker (my video capture card is in there). Then I can put the whole damned collection into storage and save myself some living room real estate. It'll be nice to have every single piece of media saved on my hard drive (and backed up on another hard drive) instead of taking up space in boxes, and cabinets, and racks, etc...
Oh, the first VHS... by Heckles	Dec 30th, 2008 12:41:36 AM
My parents had dozens of bootleg VHS tapes. Watched a hand-held copy of Star Wars from the early 80's until the tape broke. Could quote that damn film in kindergarten.
Ugh - I lost interest halfway through Harry's 2nd sentence. by JimCurry	Dec 30th, 2008 12:44:42 AM
Lemme guess, he loves VHSs and won't get rid of some of them... (Alright, guess I won't, either. Have some fond memories of my original RETURN OF THE JEDI VHS...)
So how long will Blu Ray last? by ChezKing	Dec 30th, 2008 12:45:53 AM
Is it a waste of money to collect fave blu ray movies?
Superman II, Star Wars, and The Beastmaster by My friends call me Killjoy	Dec 30th, 2008 12:54:22 AM
Those were the days. I watched them until the picture snowed (as well as E.T. and Raiders and Jaws). As I got older, Casablanca and The Hustler got a lot of play, and right before DVD took over my life, The Usual Suspects was one of the last VHS sets I bought. Ahhhh...memories.
Can it get any better? by Harold-Sherbort	Dec 30th, 2008 01:00:33 AM
I know we were saying that back when vhs was a part of almost every home in N. America, but look at what we have now. The next logical step are movies in hologram form. When you watch a bluray, it's pretty fantastic. I don't see anything replacing it for a loooong time. And like I said, what will replace it, if anything, will be holograms, and that's a ways off.
But.. by Harold-Sherbort	Dec 30th, 2008 01:01:50 AM
..I think my first vhs was Swamp Thing. I havn't seen that movie in years. I'm sure it doesn't hold up though.
My VCR Virginity story... by Jobacca	Dec 30th, 2008 01:01:56 AM
My Grandpa used to "trade" and gamble with the guys in the back of a local tire store. He was always coming home with weird shit-a used truck,a GIGANTIC stereo(which I still have) and then one day a VHS VCR complete with attached remote. We went to the one and only video store in town and rented Snow White and The Empire Strikes Back. To FINALLY have Star Wars at my little fingertips available to watch at any time was a dream come true. During the next 15 or so years,I probably wore out at least 10 copies of The Holy Trilogy and faithfully bought every new edition as it came out. I've had to replace exactly one DVD player,while I cant even remember how many VCRS I broke(not to mention all the rental tapes I broke trying to pause and slo-mo the brief moments of nudity). Like someone else in this thread,my love of VHS was finally killed when I began to work in a video store...goddamn those things were a pain in the ass to shelve and keep in working order(the Hollywood Video where I worked was so hot the tapes would actually MELT on the shelves). RIP VHS-Long Live the DVD!!!!!
Dead? Not even close by The StarWolf	Dec 30th, 2008 01:05:21 AM
I still trade dozens of tapes a year with friends in Japan. As someone pointed out, DVDs and AVI files don't include commercials and other fun cultural bits. And 're-writeable DVDs' aren't as reliable as VHS tapes. I've got VHS tapes which are more than 25 years old. How many DVDs will still be any good after that much time?
The first thing i remember recording on VHS was... by Ironhelix	Dec 30th, 2008 01:05:37 AM
"The network television premier of ALIEN". I must have watched that 500 times. even though it was heavily edited for television, it STILL scared the shit out of me. i was but a wee lad, but i can still remember my father's excitement that it was going to be on TV, and that we were going to be able to record it and watch whenever we wanted (much to my mom's dismay). to reach an age where all of the conventions of your youth are gone can make you feel old.
American Werewolf in London... by eustisclay	Dec 30th, 2008 01:07:51 AM
...was the first videocassete I bought. It was a used copy and cost like 20 bucks but i loved that i could own it. Have since bought it on lasrdisc and dvd but the video still sits at my dads house. Most expensive on I bought was City in Fear, a tvm with David janssen and Mickey Rourke as a serial killer. Great film that some asshole borrowed and lost. Cost me 70 bucks.
The Stuntman? by The StarWolf	Dec 30th, 2008 01:08:45 AM
That was the SECOND thing I had on VHS, sent to me by a friend in the US. I didn'ty even have a player at the time, but knew I'd be getting one. A few months earlier I paid about $20 to buy a tape on which a friend could tape DARK STAR off-air for me such that I could watch it when the day came that I'd own one of the machines. The third item? Footage of the first shuttle launch/landing. And this was the days before all that screen clutter which has mostly turned me off broadcast tv here.
Laserdisc will come back and rule the world by Flip63Hole	Dec 30th, 2008 01:08:49 AM
Lack of Laserdisc content is the reason the economy is suffering today. Pray for our future.
blu ray will not kill dvd... by soup74	Dec 30th, 2008 01:11:09 AM
but digital download will. i remember when CDs first came out and pretty early in the game they we're decided to be the next format over audio cassettes.. of course everyone thought to the future and said "i wonder what the next format will be." little did anyone know the next format would be non-physical data stored on ipods.
My first DVD by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:14:48 AM
The first VHS tape I remember watching is some piece of shit Pippi Longstocking shit my mom used to foist on me. The first tape I remember selecting for rental is The Sword and The Sorcerer, when I was five or six years old and it was a new release. This was around the time when video rental stores were about the size of a walk-in closet. I remember when a lot of the parking lot "photomat" booths near my house became video rental booths. They had like 75 tapes total!
My first store bought VHS was Star Trek II Wrath of Khan... by exie	Dec 30th, 2008 01:16:23 AM
I watched that one tape every single day after school until my parents started taking me to the little Mom and Pop VHS rental place near our house. We bought the VHS player and the Star Trek II tape at Crazy Eddie's. It was bliss and I never for a minute cared how many times I watched that movie. Now I have Verizon Fios and I have 1000's on demand, over 1000 channels, over 100 in HD and I can't find anything to fucking watch. I miss that time of my life where owning just one movie was enough to keep me entertained day in day out. VHS was huge to me. Taping every thing from HBO from movies to Carlin and Robert Klein specials. The joy of fitting 3 movies on one tape in EP. I loved my VHS collection and I still haven't sold it or trashed it. Some day I need to go through all the blanks and see what I had on them. I usually tried to make sure if something had nudity, I taped it. It's amazing how far we've come. I walk around with my entire music collection and movies and TV shows in my pocket to watch anywhere I want. When I sit back and think about it, it blows my mind how far technology has come in a very short amount of time.
All My Best Porn Is On VHS by Broseph	Dec 30th, 2008 01:20:20 AM

The Best Thing I Ever Taped off TV by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:20:48 AM
When I was 11 I taped "Heavy Metal" off of the Canadian equivalent of HBO, which we referred to as "pay TV" at the time (I believe the real name was 1st Choice/Superchannel). I watched that tape over and over for two years, until my mom deliberately taped over it to punish me for taping over her and my dad's Elvis special.
Still got my VCR hooked up by Johnno	Dec 30th, 2008 01:22:43 AM
But only to record TV I want to watch when I'm not around. And it will remain so until I finally manage to get one of thos fancy HDD recorders.. that PlayTV for PS3 in Europe looks awesome, hope something like that comes to NA. Well I've only got a few things on VHS, Jurassic Park, some other B&W flicks and Laurel and Hardy, and one anime series 'Escaflowne' of whcih I'm planning to pick up on DVD sometime. I did once but the DVDs were fucked for some reason so I returned them. Anyway in ym younger days my parents bought VHS and I'd either rewatch cartoons and Sesame Street shows that were recorded over and over again or sometimes they'd rent movies like Star Wars and Mortal Kombat. Good times... Anyway I'm going blu-ray now. Also keeping my DVD collection and buying things that may only release on DVD... or things on DVD going cheap for which blu-ray will not add any more wow factor. Digital Distribution will completely replace physical storage long after I'm dead so what do I care? FOr now it can be content to service that 1% of the total population of planet earth that has the resources to afford high internet speed and charges and HDD space and is willing to put up with the awful DRM.
My Parents' 1981 Silver top-loading JVC Still Works by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:25:44 AM
My Parents' 1981 Silver top-loading JVC Still Works.. that thing will never fucking quit! I abused the shit out of it my entire childhood. I think the last movie I watched on it was Titanic, but my parents kept using it for almost 3 more years.
... and it's still hooked up int he workout room by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:27:58 AM
... in case that story seemed incongruous. There's a TV in every room in that house so for fun I hooked the old JVC up in the workout room. Every once in a while I go play with it, because all the mechanical sounds take me back to my childhood.
8000 tapes...?! by Ghostwood	Dec 30th, 2008 01:29:34 AM
I hope one of them is Labyrinth. You should go to the part where Jennifer Connelly is forced to wear all the shit she owns. Or take a note from Fight Club: the things you own end up owning you. Dude, seriously -- there's parks outside and lakes, fresh air and y'know general life-type-of-stuff happening. I'm a total geek too, but come on... 8000 tapes? Unless you have one of those homes that movie serial killers live in that's got 30 rooms and a maze for a basement, where the hell do you keep all those tapes?
Tape Chaos by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:32:07 AM
I remember the first indication I had that my mom had serious problems with organization... when I started getting into VHS as away to tape Transformers commercials, because they always had way better animation with several more degrees of shading and a higher frames per second than the show. Anyhow I noticed pretty quick that my mom would keep like 20 tapes around the VCR, but not label any of them. If she did label something, she'd call it MY SHOW or SPECIAL, instead of just naming what she taped. I tried for years to fathom her logic before realizing she was just a fucking scatterbrain.
I got a Million Things to say about VHS by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:40:25 AM
In 1996 I left college and moved to LA with my stripper girlfriend to see what's up with movies and shit. We broke up while we were there but I stayed, and bought myself a VHS. I loved that thing so much that it was one of the few things I flew home with. I left a whole, pretty decent computer and a $3000 couch just sitting in my living room, but I brought that fucking VCR home. A man learns to cherish his home entertainment when he ain't got no car in LA. (I had a car until the last couple months).
Another VHS anecdote... by jeffv	Dec 30th, 2008 01:46:24 AM
I remember in 1981 we taped the first ever launch and landing of the Space Shuttle Columbia and edited the broadcast down into 30 minute highlights. I brought it into school at the request of the teacher (6th grade, I think?). I think most of the other kids hadn't seen a VCR... everyone was killing themselves laughing, scanning the video backwards to make the shuttle land on the pad and suck all the smoke back in. A couple years later, I remember our after-school video club managed to get Friday the 13th Part 2. We watched the whole thing unsupervised. (The teacher didn't like horror, but didn't understand the whole rating system.) I also remember that, after it was done, one of the guys there had an uncanny ability to rewind and (without seeing where it was) hit play exactly at the full frontal scenes.
Your DVDs Stop Playing? by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:49:39 AM
Are you for real!? NONE of my DVDs have any problems and some are at least ten years old and have had one or more previous owners (Last Action Hero, Goldeneye, etc..)
Yeah, yeah yeah but how long... by ChezKing	Dec 30th, 2008 01:54:40 AM
will Blu Ray last??? Are we already screwed?
Damit...just when I figured out how to set the clock!! by Lezbo Milk	Dec 30th, 2008 01:55:02 AM
They go and change things up on me! Now I just have to learn how to set the clock on my new HD-DVD player!
"Pay TV" by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:56:27 AM
My parents and sisters and I taped hundreds of movies over the years. The problem is we never had a lot of blank tapes so we were always having to tape over stuff. I had tapes of Heavy Metal, Starchaser, Fire and Ice, all kinds of weird animations that Pay TV would often show just once or twice before they'd leave the rotation. My sister would tape John Hughes movies and watch them incessantly. The one big disappointment was they never showed Transformers The Movie, which I rented probably ten times before being able to buy my own copy at twenty years old. I've since bought it twice on DVD and would buy a Blu-ray if they released a really high quality encode.
vhs was the shit by wash	Dec 30th, 2008 02:01:46 AM
Bringing over my deck over to a friends house for dubbing sessions...The Hunger...Brain Dead...Texas Chainsaw Massacre...Evil Deads...Re-Animator, This was at the time where you either paid 90 bucks for a movie, or bootlegged it when you wanted to own it. And you couldn't take the easy way out an download it either. Shit was hard back then, and a blank vhs costed like 10x what a blank DVD-R will run you now. I still have like 4 full tapes of Rodney King riot footage. That was some serious mindbending shit back then.
"All My Best Porn Is On VHS" by wash	Dec 30th, 2008 02:03:05 AM
Victoria Paris...yum.
Ah, Video Home System...you were my bitch! by Brians Life	Dec 30th, 2008 02:06:47 AM
Every episode of The X-Files, Star Trek, Star Trek: TNG/DS9/VOY, Quantum Leap, Twin Peaks, Lois & Clark, Batman:TAS, Superman (60's), Superman:TAS, Dobie Gillis, F-Troop, The Simpsons (to a point) and I think that's it. Plus a ton of tapes labeled RANDOM with things like the MTC Cabdriver commercials, and SNL sketches I'd catch. All intricately labeled by show, season, tape no. Here's the ULTIMATE geeky kicker, almost all had the commercials edited out by me or my brother (if I had money or weed to bribe him) And yes, back then that DID entail hitting PAUSE during a break and perfectly timing the return. SUCK IT! Oh, I also had quite a (un)healthy collection of celebrity nude scenes from various HBO, Showtime, etc movies I'd catch via my BARE FACTS VIDEO GUIDE....including the elusive Terri Hatcher from "Cool Surface". What? I didn't come out of my shell until college? WHAT!??! Hey, FUCK YOU!
The pause thing by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 02:10:41 AM
I had forgotten about that! I used to do it too. The worst was when you forgot to unpause and missed an entire section of show. I used to put together tapes of certain commercials using pause-record editing, which is more difficult than avoiding them all.
The Cool Surface by Brians Life	Dec 30th, 2008 02:11:36 AM
Which, by the way, why the fuck was that movie called THE COOL SURFACE. It's about Robert Patrick stalking Terri Hatcher (who is like a porn star cop, I think) and than killing her after he nails her. "Hmmm...lemm think...OH, the COOL SURFACE"
Video Game Tapes by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 02:15:07 AM
I don't know anyone else who used to tape themselves playing video games as a kid. I started doing it back in the NES days. When I got SNES I did a really long tape showcasing the best graphics from all the games I played. Contra III took up a big part of that tape. That took a lot of work and I have no idea what happened to it. Like so much stuff over the years I probably discarded it without a second thought.
TMNT for me too! by Bass Ackwards	Dec 30th, 2008 02:16:23 AM
I also remember The Rock, Empire Strikes Back, &Branaugh's Hamlet, because those were the first VHSs I remember that had versions in letterbox. I remember renting those and hooking my boombox into my TV for a makeshift home theater. Seeing how much better those movies looked in widescreen is actually what planted the seeds for me from being a casual movie watcher to being someone who loves and appreciates movies and especially the theater experience. Seeing something like Empire, which I'd probably seen a hundred times by then but never in theater, as a widescreen movie for the first time blew my precious lil mind. Full screen movies were dead to me then and there.
Fun VHS Story by estwald	Dec 30th, 2008 02:16:30 AM
I was too young to see the original Star Wars in theaters in '77, but one of my earliest memories was of my dad giving me a VHS tape of Star Wars for my very own. This wasn't an official release, it was a network broadcast of Star Wars with Mark Hamill introducing each segment between the commercial breaks. Throughout childhood this was easily my favorite movie of all time and my most watched tape. But what I didn't know was that my doofus dad had screwed up when pausing and unpausing the VCR to eliminate the commercials. He accidentally kept the tape paused for a whole segment of the film. As far as I knew, the trash compactor scene ended with Luke saying "3263827!" and then we cut immediately to the Falcon flying towards Yavin. To me this seemed fine. They escaped from the trash compactor and got away. No continuity problem at all. Obi Wan? He just never made it. Probably got lost in the Death Star. Too bad for him. It wasn't until the theatrical re-release sometime in the late 80s that I saw the missing segment. You can imagine how my jaw hit the floor and stayed there. As far as I'm concerned those were the best deleted scenes in history.
fright night was my first vhs by JeanLuc Dickhard	Dec 30th, 2008 02:18:29 AM
and a porn .......
First VHS... by 24200124	Dec 30th, 2008 02:18:47 AM
Tim Burton's "Batman" from 1989. And that airing of "Star Wars" that Estwald's talking about - it was the CBS premiere. I remember it fondly... got that on Beta, actually. Well, not anymore...
by hillvalley	Dec 30th, 2008 02:20:52 AM
My dad ran a Wall to Wall Sound & Video (wheres my Delaware Valley dogs?) so we always had a steady stream of videos at the house. Can't remember what movie I popped my cherry on. But the VHS tape I have the fondest memories of was the one that had three movies I taped off of First Run (Where's my Garden State Cable dogs?) Ernest Goes to Camp, Spaceballs, and The Chipmunk Adventure. If I had a vhs player I'd be watching that right now, sigh.
I forgot about letterbox VHS as well by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 02:21:17 AM
I wrote some articles about it back in the day. Around 1996 I became obsessed with letterboxed movies. For the rest of my VHS watching days I was really hampered by the small selection of widescreen titles. Remember when there were small widescreen sections in Blockbuster and the like, with maybe twenty titles to choose from if you were lucky? Those were the days when you had no choice but to go to the theatre if you loved movies. I type this on a 52" LCD that I'll be watching Dark Knight on tomorrow with digital THX 5.1 the concept of which used to make me jizz myself in the VHS days.
It was Jaws by vineethchacko	Dec 30th, 2008 02:21:38 AM
The earliest VHS was a scary one with 'Jaws' and not long after at least one of the sequels. I must have been four or five - my elder brother made me watch it. Oh, that totally freaked me out - I was haunted by the image of those two horrendous rows of teeth. I couldnt even shut my eyes during a bath for years after that. I was much older when we finally got a VCR. I think the first few tapes were programmes my dad recorded while on assignment abroad.
This was an interesting article, Harry by Cruel_Kingdom	Dec 30th, 2008 02:21:49 AM
I liked all the personal details. Nice work.
My earliest VHS memory... by hillvalley	Dec 30th, 2008 02:23:34 AM
...was the title of the above post. Why can't we edit here?
First VHS was STAR WARS by Brians Life	Dec 30th, 2008 02:29:02 AM
Hell, what year did that come out?!? I was born in '80, so you guys do the math. I remember it was a BIG DEAL that my parents had gone out the night before and were gonna come back with a VCR. The next morning I came downstairs and looked at this strange grey box under the TV. It looked like the future to me. I had already seen STAR WARS, though I honestly can't recall where. HBO maybe? My Uncle asked "Wanna watch STAR WARS?" and I... I was not excited at ALL. Here's why.... I was so focused on the digital green 12:00 on the little illuminated VCR screen. When I heard STAR WARS i assumed that I'd be seeing these little digital bars act out the movie. I had NO CONCEPT of a machine capable of putting something on the TV screen. To me, this "VCR" was entirely separate and (from my POV) very unexciting. I was like "this is gonna be it? Watching green digital stick figures of Obi Wan and Vader duel?" Sufficed to say, my jaw fucking dropped when the "LONG TIME AGO.." appeared ON MY FUCKING TELEVISION!?!?!? how was this possible. And, as the above post will show, began my lond and turid love affair with Mistress VHS.
The guy who mentioned taping video games... by hillvalley	Dec 30th, 2008 02:29:11 AM
That reminds me of the tape I have of all the cartoons I made with Mario Paint. Good times...
Return of the Jedi, He-Man Cartoons . . . by PMonkeyReclaimed	Dec 30th, 2008 02:29:37 AM
and Time Bandits. That's all I watched for about 2 full years on our Beta Max. Jedi was taped from TV, and it wasn't until years later that I bought a VHS and the SW trilogy that I realized my version was edited for TV. Fucking retarded. But I watched that thing so much, I could recite every word of the movies AND commercials. And we found a rental store that lent out He-Man cartoons on Beta. I kept that guy in business, being that in that 2 year span (maybe longer) I didn't go a week without at least one He-Man video in my house. And Time Bandits just disturbed me, but I was strangley drawn to it . . . but that was before I did drugs and understood how Terry Gilliam's mind works. Ah, the memories.
1978, 4th grade by lord nobunga	Dec 30th, 2008 02:31:49 AM
I was laid up with a broken arm. My dad owned a store that sold stereos and tv's. His store was one of only two or three places that sold vcr's. I knew The Hobbit was going to be rebroadcast on CBS and I was begging him to requisition one of the display models to record it. He did and recorded everything that came on that night including an episode of the Bad News Bears Television series and a Movie called Steel Town that came on right after The Hobbit. He didn't pause during commercials so I had a bunch of great xerox commercials from the late seventies. I had that and also the episode of SNL hosted by Steve Martin when he did Theodoric of York and King Tut. Those were two of my most prized possessions until I lost them during a move in 1982.
My first VHS was "Disco '81" by DarthBakpao	Dec 30th, 2008 02:33:28 AM
...music clip collections. There was a Blondie's "Rapture" somewhere in it
Taping SUPERMAN THE MOVIE on ABC... by 3D-Man	Dec 30th, 2008 02:34:21 AM
...and then realizing it had EXTRA FOOTAGE in it!!!! How awesome was THAT???
my first VCR and tapes by Napoleon Park	Dec 30th, 2008 02:34:37 AM
I bought an all the bells and whistles Sanyo for around $850.00 in 1986. On the way home from that store I made two other stops and bought Heart and Stevie Nicks music video collections and Star Cuts Christy Canyon and Bunny Bleu compilations. The first tape I watched: the Christy Canyon. Did anyone else read the headline and thing VHS had gone the way of the dildo? Yeah, I went there.
I remember always being warned when I rented widescreen by Bass Ackwards	Dec 30th, 2008 02:35:03 AM
Cause so many people rented them accidently and came back complaining that there was something wrong with their tape. I rememberthat being a problem in the early DVD days as well. I'm still kind of impressed and think that's one of DVDs more notable accomplishments, DVDs ability to put full screen and widescreen on the same disc seemed to have made a quick turnaround on changing the home viewer's preference. In the 90s you couldn't pay most people to take home a letterboxed VHS.
The stuff you say will "never hit DVD"... by Dingbatty	Dec 30th, 2008 02:36:27 AM
some of it has hit bootleg DVD. You should give the tapes to someone who converts vhs to digital files, because there has to be something -- show, commercial, or otherwise -- that no one has found a copy of yet that people would get a kick out of viewing, posting on YouTube, and torrenting. No sense hoarding those tapes.
BETA STILL BETTER THAN ANY VHS by LT Weezie	Dec 30th, 2008 02:37:03 AM
Am not surprised that the VHS format is going away. I am totally convinced that the only reason it lasted this long was because they fit 6 hours of recording on one tape, and not because of quality (with it totally lacked). I have always used Beta exclusively, and still do to this day. I have an extensive Beta collection--many thousands, dating back to 1977 (yes, the original STAR WARS ads, promotions, interviews, and goodies that were on TV at that time among other priceless home recordings of otherwise unobtainable programs and commercials), and still have them all and about 10 machines. accumulated. The format is so far superior in so many ways, let alone, the excellent compatibility between machines. My first tape plays just as well as the most recent taped. I will admit that I am now transferring my collection, a little at a time, to a DVD recorder, but my machines, which I maintain in excellent condition, and the tapes, which I can still get new, still see use and I will never give them up! Beta ROCKS!
I don't know if I've ever enjoyed reading a talkback this much by Bass Ackwards	Dec 30th, 2008 02:38:52 AM
Lots of great stories guys!
Ah yes, the end of an era... by Darth Scourge	Dec 30th, 2008 02:39:52 AM
... as we salute the mighty VHS. I still have a lot of rare stuff on VHS, stuff that has never been released on DVD. The last remnants of the analog age are fading...
My First... by Pawprint	Dec 30th, 2008 02:50:13 AM
First VHS film was Animal Olympics, closely followed by a copy of the feature-length pilot of "Buck Rogers", then "Star Wars" - another copy. I don't think I saw an actual commercially released VHS until about 1984! My parents used to give me copied films for Christmas!
Blu-Ray = Laser Disc by KISSman24	Dec 30th, 2008 02:58:59 AM
Better quality? Yes. But worth the extra money? No.
Ahhh...VHS.... by MJDeViant	Dec 30th, 2008 03:03:56 AM
I vividly remember my recorded "Blood of the Heroes", all three "Star Wars" (from Cinemax), "The Wizard of Oz"(recorded), Superman II (complete with commercial breaks featuring a kit-kat commercial with a lion's roar waking the neighborhood and a fishsticks commercial with that one child actor -not Gary Coleman -), Invasion U.S.A with Chuck Norris, E.T., and The Sword and the Stone. Ahhhh....good times.......I think the last video tape we bought was Jurassic Park. After that, I had got a dvd player and started my collection. Now I know how people with records and black and white tv feel. I saw tape -both cassette and video- go away in my lifetime.
I need.... by hike499	Dec 30th, 2008 03:08:29 AM
"Ruby in Paradise" and "Love and Human Remains" on DVD before I can get rid of my VHS copies. Damn!
Harry, you just made me feel really old! by Mr Nicholas	Dec 30th, 2008 03:09:33 AM
Most of the films I've seen were on VHS, many recorded off TV. I can still remember the jingles of the mid 80's adverts that peppered my copy of Raiders. Thank God we've moved on though. Remember tracking, chewed tape, running out of it before the end of the film, having to rewind, the size of the cassettes, using sellotape to cover the tab hole on a write-protected tape? Things have moved on for the better, I think.
If we're going to share firsts.... by Literarywanderer	Dec 30th, 2008 03:10:54 AM
My father was adamantly opposed to VHS at first. Instead he bought a Selectavision (look that monstrosity up) and only switched to VHS around 1983 when I was 5. I won't lie; I definitely preferred the VHS (the Selectavision discs went fuck-all within the first year we owned the damn system) and I became a master of VCRs by the age of 8 learning how to splice tapes (I wore everything out), program, repair the systems, etc. Without VCRs, and my parents lack of knowledge on how they worked, I never would have been able to record all those horror movies growing up.
I think it was Top Gun by I.P. Awnu	Dec 30th, 2008 03:16:27 AM
Bought for around 20 bucks. I remember it being a big deal when it came out. Used to love recording Elvira's late-night show. I still have boxes of great movies taped off of HBO and Showtime.
KISSman24... by Kirbymanly	Dec 30th, 2008 03:16:30 AM
You're right. I've been saying the same thing since Blue Pay hit. It's a format for die-hard movie geeks and gamers only (not even so sure the hard core gamers care that the PS3 has a player though). The typical public is not going to care one way or another if the spec of grain is removed from Depp's face in PotC3. Like VHS vs. Laser Disc, too much of the public's money has been invested in DVD for them to make the change now.
vhs by Dollar Bird	Dec 30th, 2008 03:27:37 AM
Although my house was the first I knew to get cable (we must have gotten it in 81 or so) my parents didn't get a VCR for about a decade after that. (Their reasoning? We have cable. You can see movies on that.) Eventually, we got the VCR as I was entering high school. 1st VHS? "Who Framed Roger Rabbit?" There must be something about your first, because I watched it many, many times. As soon as that machine was in the house, I was taping every Harryhausen film that showed up on USA or TNT (or that night I woke up at 2am so I could finally see and tape "Valley of the Gwangi"). I haven't watched those things in years, but I miss that ability to make mix tapes of movies, butting "Dragonslayer" next to "20 Million Miles To Earth" next to episodes of "Talespin". Then there were the letterboxed Star Wars movies (in the special hologram case as mentioned before), the bootleg Godzilla and Gatchaman movies I bought at the frickin' Chicago Comic Con. One of my friends still has the complete off-of-teevee Robotech series on tape (with commercials). That thing's a gem.
I thought I would be more upset by this... by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 03:31:06 AM
VHS tapes were such a huge part of my teen years, so there's a lot of nostalgia there. But the replacements that have come along since (especially DVD) are so far ahead of VHS that I doubt I'll miss it it all. I don't even own a video player anymore. Still, those were the days and all that. I'll always remember watching my first video (at a friend's house - the kid who always had everything first) and it was Damien: Omen II. Not a great film, but it'll always stick in my mind because of that. He also had one of those wired remotes, and it blew our tiny little minds that we could watch stuff go forward AND backward. Our favourite scenes to rock back and forth over and over were: 1) Death Star explosion in Star Wars 2) Head explosion in Scanners. BOOM! - !MOOOOOOOOB - BOOM! Cheers, VHS.
DIVX Player by Kampy0jay	Dec 30th, 2008 03:34:10 AM
Remember circuit city's addition to the digital age with the DIVX player?? Haha what shit. They actually had to refund anyone that bought one. I know bec my family was retarded and believed it was the next big thing
I remember my first... by peppersgc	Dec 30th, 2008 03:36:16 AM
VHS was Ice Pirates! I can't believe I actually remember that. On that note, how many of you youngsters have seen it?
My first VHS by photoboy	Dec 30th, 2008 03:40:50 AM
My first pre-recorded VHS was Doctor Who: Revenge of the Cybermen. Videos were so new that they didn't have age ratings and the tapes came in weird larger moulded plastic cases (different to the standard cases of later years). The first things I recorded off the air were an episode of Top Cat followed by Doctor Who: Warriors of the Deep. By the end I had about 300-350 cassettes I think. Not as extensive as your collection Harry but I do also fondly remember VHS like you. The last time I used VHS was to convert a copy of Star Trek The Motion Picture to DVD. It was the old extra long cut of the film that I had always been fond of as it was the first version I saw.
1983. ALIEN and Never Cry Wolf by CENOBITE	Dec 30th, 2008 03:54:40 AM
We were a little behind in the neighborhood. That was the first time my dad had let me watch an R rated film. I had already read the Alan Foster novel adaption for ALIEN... so why not?
From film to VHS... by simulated stereo	Dec 30th, 2008 04:03:26 AM
What, no stop along the way to RCA Selectavision? I started building my first movie collection with those weird album-things.
VH what? by ReZourceman	Dec 30th, 2008 04:12:47 AM
These crazy old people, and their crazy stories.
Funny, watched my first VHS in years tonight by hegele	Dec 30th, 2008 04:20:45 AM
Rented Rolling Thunder because the DVD has never come out. Man, fucking great movie but the kicker is the image quality. On a 58 inch 180p tv its a real kick in the balls. Oh well, going to watch Waterloo next on VHS, another gem that isn't on DVD. Think it may well be my last.
Come to think of it by pax256	Dec 30th, 2008 04:21:06 AM
Some movies are still only available on VHS. Micheal Mann's 'The Keep' from 1983 for one. Wish paramount would get its head out of its keister on this one.
Difference between blu-ray & laser disc by Bass Ackwards	Dec 30th, 2008 04:34:51 AM
Blu-ray players play DVDs, so it won't require people to give up their movie collections. It can afford to quietly sit on the shelves next to DVD players at competitive prices, so as new buyers enter the market, or people just replacing/updating their old systems are shopping between a DVD player, or a slightly more expensive blu-ray player that plays DVDs and the promising, superior format of the future, many will opt for that slighlty more expensive investment. Laser discs were an all or nothing prospect, and couldn't survive fiscally when many people opted for nothing. Blu-ray on the other hand has better financial prospects, it might not bethe dominant format, but it's not the absolute zero that laser disc was. It can spend some years surviving by quietly selling next to DVD players, smart production and patience will lead it to eventually winning out. Blu-rays are "upgrading" DVDs, rather than outright replacing them (though obviously that's the ultimate goal).
STAR WARS by DanboJohnJ	Dec 30th, 2008 04:35:24 AM
Was the first dvd i ever watched at the RICH couples house at the bottom of our road,before Empire was out at the cinema...changed my life forever!dunno if it was a pirate or not?must have been way back in 79 i think.
100 grand worth of stuff back in 1977!! by Potatino	Dec 30th, 2008 04:54:22 AM
couldn't you buy one or two houses back then with that money? holy crap! wait a sec you could probably probably buy one or two houses with kind of money now. ahem.
Insurance company by HEADGEEK	Dec 30th, 2008 05:00:54 AM
fucked my parents and only paid $26k. Collectibles in that day and age didn't have the level of experts in the field that could vouch for the prices. At the time - my parents were the experts for Texas.
my first vhs by CoolerKing72	Dec 30th, 2008 05:06:13 AM
Rental it was Drunken Master, Lionman and Every Which Way But Loose. Christine and An American Werewolf In Lone were my first purchases. I still have over 2000 vhs tapes. Its time to let go me thinks
VHS is dead. Long live Blu-Ray by Yeti	Dec 30th, 2008 05:11:15 AM
Or whatever replaces that....
This is News?? by Cpt Shaw	Dec 30th, 2008 05:13:03 AM
Love Ya Harry...but Who doesn't know this?????
One of my earliest VHS memories... by RowanM	Dec 30th, 2008 05:15:33 AM
Every thursday Eddie would drive his yellow Toyota Hi-Ace van through our quaint little Irish village renting videos. I would have been around 10 or 11 at the time. The mobile video library was like a social event for my brothers and sister. We could plan our video weekends with our friends this way. We kids would usually go for cartoons of some kind, I remember Eddie highly recommending Highlander to my parents. You know that cover with the painted Conor McCleod experiencing the quickening? Sword in hand with another illustration of the Kurgen over his left shoulder. Skull on his head, New York Skyline seen through a window in the background? It's funny the little things that I remember, but I clearly remember seeing that illustration for the first time on the cover of that VHS cassette. What a great movie.
Ah, shit by Vern	Dec 30th, 2008 05:31:40 AM
Never really occurred to me that they'll probaly stop making blank VHS before long. That's troubling to me because I'm too old and stubborn to adopt that Tivo horse shit. Imagine back in the '80s or '90s if somebody told you you would have to pay a monthly fee to record tv shows. And that people would pay money to change the ring on their phone. Next up they should invent doors with handprint recognition instead of locks, but you have to pay a monthly fee to use it or you'll get locked out of your house. That would be another great innovation I think. Also we should have to pay membership fees to eat at Jack in the Box and Wendys. And to use public restrooms. And matinee movie tickets should have an extra convenience charge that actually makes them more expensive than regular showings. They should also get rid of coins and sidewalks, this is the 21st century. And they should not only stop making VHS tapes, it should be illegal to watch them. You can own them as long as you pay for a permit, but you can't watch them.
The memmories by mattforce7	Dec 30th, 2008 05:34:09 AM
watching all my old fav movies on 8 mm or Beta... Predator, Evil Dead, Starwars New Hope...man i loved that old feeling of picking up those old betas, giving them a thorough check and sniff( loved the old smell of old electronics) and getting it ready to go for another viewing. Good times....but dvd is NOT being killed by BLU RAY harry...ur just sacking off to it too much to realize that not everyone has bluray cuz we all cannot afford it. DVDS are still just as healthy
ahh the almighty VHS by Bloo	Dec 30th, 2008 05:42:12 AM
I remember my parents had friends they'd play cards with, I'd tag along and watch movies on a VCR. The first ones I remember, Star Wars, Annie and Thriller...weird triple feature. I'm not sure when we got our first VCR but I remember taping and editing out the commreicals, of 60's BATMAN (I think I ended up with all 3 seasons), and the Zorro TV series that aired on The Family Channel before it was the Family Channel. I also had on one tape, The Rocketeer, The Maltase Falcon, and Fern Gulley. I remember having the 3 Highlanders on VHS...with extended scenes (along with a bootleg tape of Queen's "Some Kind Of Magic" album), all 3 Vice Acadmey movies from USA UP ALL NIGHT (with Rhonda Shear segments--only watched Gilbert Goddfried on Sat. nights if something good was on), A&E dub of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Joe Bob Briggs and Monster Vision, Popye cartoons, bootlegs of 2001, A Clockwork Orange, Lolita. I remember getting a Wal-Mart gift card in...2000 and spending most of that $75 on tapes, The Exocrist, Taxi Driver, Kiki's Delivery Service. WWE(then F), WCW, and ECW matches, Kevin Smith movies up to Chasing Amy and bootleg of the Animated Clerks, Herzog and Karasouwa that I'd record off AMC (when they were commercial free) and TCM. For some reason my tape collection was more diverse then my current DVD collection because if I saw a movie on TCM that I hadn't seen or wanted to see I had a tape ready to go, now (beecause of where I live) if I want something obsure it's off to Amazon or somewhere. DVD is nicer, it offers more, but I do miss the almighty VHS
mattforce7 has a point by RowanM	Dec 30th, 2008 05:43:49 AM
With the economic recession that's going on right now, electronic retailers are practically giving away stuff like Blue Ray players and PS3s. People are watching their money and I'm sure the average Joe is happy enough with DVD for a long time to come.
DVD is dead and you guys still talk about VHS? by Stollentroll	Dec 30th, 2008 05:45:32 AM
Blu ray rulez.
Remember the club fees to rental stores? by Alfie Boy	Dec 30th, 2008 05:48:01 AM

Embrace the future, Vern by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 05:49:36 AM
I thought it would be hard to let go of my video (or VCR, if you prefer), but I bought a digital video recorder a month ago and I'm kicking myself for not buying one sooner. It's simple and quick to use, has great picture quality, and you don't have to spend ages buggering about with fast forward and rewind to find the part of the tape you want to watch. Because there's no tape! Seriously, you should give it a go. I bet Steven Seagal doesn't use a VCR anymore.
Thanks, Harry by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 05:50:59 AM
I appreciate this opportunity to get borderline-wistful over outdated tech. I'm pretty sure that the 1st VHS I ever watched was Blow Out (Travolta!), rented from a local store that featured a single spinning rack of tapes to choose from and some seriously asskicking buckets of fried chicken with potato wedges. Thanks, mom. On our bigass Zenith console. And also, thanks to everyone who mentioned VHS mixtapes. Those ruled. Sigh. I should call mom.
My first VCR was a 2 piece PANASONIC... by Alfie Boy	Dec 30th, 2008 05:52:46 AM
that you could undock the recorder, carry around your shoulder, hooked by a thick cable (with a 10-pin connector as thick as a quarter) to my JVC GX-N7U camera, with optional character generator. Yeah...single, just out of college, great job...I was fuckin' cool!
VHS lasted a lot longer than the Floppy Disk ?!? by PTSDPete	Dec 30th, 2008 05:53:11 AM
Dang.
P.S. We don't have Tivo in England by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 05:54:17 AM
Do you really have to pay a monthly fee to use it? I bought a DVR and I use it just like a regular video. No monthly fee or anything.
Still have all of my VHS tapes... by Gungan Slayer	Dec 30th, 2008 05:56:13 AM
No sense in throwing them away, IMO. They're not in the way, they're not broken and they still all work, plus a few of them you can't yet find it on DVD. Plus, be a nice thing to show to the kids and grandkids whenever they come along. My grandfather had an enormous VHS collection. Fond memories those are.
My first VHS was Back to the Future by pokadoo	Dec 30th, 2008 05:56:35 AM
...followed by Purple Rain & The Breakfast Club. Ahhh the 80's. I had Star Wars taped off tv (with ad breaks) and i watched that over a hundered times as a kid. That film is taped on to my brain, thanks to vhs! Going back to the ads, i hated them scarring my favorite film, so i had the tape constantly set at rec/pause when i was watching cartoons on a saturday morning, and I would record,like, 6 seconds of any Star Wars toy advert that came on, over the top of the shake'n'vac ads. How sad is that?!
ahahaha... hilarious by mynemaborat	Dec 30th, 2008 06:02:34 AM
yet more hilarious fantasy memories of harold's... still doesn't beat the memories of living off the land and wrangling cattle, but it comes close. do u really believe these things you say harry? btw i particularly liked the post about your parents were the experts in the field and they valued 26k worth of garbage at 100k. that's great!!
Remember the embaressment of watching by pokadoo	Dec 30th, 2008 06:12:43 AM
one of your own well watched videos (Something Wild, The Grifters or something else with free famous boobies) with your friends, and the picture started to crackle up at the nudie scenes due to excessive pause/rewind action?! If only we had digital back then to hide tell-tale favorite scenes, and give a sharp pause instead of a murky jumpy image. VHS was the perfect mastubatory aid, since replaced by the internet!
All-time most rented tape: The Last Unicorn by paralyser-pro	Dec 30th, 2008 06:17:44 AM
And speaking about the plastic blister-boxes... what about those GIANT boxes the porn tapes came in... LOL! I said "came" :)
I bought a two hour blank VHS tape for $10 by Grammaton Cleric Binks	Dec 30th, 2008 06:21:02 AM
to make a crappy recording of The Beatles' Yellow Submarine off late night tv. Ah, memories. RIP VHS. Remember when Babylon 5 had a character who was a VCR (pronounced vicar)?
Still Good For Copying HBO And Porn by PoppaRotzi	Dec 30th, 2008 06:26:54 AM
VHS will never die because of this!
VHS was like crack to me. by Voice O. Reason	Dec 30th, 2008 06:32:17 AM
Before the days of season box sets, I religiously taped every episode of Star Trek, Buffy, or Highlander that hit the airwaves. Not to mention bootlegging the shit out of Blockbuster rentals. My recorded copy of Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi from Showtime looked like it had the shit kicked out of it by the time I was done.
Beta when Beta was cool by Kentucky Colonel	Dec 30th, 2008 06:32:44 AM
My first VCR was a Toshiba Beta player. Still have it, too. It has a tape stuck inside it which I can't for the life of me get it to release, but it still plays it. I have sooo much cool shit on Beta, too, like FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH with the original soundtrack...which is like impossible to find. I'm ashamed to admith that I bought al of the TOS & TNG episodes from Columbia House for like $1200 each....cripes! Farewell VHS...I've been on the burnable-DVD tip for four years now...no looking back!
My first VHS was... by RyanMcLelland	Dec 30th, 2008 06:40:14 AM
Bloodsport - God bless JCVD. Followed closely by Burton's Batman. How I loved them so.
Amazon still lists them by Dazzler69	Dec 30th, 2008 06:41:53 AM
I am sure there will always be a small market for it like the LP. Now 8 track...not a peep out of it.
VHS - Too fucking big by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 06:43:18 AM
Something that DVD has done really well is packaging entire TV seasons into reasonably sized box sets. Did anyone else ever try collecting a series back in the video days? What a pain in the ass. I tried with the first season of X-Files and eventually gave up due to a severe lack of shelf space. These days, you can get an entire season in a tidy little box that's no bigger than a single VHS box. Pretty cool.
There Is No Rational Explanation... by Rebeck2	Dec 30th, 2008 06:46:04 AM
For the fondness I feel when I find an old "double-feature" VHS tape recorded off of HBO, with the handwritten label sticker, the cardboard sleeve, and the little plastic flap taken out so you can't accidentally tape over it. "T.A.G.: The Assassination Game" and "Electric Dreams". (As a side note: anyone else remember the ridiculously long intro HBO would play at the start of a movie? You know, where you would fly over a whole city and then finally into a house where someone was turning on a TV... It took like a fuckin' minute and a half.) Those were the days when "grabbing" a movie off TV felt like you were mining gold or stealing from a big corporation. Aha! It's mine! I can play it anytime I want! As great as progress is, I can't help but feel that today's easy access to movies - complete oversaturation? - has strangely taken away some of their value...their specialness. Oops, my teeth just fell out.
Bring on the future by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 06:46:24 AM
I'm looking forward to the day when I have a set top box with the video equivalent of iTunes on it, so I can download and store all my films/TV shows in a place where they will never, ever need to be dusted. I hate dusting.
You Can Record This Talkback... by Rebeck2	Dec 30th, 2008 06:57:47 AM
In three different speeds - LP, SP, or EP. But be warned, if you use EP it will play back really crappy with rolling static and you'll have to keep using the tracking dial.
Star Wars by The Chosen	Dec 30th, 2008 06:59:34 AM
My Father bought the original trilogy, in a remasterized version, a long time ago. It had a boring as hell (or so i thought at the time) introduction with Leonard Maltin interviewing George Lucas. Made me get the Leonard Maltin jokes from Freakazoid. And made me memorize all Star Wars lines.
VHS is still a nice format, so stfu about quality... by Motoko Kusanagi	Dec 30th, 2008 07:01:02 AM
It really wasn't that bad.
Here's my two cents: by Lobanhaki	Dec 30th, 2008 07:01:25 AM
First Cent: Damn. I grew up on VHS. Format of my Childhood. DVD marked the transition to adulthood. I loved watching movies all the time, but at the end, I started to realize just how much the pan and scan was cutting out, and I searched out Widescreen VHS before I found a DVD player at an obscene price and bought it. I guess the point when I knew there was something new on the horizon for sure was when I caught sight of somebody watching Top Gun on a computer. Movie nut that I was, when I got my first DVD player, I never looked back. I eventually converted my family to widescreen, which is lucky given that widescreen is now the new full screen with 16x9 sets. Or closer to it than "full screen" which is now a boxed-in format itself! Second Cent: Blu-Ray doesn't die or even get mildly sick until such point that the average person gets high speed broadband. Right now, I've got ridiculously good DSL. I can download a great deal, very quickly. But it takes the better part of a day for just two hours, and that's only because I'm tech-savvy about what programs to use. Until it's as easy as getting a song for your average person, until fiber optic connections become the norm, and people can stream footage without having to watch them on a miniscule screen, Blu-Ray won't die. And even if it no longer survives as consumer format, recordable blu-ray or some equivalent will be a favorite for off-disk archiving.
Motoko Kusanagi by Lobanhaki	Dec 30th, 2008 07:05:02 AM
Nice format? It was a noisy, analog, low resolution, 4X3 format on a physical medium that regularly got ate and warped and recorded over... It's a terrible format.
Back then people were thinking more about space travel by jamazio	Dec 30th, 2008 07:15:15 AM
Than worrying about the upgrade of movies. Owning movies on VHS wasn't really an obsessive thing like it is now with DVD/Blu-Ray. If you told people back then that in 20 years time the average person would own way more films and own a TV that cost near a grand they would be in deep shock. I own a bluray player but I do miss the devil may care attitude of the days of VHS where someone would rent a few videos on the weekend but didn't see what the point was of owning them, and if you had to own them it would only really be your most favourite movies ever and you'd watched them at least once every week. I remember everyone thought I was nuts cuz I had about 20-40 videos in the my collection. Now those same people own about twice as many on DVD. Why do we give such a shit and are so obsessive about image quality of films in the 21st century? Is that what the future is all about? Good ol' VHS, in those days it was merely a case of owning one to record stuff off the telly and for rental purposes, not buying the super duper mega duluxe special edition that came with a free big mac. Also forking out quit alot of cash several times to get the same films with future releases due to special features and transfer and what-not. With VHS as long as it played and it worked and the image was stable then it was fine, and if you bought it once you'd need never buy it again. R.I.P VHS, I'll miss your (slightly) less cynical and capitalist ways.
First VHS tapes in my collection by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 07:23:50 AM
Paul McCartney's Rockshow. Walter Hills "The Warriors." Michael Jackson's "Thriller." Copies of "First Blood" and other stuff that my uncle taped off HBO (we didn't have cable yet). I swear that I am personally responsible for the cult status of the Warriors. No one in ohio, much less anywhere else, knew much about that movie until my friends and I schooled the local kids to "Can you dig it." And, like other here, will raise his hand when they ask who came of age in the 80s and kept their masturbatory fodder on VHS
My Mom's Closet by filegumbo	Dec 30th, 2008 07:31:32 AM
Somewhere in my mother's home (I am 39) is a huge collection of home movies recorded on a VHS camcorder that rested on your shoulder when you used it. My new video camera is the size of a can of Red Bull and uses an SDHC card. My goal in life is to get these transferred to DVD one day. My first VCR also had the wired remote...incredible. The demise of magnetic tape is nostalgic but not really sad. I remember my first Sony Walkman, a big clunky thing that held one cassette. My children just got iPod Nanos for Christmas, and I can't help but be amazed at how the world has changed.
Lobanhaki by Rebeck2	Dec 30th, 2008 07:31:33 AM
No offense intended, my friend, but keep telling yourself that. If you're as old as me, you've seen so many formats come and go. What happens when somebody comes out with Blu-ray 3-D?? Or just Blu-ray 2.0, but you need a new thingamajig for your player to get the full "look and sound of even more perfect"? No, we are headed towards one inescapable destination: digital libraries. Period. The easiest and sleekest tech always wins, and what's sleeker than digital? Marmoset won't have to dust. The only thing dusty will be the Blu-ray player, sitting stacked on top of your VCR and 5-disc CD player. But me...I'm just fine with my huge collection of DVDs and I'm not playing the game anymore and buying them yet again. What this talkback shows is that the bottom line is still the "content", the film itself, not the delivery system. Films are emotional, empathetic, experiential, not a purely tactile and visual art form. If they were, then the Star Wars prequels would be hailed as the greatest movies of all time.
My collection by rogueleader66	Dec 30th, 2008 07:37:10 AM
Was vast, I had a couple of hundred movies on VHS, usually two to a tape if they could fit (not counting the movies I bought on tape), and I have about 40 tapes at 6 hrs a tape of just sitcoms, that to this day I still watch on my VHS/DVD combo player. Most of the movies I taped I have on DVD, but to collect the amount of sitcoms I taped is taking some time, hence I still watch the tapes, and until they are too worn to watch, I will still watch them.
Harry by The Spud	Dec 30th, 2008 07:43:52 AM
You send me $39.95 per month and I'll send you your very own official "Eat at Wendy's" membership card. This card will entitle you to eat at Wendy's anytime you want each month. :)
Dear Lord Im 16 and i have Box load of VHS by fractaljinn	Dec 30th, 2008 07:50:56 AM
You know I find VHS better than DVDs. They Were Easy to use Not as Easy to Break and Scratch as DVD's are. And the Additional weaer and tear on them was usual! and you could hook up to VHS to make copys of Original Tapes! AND IM STILL USEING THEM! And they STil make them here in Ireland! Ill Miss VHS but DVD's are the way forward im afraid! In Memorium to VHS...
My first VHS... by TinSpider	Dec 30th, 2008 07:52:44 AM
was An American Werewolf in London. I still have it. I had lots of blank tapes before that and have Superman the movie taped off the tv premiere. It still has the ads and one of them is for the Atari 2600 version of 'Empire Strikes Back' In fact, I only kept the tape because of that advert.
VHS by Abin Sur	Dec 30th, 2008 07:54:50 AM
One of the very first things I remember recording on VHS was the 4-hour version of Dune that played on TV many many years ago...can't remember which network, but I transferred that tape to DVD as soon as it was feasible...thanks for that, videotape!
I BOUGHT and PAID for my family's first VHS player by cornponious	Dec 30th, 2008 07:55:35 AM
by raising a cow and selling it. Sold it for $400, in 1982. Then I went out and bought a Panasonic top loader for, yup, $400, used. That was a great player. We immediately went out and bought a memorex blank tape, and the very first thing I recorded from TV was "Real People", along with "That's Incredible" after that. I wore that tape out. For years we never bought any movies on VHS as they were just too damn expensive. We just rented every weekend. My parents still have that player, though they don't use it. It's up in my old bedroom in a drawer. A funny story associated with it. During my senior high school year we had this thing called senior skip day. A few buddies of mine and I decided to stay at my house and watch some classic 80's porn on VHS (this was 1989, BTW). Well we watched it, then everybody left. I just left the tape in the player for a while. It was a beautiful day, sunny, warm, not a cloud in the sky. Then the power went out. I didn't think much of it at first, except to think that it was odd that the power would just go out like that on such a normal day. Then it hit me. The tape was still in the player. I panicked. "What are my parents going to think when they come home and turn it on and see nothing but cocks and pussies on the family TV?" So I got a screw driver and took the top tray cover off and tried to no avail to yank the tape out. The tape of course was wound around the heads and there were little thingys stuck in little holes here and there, and there was absolutely no damn way that tape was coming out. In fact, I broke the tape case and cut my finger trying to pull it out, bleeding all over the inside of the player. I put the cover back on and awaited my fate, as the power still had not come back on. My dad was an anatomy teacher at the high school and he got home around 3:30. My mom, who had been at work too, got home at the exact same time. They walked in, and I said "dad, can you come in to your bedroom please? I need to talk to you". So, he did, and I told him the sordid details. I confessed completely. AT THAT VERY MOMENT, THE POWER CAME BACK ON. I gasped in disbelief, and dad just laughed. We had to take the player to a repair shop, because I had bent some of the internal mechanisms as well in my zeal to free the tape. When we got it back, dad showed me the bill. He had the repair guy write on the bill "$50 for repair of porno damage." He laughed at me again.
How VHS ever made it is beyond me by ZoeFan	Dec 30th, 2008 07:57:32 AM
It was such a crap medium. Blu-Ray on the other hand is a great medium and will be around for a long time.
VHS is like people who still write CHECKS at the store... by tylerzero	Dec 30th, 2008 08:01:17 AM
...I wanna slap their heads and tell them to get with it already.
It won't be missed! by GeorgieBoy	Dec 30th, 2008 08:09:23 AM
I liked VHS for about a minute, then I realized how bad it sucked having to rewind tapes, dealing with lousy quality (tracking anyone?), and tape jams. DVD took off quickly (thank God) and eradicated VHS from earth. It'll take Blu-Ray longer to dispatch DVD than it took for DVD to destroy VHS though. Anyway, good riddance VHS! I never liked you that much anyway.
Kampy0jay - XviD is great..! by workshed	Dec 30th, 2008 08:10:46 AM
I have over 5000 films in XviD and I doubt I will ever splash out on a Blu-Ray. I mean what's the point..? I have a perfectly good picture, AC3 surround audio with, in some cases, commentary tracks. On a player like the new Philips DVP5992 (with DivX/XviD upscaing) there ain't much difference. Unlike Harry my family started before VHS as my dad would buy 16mm prints of films. I loved VHS and my first (and only) Saturday job was working in the first tape rental shop in South Yorkshire (England) back in 1981 (this is why Harry should put me on staff). Our first play was an extremely snazzy Panasonic which cost my dad £699 in 1981 (the remote was infra red and you could 'audio dub' which was loadsafun). I've been transferring my VHS tapes and posting rare shows/films of sites over the last five years. Harry should do the same. There are so many 'lost' tv shows and movies and I bet Harry has some of them.
And I get twelve XviD films on a dual layer disc..! by workshed	Dec 30th, 2008 08:14:02 AM
What an age we live in. Lovely.
Flashback - 1980 - My Dad and I buy our first VHS by mattb68	Dec 30th, 2008 08:16:09 AM
This was in the UK (I live in the US now).We go to the store and pick up The Wild Geese on glorious VHS from Rank video. It costs 75 pounds. From that point on we amass over a 500 plus VHS collection over the next 10-12 years until I become a Yank and move to the states. My Dad and I keep our handwritten book of our collection and he continued to use it after I was gone...... All gone now including my Dad but guess what..that VHS of The Wild Geese and the actual book hangs above my home theater in a box frame by an original framed UK quad of The Wild Geese and the DVD's and Blu Rays of 2008/2009 that I continue to collect.
Too true, filegumbo by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 08:19:13 AM
The world has changed, and I honestly think it's for the better. I am old enough to have fond memories of my stupidly large collection of vinyl albums, and although nostalgia can be a very enjoyable thing, I'll take the exact same amount of music on an iPod that fits into my pocket any day of the week. Any day. I also agree with Rebeck2. It's the content that matters, not what box it comes in.
Flashback - 1980 - My Dad and I buy our first VHS(continued) by mattb68	Dec 30th, 2008 08:19:31 AM
...and earlier that year we bought our first VCR..a JVC with the giant buttons. I was in awe as I watched Battlestar Galatica (the 70's one) the next morning after taping it the previous day.
First VHS non-copy I owned by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:19:42 AM
was a collection of Disney horror cartoons called Scary Tales. The first feature I owned was The Empire Strikes Back. The last one I bought was an Anchor Bay release of a Dario Argento film (I think Inferno).
I laugh when the studios now cry of piracy by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:23:44 AM
Because back in the 80's everybody was copying movies onto VHS from TV and tapes they rented. Even Grandparents were running around doing this. Very few people actually bought new movies on VHS, even in the 90's. Only the really big releases (usually Disney films) sold a lot. DVD was the format that really bought purchasing new movies to the mainstream America. You sit in the grocery store waiting to check out and when you look to your side you'll see The Exorcist II: The Heretic and The Player brand new for 5 bucks. That's not something you saw with VHS.
Twin Peaks entire series without pilot on VHS by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:26:16 AM
I think that thing went for 200 bucks, and was taped in SLP!! And it didn't even include the pilot. Let's just say I was more than willing to shell out 65 bucks for the DVD collection that came out last year.
I'm hoping to skip Blu-Ray, though by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 08:28:33 AM
I'm sure Blu-Ray is all mint and whatnot, but it seems like a stop gap technology to me - a way to squeeze some more cash out of film libraries before fully digital delivery is available. Lord knows how long that's going to take to get here, but I'll be there with my cash at the ready when it does.
VHS more durable than DVD with reg. people by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:29:06 AM
Go to your local library. If they still have VHS tapes, I guarantee that even ones that are over 20 years old are playing better than most of their DVDs that they purchased in the past couple of years.
My problem with Blu-Ray by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:33:55 AM
Other than better picture and sound, a lot of the catalog titles offer nothing new. I mean look at The Goonies blu-ray coming out. It's the exact same DVD, just with improved picture and sound. They're even using the same crappy artwork that was created for the original DVD. You'd think if anything they'd release it with the original theatrical poster as the box (with all the Goonies hanging).
VHS years by Jaws Wayne	Dec 30th, 2008 08:35:29 AM
Since my mum's friend was a heavy duty hi-fi/video/techno freak, we happened to be the first in class that had a VCR, that must have been in '77 or '78. The fella was a huge Sony fan, so that meant a Beta VCR for us. I must have rented hundreds of films over the years, most watched ones being Soldier of Orange (Verhoeven), The Evil Dead and Hugo the Hippo (voiced by the Osmonds !!). Still have close to 2000 movie VHS tapes stocked in boxes, and like most others, they rarely see the inside of my VCR which is very silly as there are lot of unseen and good ones in that collecion.
Movie never released on any home format by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:39:26 AM
Nicholas Ray's Bigger Than Life (1956) springs to mind.
I had Twin Peaks on VHS, too by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 08:39:33 AM
Tapes all over the place! Tapes, tapes, tapes. It makes me feel bad for Star Trek fans - those poor bastards must have been buried under VHS tapes before DVD came along. DVD box sets are so much better, and life will be better still when I can digitally access a massive library of films and telly and just download and watch whatever I'm in the mood for.
No love for videodisc? by Klytus_I.m_Bored	Dec 30th, 2008 08:42:19 AM
C'mon, RCA Selectavision, baby! You haven't seen a movie until you've seen it start skipping every 3 minutes.
Buy a new HD TV and then pay MORE for HD cable. by JDanielP	Dec 30th, 2008 08:42:59 AM
I know that some people buy a real nice 1080p HD TV and won't pony up the extra dollars for HD content. Kind of makes you wonder why people up-grade at all.
I still like VHS. by Knuckleduster	Dec 30th, 2008 08:44:10 AM
Some movies you just have to watch on tape. Like Evil Dead. Or Commando. It's just not the same on any other format.
Top Gun and The Hobbit.... by MonkeyLord	Dec 30th, 2008 08:44:53 AM
I remember when my dad brought home our first VCR. The first two movies we owned were Top Gun and the Bass/Rankin animated version of The Hobbit. Within a month, I think my brother and I could quote both movies absolutely verbatim. Hell, we probably still can! :P Good times...
VERN YOU IGNORANT SLUT by Arch Nemesis	Dec 30th, 2008 08:45:39 AM
You do have to pay for public restroom use, in Russia.
Movie skipping every 3 minutes-I've seen it by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:46:00 AM
That's why I never made it through a DVD on my Playstation 2; the videogame system that was being touted in Time magazine back in 2001 as a one stop entertainment player.
Er... I'm not really reading this article am I? by Damien Chowder	Dec 30th, 2008 08:47:10 AM
Have we gone back 10 years, I've actually time travelled? VHS died before smallpox was cured to ninny! for the record DVD is killing Blu-ray. Blu-ray is doing about 3% compared to DVD's 30% in the same length of time.
Best was when School teachers with no by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:50:59 AM
idea what to teach in class would just bring in movies they dubbed off of TV and show then in class to kill time.
I'm so glad I'm not a luddite by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 08:52:54 AM
During the switch from vinyl to CDs, there were so many dreary people going on and on about how 'vinyl sounds better' and 'music's not the same without all the clicks and pops and scratches'. I never understood it. Music never sounded better on vinyl. It started out sounding pretty decent, then got worse and worse every time it had a diamond-tipped needle dragged through it and then accumlated a whole bunch of dust and hairs and whatnot. Crazy business. And now I have friends who won't download music because they like the little book you get with a CD. The little book! VHS did the best job it could at the time, but we should all be glad the boffins have given us better stuff to play with.
still use VHS by rainbowtrout1265	Dec 30th, 2008 08:53:31 AM
I still use VHS to record shows and give the tape to a friend so she can see it, too. Are they going to stop making blank vhs tapes now?
Blu-Ray will be the Vinyl of movie owning by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 08:54:40 AM
When (not if) digital downloading of movies in HD becomes common place. A few select movies will come out in some sort of collectors editions in Blu-Ray which will be bought by the film freaks, and regular people will just download.
First VHS.. by ScotFree	Dec 30th, 2008 08:55:18 AM
...were movies taped off of HBO. I remember when we got HBO - it wasnt cable, you just paid for HBO. It was a box with a switch on it. One side said 'TV' the other side said 'HBO' - my dad taped everything he could off HBO. He had 300 or so tapes with 2 or 3 movies on each. Didnt care about "quality" as much as he did "quantity." It was fun to watch him as he worked out whether to tape "Romancing the Stone" on the same tape with "Trading Places" and "Time Bandits" or on the one with "Battle Beyond the Stars" and "Beastmaster" :)
Late to the game, but... by ByTor	Dec 30th, 2008 08:55:34 AM
Despite being affluent enough to afford one, our family was late to the game compared to friends and neighbors. I don't remember the exact year, but it was definitely after 1980. When we finally did get one, it was JVC's first front-loading deck and cost well over a grand. Our first pre-recorded movie was Star Wars (which was $90 or $100 or something). My strongest memory, however, is the movie that made pre-recorded movies affordable. One day my dad got all excited about an article he'd read: Paramount was going to try an experiment. They were going to release a movie on VHS (and Beta, I suppose; I don't remember or care) for $39.95. Even though it wasn't a movie he was interested in, he was determined to buy it when it came out to help send a message that studios could sell a lot more movies if they priced them reasonably. The fact that it was (at the time) my favorite movie ever filled me with glee, and I watched the tape (literally) hundreds of times. It was a runaway sales success, and soon movies could be purchased for $29.95 or less. The movie? Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Hey Samuel Fulmer... by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 08:56:47 AM
My 6th grade teacher brought in a worn VHS copy of "Iron Eagle" for the class to watch before Christmas break to use as a time killer. When the word "fuck" was used in the flick, the teacher got flustered and shut it down. PS: I also remember watching "Ladyhawke" in the same class on VHS and catching a brief tit shot!
Anybody ever rent a vhs and someone had taped over parts? by kravmaguffin	Dec 30th, 2008 08:57:38 AM
I remember at the end of a movie, after the credits some goofy stuff from a tv show popped up for about 10 minutes. I've heard people finding porn on parts of tapes as well. Ah the vhs, all you had to do was put a piece a tape over the little hole and you could tape over anything...good times.
First VHS Rental by kahootz	Dec 30th, 2008 08:58:25 AM
Raiders of the Lost Ark and Faces of Death. I had to rent the player, too. This was when you had to pay money to join the Movie Rental "club." It was named Video Pro. And they didn't care if a kid just looked at the porno cases in that room behind the curtain. They just wouldn't rent to him.
Hey kravmaguffin... by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 09:02:16 AM
I knew a kid that's family owned a video store and he used to put a peace of Scotch tape over the little slot on the front to be able to tape over certain crucial parts of films. He was an asshole..
Desk of Steel-Gremlins in 2nd Grade by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 09:03:39 AM
Yeah my genius teacher brought in Gremlins and Runaway. Suffice to say some parents weren't happy. But as far as the dubbed off tv stuff, I remeber my 7th grade music teacher bringing in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom to watch taped off of ABC, so every five minutes he had to get up and fast forward through the commercials. Eventually he got one of the students to do it for him.
The entrances to video store porn sections..... by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 09:06:00 AM
I used to go to a video store when I was a kid called "Video Paradise" and it had a porn section with wooden saloon doors. You could see all the dirty covers from under the door, just not the people's faces looking at them.
Harry: Get lifetime subscription for Tivo by MurderMostFowl	Dec 30th, 2008 09:10:29 AM
The you have no monthly fees. They offer it a couple of times a year. It seems expensive but its worth it.
How long until... by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 09:11:25 AM
a company packages a DVD in retro VHS packaging? I bet they'd sell well!
Bootleg VHS of Empire Strikes Back by Manos	Dec 30th, 2008 09:12:37 AM

oops I mean Vern by MurderMostFowl	Dec 30th, 2008 09:14:21 AM

VHS cases by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 09:15:30 AM
It's funny how porn and Disney flicks had the same clunky clamshell packaging. I also remember some genre flicks having giant boxes... I remember one being "Ants" with Suzanne Summers. PS: I'm not saying Suzanne Summers has a giant box, just the VHS of "Ants".
When you think about it, it kinda inflates the ticket sales by CreasyBear	Dec 30th, 2008 09:16:03 AM
of older movies. Before the 80's, you had no reason to believe you could EVER see a movie if you didn't see it in the theater, unless the networks (all three of them) might show it. Nowadays, it's no big deal to miss it in the theater.
I'll never give up VHS by Klytus_I.m_Bored	Dec 30th, 2008 09:16:31 AM
I have a stack of Sammy Terry episodes I recorded off of over-the-air TV in the 80s and I'll never give them up. They'll turn into sticky-shed-infested piles of goo before I toss them.
Bootleg VHS of Empire Strikes Back by Manos	Dec 30th, 2008 09:17:55 AM
One of my prized posessions is a bootleg VHS copy of The Empire Strikes Back. It's about 4th generation, which means its nearly unwatchable, but I still love it. Some guy in New York used to set up a camera in a theater he ran and tape the movies. I got mine through a hustler I worked with at JC Penny. I lost contact wtih him and found out that the FCC had raided his home about a year later. They confiscated his tapes (blank VHS tapes were worth about $25 a pop then), his VHS machine, and fined him thousands of dollars. That was my first and last foray into the dark realm of bootleg movies.
RAIDERS was my first VHS by slone13	Dec 30th, 2008 09:19:20 AM
I still have it. It weighs like 3 pounds.
LOL, Desk Of Steel by Rebeck2	Dec 30th, 2008 09:20:45 AM
This is one of the greatest talkbacks ever! I'm getting a huge kick out of all these memories. Worth going back and reading every post. Not to get all Up-With-People on you, but it's always great when movie geeks bond over the good stuff and not just fight tooth and nail over what director is a worthless hack, etc. You know what I mean?
Anybody remember the first VHS machines... by Manos	Dec 30th, 2008 09:23:18 AM
designed for mass marketing? They cost $999.95, were top loaders and the remote control consisted of switch attached to a long cord that allowed the viewer to pause the recording. The good thing about them was the record heads. They lasted forever and were easily replaced.
My first VHS... by MurderMostFowl	Dec 30th, 2008 09:24:51 AM
My first VHS that I owned was "Swiss Family Robinson." The VCR was a gift from my grandparents to my parents and they bought that for the kids and some PBS show for my mom. My first bootleg tape was the Rankin/Bass Hobbit cartoon and "Rock and Rule". Another fond memory is Tron... we never owned it we rented it like 10 times.
My first VHS.... by stardogg	Dec 30th, 2008 09:26:25 AM
.....was Blade Runner but ask me what my first DVD purchase was I couldn't tell you.
Star Trek by oogabooga	Dec 30th, 2008 09:28:03 AM
I still remember enbarking on my quest to tape every episode of Star Trek TOS off of late night tv. Only one episode per tape to get the highest quality. I still have that huge box full of vhs tapes in my basement.
Taking pride in editing out commercials when recording on VHS... by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 09:29:45 AM
There is talent to be commended with a seemless commercial cut. It's a timely push of the pause button while recording with VHS. I had a copy of "Teen Wolf" that aired on NBC that I took pride in. You know what I'm talking about?
ALL MY MOVIES ARE ALREADY ON MY HD by Bishop6	Dec 30th, 2008 09:30:39 AM
and I stream them to my Xbox360 wirelessly. Why bother with physical media anymore>????
VHS of Ghostbusters by Logo Lou	Dec 30th, 2008 09:32:22 AM
I watched that thing hundereds of times. My parents, particularly my dad, never understood it. To this day he doesn't know why you'd ever want to watch a movie you've already seen ANOTHER time. Ever notice how heavy the earlier tapes were to the later ones? I hope Blu Ray takes off at least as a burnable disk media. I like having a burned disk backup of the really important stuff and DVD's 4 gigs ain't cutting it anymore. I've had hardrives fail and not be able to get anything off of them, but only two dvd's I've burned failed, and I was still able to get more than half my files off them.
Okay... I'll Add A Confession by Rebeck2	Dec 30th, 2008 09:32:44 AM
I was a senior in high school in '81, when VCR's were breaking out but still, as mentioned above, about $1000. Two guys at a gas station offered to sell one to my girlfriend's father for $100. I begged my dad for the money and he gave it to me but told me it was a scam. The guys led us to a warehouse, took our money and ran. We were lucky they didn't take our car or just kill us. My only excuse was I was young and stupid and a rabid movie geek. My girlfriend's father, on the other hand, was 40 and clearly an idiot. When I came home and apologized to my Dad, offered to work off the money, he just laughed and said I learned a valuable lesson. You gotta' love that kind of fathering. I mean, that's Andy Griffith shit.
WHATS VHS? by alice 13	Dec 30th, 2008 09:33:49 AM

Wired remotes by ByTor	Dec 30th, 2008 09:34:12 AM
Ah, yes. Our first VCR had a wireless remote, and I remember thinking wired remotes were useless, but a friend of mine pointed out: "You don't have little ones in your house, do you? I always know where my (wired) remote is."
Err...no, Lobanhaki... by Motoko Kusanagi	Dec 30th, 2008 09:41:08 AM
Here in Europe, VHS tapes weren't 4:3, movies were mostly always in 16:9. No Pan&Scan. So VHS is analog. So it's low res. Who the fuck cares? My first own VHS recorder cost me about $1.400 (in words: ONE THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED!!!) back in 1993 (because it was a 6-head stereo recorder). I still own 300+ VHS tapes, and I'm not going to throw them away. And to Bishop6, that showoff moron: I love physical media VERY much.
The first VHS that I by Deep Roots	Dec 30th, 2008 09:41:13 AM
personally bought as a kid was The Land Before Time.
Scotfree... Battle Beyond the Stars by MurderMostFowl	Dec 30th, 2008 09:41:30 AM
Oh now that's good memories! I kept seeing parts of that movie on TV , never knowing what it was until years and years later. I remember thinking the ships were so cool. hhehehehe.
Digital Downloads? by geekzapoppin	Dec 30th, 2008 09:43:11 AM
Enjoy your films while they last because the studios can turn them off at any time. Get a new machine? All your downloaded movies are gone. Studio decides to shut down the DRM server? Again, bye-bye! No thanks. VHS may be less-than-pristine, but I can still pop in my copies of films that aren't available on other formats and watch them. Same with DVD or LD. If the studios switch entirely to digital downloads, you'll be on a message board (or whatever they have twenty years from now) saying, "Remember when you used to be able to watch that movie? Can't see it at all now." Digital downloads are great for rental, but lousy for collecting or archiving.
Digital Noise... by ZoeFan	Dec 30th, 2008 09:44:25 AM
That's one problem with Digital Downloads (as well as action shows/movies on HD Channels). No such problem on Blu-Ray.
I had chili for lunch. by Godovhellfire	Dec 30th, 2008 09:46:38 AM

Bringin' a tear to me eye... by Major Hockshtetter	Dec 30th, 2008 09:49:38 AM
Wizard Home Video, Media Home Video, VCI/United Home Video, Gorgon Home Video, Paragon... my first job washing dishes in a nasty italian restaurant was solely to feed my VHS bootlegging habit. I had 4 VCRS running and copying at all times. Amassed a 2000 movie collection, all taped on EP, 4 movies per tape. (I used to calculate running times for optimum use of 6 hours.) What a waste of my youth, I love it!!!
Why would the studios switch off digital downloads? by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 09:49:40 AM
Because they've decided, en masse, that they have enough money? I don't get it. That's like saying, "What if Blockbuster decide to nail the doors shut on all their shops? Where will you rent Zombie Strippers from then?"
My fondest VHS memory. by Royston Lodge	Dec 30th, 2008 09:49:52 AM
My copy of the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy which was sold on one VHS cassette. In order to fit it all on, the cassette was recorded in EP/SLP. Imagine that: A commercial video sold in crappy SLP, just so they wouldn't have to put the thing on two cassettes.
The Big Leap by Willips Brighton	Dec 30th, 2008 09:50:40 AM
from VHS to DVD may never be matched again ... certainly isn't matched by DVD-to-Blu-Ray, and 'digital download' is struggling to catch up with DVD quality. Everyone is so convinced that digital downloading is the future, but there are SO many kinks to be worked out (plus the fact that you can't easily transport the movie to, say, a friend's house).
And another thing to think about... by Royston Lodge	Dec 30th, 2008 09:51:26 AM
Consider this: The last manufacturer of VHS cassettes is shutting down, but you can still buy 8mm film for your old movie cameras (processing included!).
Can I still buy U-Matic tapes? by Royston Lodge	Dec 30th, 2008 09:53:10 AM
I have a U-Matic VTR taking up space in my closet. Hehehe.
Time to convert by Frankenbastard	Dec 30th, 2008 09:54:36 AM
Looks like I better get on top of converting that wedding video. I remember those first gigantic faux wood-grained monstrosities. You had to push down on the loader like you were giving CPR to a heart attack victim. My first box was a beta-max and it was far superior than standard VHS but like the car companies they flooded the market with big clunky pieces of crap and buried poor little Beta. Adios VHS, i hate you and i always will.
Cornoponious, that is a great story by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 09:54:43 AM
Thanks for the chuckle, you czar of porn you
Ah, VHS... by DocPazuzu	Dec 30th, 2008 09:54:48 AM
…how I love you. The first VHS tape I owned was a bootleg of the Battlestar Galactica ”movie” (two spliced episodes) which my dad brought home from the high school he worked at back in 1980. That school had FOUR VCRs so dad had hooked up two of them and copied the rental tape. My sister and I must have watched that thing a thousand times. We were living in Sweden at the time and movie censorship was still at a draconian stage when it came to violence and horror, but there were still no laws which pertained to movies available on home video. This meant that the coddled Swedish moviegoing public was suddenly subjected to the likes of Lucio Fulci, Cannibal Holocaust and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre on VHS. The moral panic which subsequently arose, like the one in Britain, was HUGE. What followed was almost fifteen years of even more oppressive censorship with movies either banned (like Hooper’s classic) or cut to pieces (like Superman II and 48 Hrs). Needless to say, my friends and I became bootlegging freaks, obtaining -- with great difficulty -- banned or censored films on VHS from other countries. I remember almost shitting myself when I finally saw an uncut version of An American Werewolf in London. In Swedish cinemas, they had cut the ENTIRE nightmare sequence so you can imagine my absolute shock and horror when I saw the Nazi werewolf demons come out of nowhere and mangle David’s family. Awesome! I also saw my first pornos on VHS, courtesy of a friend whose dad had a big collection and couldn’t tell which ones were missing or not. Thus, at the age of 13, my lifelong infatuation with Brigitte Lahaie and Kay Parker began after having watched a number of Alpha France skinflicks and Taboo on VHS. I also hold a special place in my heart for Fleshdance (Ah, Rachel Ashley and Shauna Evans…). To this day I own over five thousand VHS tapes, some pre-recorded, but most of them filled with recordings I’ve made since 1981 up until just a few years ago. They are all in excellent shape and I’ve begun transferring the most golden nuggets to digital format. I could never abide any blank spots on my tapes so when I had finished recording a movie or TV show, I’d let the rest of the tape fill with commercials, music videos and any other shit I could find being broadcast. Nowadays, those little throwaway clips are more valuable to me than most of the films and shows! I still have a JVC world compatible VCR (plays all VHS systems, including PAL, NTSC and SECAM in three speeds) hooked up and will NEVER get rid of my collection – not just because of the rare and irreplaceable things I’ve taped, but because of the sheer sentimental value. I also still have one of my first machines, the family’s old Salora top-loader from 1982, which still works like a charm and has never broken down. VHS has gotten even more precious in many ways because of the internet. In the course of scouring the internet for info on obscure movies and shows I remember from when I was a kid, more often than not I’ve found the actual film or show itself online thanks to some enterprising individuals who just happened to have taped them way back when and decided to share them with the world via bittorrent. I still peruse the VHS shelves in old used comic/record/book stores in the hopes of finding some rare tidbit to salvage (Super Hornio Brothers, I WILL find you one day!). While on the subject of obsolete video formats I have to geek out a bit and mention my fully functioning 1980 Philips V2000! Remember that system? It was superior to both Betamax and VHS in terms of picture and sound quality and had flippable cassettes which looked like oversized versions of audio cassettes, enabling eight hours of SP recording. It failed, of course, but I love that machine dearly. I even found a whole box of unopened blank V2000 cassettes at a flea market a few years ago which I bought for virtually nothing.
Technology always catches up by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 09:56:39 AM
That's just the way it works. The internet is not going away. MP3s have shown that people like the simplicity and convenience of downloading music that sounds just as good as CDs. Why wouldn't the same thing happen for films? As to portability, it doesn't seem like much of stretch to imagine a kind of iPod for films that you can simply carry to your mate's house and plug into their telly. Boffns are working on this as we speak!
U-Matic Players/Cassettes by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 09:56:45 AM
You'd be surprised. Some university professors use these because the films that they show in their classes were only released on this format (usually science/medical stuff).
Hey Rebeck2... My VHS confession by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 09:59:44 AM
Remember how hard it was to rent a popular movie before Blockbuster came around. The rental stores usually only had one or two copies and you'd have to be fairly lucky. When I was 11, I called and called over and over again to see if "No Holds Barred" was in and if it was, could it be held for me. The clerk finally told me to get some better taste in movies or don't call back. He was wrong! I had good taste and that movie was worth the wait...for an 11 year old.
Franklin T Marmoset: Disney by MurderMostFowl	Dec 30th, 2008 10:01:01 AM
Disney did this with VHS tapes. They'd put a moratorium on selling certain features so they could brin git back out again later. When the DIVX format ( the original DVD format, not the video codec the name is taken from ) came out, this is precisely what Disney and other studios wanted to be able to do. They could prevent you from watching the movie if they didn't want you to watch it anymore and then come out with a "new" version that is more expensive.
For me it was Star Wars by Blue_Demon	Dec 30th, 2008 10:04:02 AM
Or as you young whipper-snappers call it "Episode IV: A New Hope." I loved (and love) that movie so much as a kid I saw it over and over and over at the theater and thought it would be great to own a copy. You COULD get an 8 minute reel of Star Wars highlights on 8mm film if you ordered from the Captain Company (Harry knows who they are.) If you would have told me years ago that someday I would own copies of the Trilogy I'd have thought you were nuts. "Own Star Wars? I wish!" So long VHS...thanks for all the fun.
Hi-Fi VHS by k88dad	Dec 30th, 2008 10:04:25 AM
I held out on the VHS revolution until the first stereo-capable VCRs came out. I hooked that bad boy into the sound system, and people were impressed. The first thing that I recorded was This Is Spinal Tap.
CLASH OF THE FKING TITANS!!!! by brokenheadstuff	Dec 30th, 2008 10:04:51 AM
aaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrHHHHHHHHHHHF GFGGGGGGGG!!!!!
VHS vs DVD vs BLURAY vs DOWNLOAD by Conqueror Worm	Dec 30th, 2008 10:05:37 AM
I'm on the edge of going 'HD', to upgrade from VHS to DVD all I needed to buy was a £120 DVD player, to upgrade to HD I need to buy a HDTV (approx £600) and a Blu-Ray player (£200) - its a bit off-putting. And now with talk of download I'm thinking 'What the fuck?'. I'm pro-physical ownership, I still don't own an iPod because if I pay £8 for an album I don't want it in 'ones and zeros' via the t'internet, I want to own a physical copy of the damn thing, fair enough 'ones and zeros' on a plastic disc, but still. Thats what worries me about download.
Home video... the ultimate drug! by Major Hockshtetter	Dec 30th, 2008 10:06:51 AM
I worked at a video outlet that charged a 100 dollar yearly membership fee... and guess what that got you? NOTHING! The ability to rent at our store!!! HA! Find me one other business that worked that way!!! That's like a laundromat charging you yearly so you can go feed their machines with quarters, it's totally insane! Best of all, our rental prices... early on, it was $4.00 per title and you could put a down payment on reserving titles before they came out. Our reservation book was kept in a spiral notebook!!! We screwed up reservations all the time. Ahhh, the glory days.
MurderMostFowl by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 10:13:43 AM
But aren't those silly attempts to control how people watch films the reason why DIVX failed? No one liked it, it was not successful, it died a Darwinian death. Sure, as we evolve toward a new way of distributing and owning films, some of the studios will try a dick move or two to make some extra cash, but those kind of things usually end up backfiring.
I suppose I'm a bit of a hippy in some respects by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 10:18:03 AM
I don't get the need for physical ownership at all. As far as I'm concerned, I'm paying for the talent and skill of the artists who made the film or album and not the piece of plastic it's delivered to me in. I love films and I love music, and I'm happy to pay for those things. Shiny discs in plastic boxes just take up space and need dusting. As I said before, I hate dusting.
8 years old, my first VHS Tapes were... by Laughing Irishman	Dec 30th, 2008 10:20:57 AM
...Ghostbusters and Indiana Jones: Raider of the Lost Ark. Ah, the memories. :)
Again With The Dusting by Rebeck2	Dec 30th, 2008 10:29:43 AM
Yeah okay... But looking at your whole collection on the shelf (-ves), nobody else's but YOUR collection, in all it's eclectic and sentimental glory, with movies no one else likes (they're crazy), your DVD self-portrait and autobiography, your life and loves in a Keep Case (and yeah sometimes snap case)...that's a good feeling for a geek. Just like books, I like being surrounded by my favorite movies. Truth be told, sometimes I just run my hand along the spines. And cackle like a Bond villain. Mine...all mine!!
VHS memories by dignan26	Dec 30th, 2008 10:31:16 AM
Watching ST: TNG, recorded the night before every Sunday afternoon after church. Something my dad and both my brothers and I all did together.
DRM'd downloads by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 10:32:01 AM
My feelings on the downloadable media thing are mixed. I gave up buying CDs a few years ago, but still routinely purchase DVDs/Blu-Rays. Shit, I still buy hardcover books. However, while I gave up buying CDs, I have been opposed to the I-Tunes 'lock it down' business model since its inception. I seek out legal downloads and have an EMusic account which is gloriously DRM-free. I am now hopelessly addicted to digital media-sharing throughout my house, and it stomps the living shit out of any vinyl record/8-track/cassette tape/CD. I hope that when digital distribution becomes more pervasive than it is today, some company attempts to follow a similar practice. Because, yeah, while not PHYSICALLY owning the media in question does not bother me, the notion that I don't even truly own the download I paid for does. And like the poster somewhere above pointed out, those DRM servers could all go offline one day - mind you, I'd probably be more concerned with fighting off the zombies, mutants, and/or T-1000s to worry about whether or not my favorite tunes will queue.
Conqueror Worm-- by Raymar	Dec 30th, 2008 10:32:05 AM
You can always burn digital music on a disc to get your physical copy. The problem is I don't think people will be allowed to do the same with downloaded movies...
First Tapes were. . . by darkslab	Dec 30th, 2008 10:35:36 AM
Dark Crystal, Tron and Star Wars
My early firsts on VHS by TheGreatPumpkin	Dec 30th, 2008 10:36:37 AM
1st VHS Christmas gift was Robocop (I was 7) 1st date with my wife was watching The Big Lebowski 1st bootlegged cartoon was The Jungle Book, followed closely by The Lost Cities of Gold (originally French, The Mysterious Cities of Gold)
Long live the Frankenhooker VHS case! by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 10:41:01 AM
"Wanna date?"
My First VHS by ZooTrain	Dec 30th, 2008 10:42:31 AM
I'm thinking the first VHS tape I owned was The Goonies. I'm pretty sure. I can't think of anything earlier. Nevertheless, I think this article is a repeat from 2003...
Blu-Ray hype is mainly on this site Sales are "ok" by Quake II	Dec 30th, 2008 10:42:55 AM
The numbers are in and the PS3 is the third highest selling system of 2007. The rulers of this site would have you believe that EVERYONE has Blu-Ray at this point. Totally not true. XBox 360 & Wii outsold the PS3. Blu-Ray is far from mainstream. People are still thrilled with standard DVD (and the crazy low prices). Sony is taking in the ass with the PS3 cost and 399 price point. They have laid off hundreds of employees and are worried about the very poor PS3 sales this year. Remember last year when we were told that EVERY home would have a PS3?
Robocop for a 7-year old? by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 10:42:56 AM
Whoever bought that movie for you didn't do their homework, GreatPumpkin. At the time, that movie was one of the most violent, profanity-laced movies EVER. And they gave it to a SEVEN year old?!
Raymar by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 10:42:58 AM
If the digital copy of The Dark Knight that WB shilled alongside a Blu-Ray purchase of said movie is any indication of things to come, you are quite fucking correct. Unfortunately.
I feel that VHS died when the last movie was released on the for by NinjaRap	Dec 30th, 2008 10:44:11 AM
Which would have been "A History of Violence" back in '06 apparently.
Abominable Snowcone by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 10:48:44 AM
I got "From Beyond" from my uncle when I was 8. He did his homework and that's why he is called the crazy uncle.
Quake II by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 10:48:50 AM
You are quite fucking correct also. I'm starting to feel like I paid $500 for a Sony Dreamcast. SCEA, et al, best remove head from ass soonly, or my fellow PS3 owners and I will be bluntly buggered. How many mllions have they wasted on developing shit like the Home app, about which, ultimately, no-one will care a tin shit? /hijack. I now return you to your scheduled program, VHS Memories.
LOL - Sorry, Rebeck2 by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 10:49:13 AM
I'm a bit of a clean freak, so the less I have to dust the better. I get what you're saying about looking over your collection, but I've found that that need has adjusted pretty well to the MP3 age. It used to be I liked to look over all my CDs on the shelf (and vinyl before that), but these days I get the same satisfaction from scrolling through iTunes. Additionally, iTunes has given me a new geek quirk: checking out how many times each of the songs have been played. I really enjoy that, for some reason.
RIP VHS by codymr	Dec 30th, 2008 10:52:05 AM
Like you Harry, I had amassed a large collection of VHS... but I can't remember the last VHS recording I watched - it's been years. In fact, I don't even have a VCR anymore once I moved to a PVR system. In November I was moving to a new place and tossed or gave away about 90% of my VHS collection... I kept a few for nostalgic reasons, but I can't even play them because I don't have a VCR. I was over at my Uncle's the other day and noticed in his basement a BETA deck with a bunch of tapes that had recordings from 1st Choice (Canada's answer to HBO in the early 80s). According to him it still works fine. So I wonder if there will be a BETA/VHS Renaissance like vinyl has seen in recent years?
I don't get the "digital copy" stuff by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 10:54:30 AM
on DVDs, or why they would appeal to anyone. If I were to be content with simply owning a "digital copy," there are sites where I could hypothetically download it for free, via the DVD-rip someone else uploaded. Seems to me like if the movie industry doesn't get hip and lower their prices for physical media (DVDs), then that market will go the way of the record industry, which failed to pay attention when downloading gained prominence. They kept charging (and still charge) between 12-19 bucks for a dumb CD, when everyone knows you could get the material online for nothing or next to it, then burn it yourself if having physical media suits your fancy. Nowadays, if I am hellbent on owning a real DVD of a movie, I buy a used copy at one of local blockbusters for like seven bucks. That, to me, is reasonable.
I read "It's not really dead.." in an earlier Subject line, by HyphenatedWords	Dec 30th, 2008 10:56:14 AM
and I thought of Bones in "Wrath of Khan." VHS is not really dead, you know? As long as we remember it. Scotty, play us some Amazing Grace on those pipes while we launch our VCR in a photon torpedo made of VHS tapes. We didn't know it then, but it was all about the information. I could start quoting Sneakers. Because what we had in our hands was so physical -- you could see the grooves in the record, you could see the crinkled tape after it had been eaten, you could splice an audio cassette with a bit of scotch tape -- it anchors in our memories as activities, routines, and traditions. The glue that binds VHS to our hearts is the lost concept of anticipation and, in a big way to a kid, accomplishment. Would I turn in my MacBook Pro, broadband access to the Internet, Skype access to friends and family, Maya, and Creative Suites to go back in time and wait for a low quality version of a favorite film to come out again? Wow. I'd love to be a fly on the wall, just for a week, and watch life as it was. But I'll keep my MacBook Pro.
Empire Strikes Back/Return of the Jedi/Turk 182 by the_other_lebowski	Dec 30th, 2008 10:57:30 AM
We had Beta first and my brother and I watched that tape the most, save for Turk 182, can't tell you a damn thing about that movie. We also had a double feature of Follow that Bird/Muppets Take Manhattan on Beta. Funny thing was, until the late 80s when our family finally bought a VHS player, my brother and I had no idea about A New Hope. "Look! Obi-Wan is alive!" We still have several, hours long mixtapes of Three Stooges marathons, which have since retired to the lakehouse.
This is a great TB by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 30th, 2008 10:57:38 AM
One of the best non-CoC talkbacks I've read in a while. It's been fun reading all your stories about first VHS films and whatnot. Very nostalgic.
Snowcone by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 10:58:57 AM
I think the various companies have done a pretty bang up job at bringing the price of Blu-Rays down to a competitive level.
And to think: by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 11:02:17 AM
Jailbird Jack Abramoff tried to stick us all with VCPs ...
Beta Beta Beta by gnortsmra	Dec 30th, 2008 11:04:59 AM
My family was an unabashed supporter of Beta (I finally got rid of mine 3-4 years ago). I still remember having on the same tape Star Wars (the original cut) and MegaForce (which I'm still trying to find on disc somewhere-- anyone?), as well as an overly complicated/borderline OCD filing method. The seeds of geeky film love were planted back then, along with an encyclopedic knowledge of edited-for-Playboy channel film titles. Good times, indeed.
First VHS = Pink Floyd's The Wall by codereduk	Dec 30th, 2008 11:05:49 AM
When I was in High School I used to come home and watch The Wall before I did anything else. Every. Day. I did that my Sophmore and part of my Junior year. Which means I've seen that movie well over 400 times. And I still love it.
I'm sorry... by DocPazuzu	Dec 30th, 2008 11:06:42 AM
...but digital downloads will never replace physical media. I have an iPod and over 5000 MP3s on it. I have also backed up each and every one of those MP3s on CDs. I love the easy access of my iPod, but I'll never lose the thrill of seeing my movie, book and record collection filling shelves from floor to ceiling. If someone places their entire music or film collection on one disc, drive or device and loses the entire thing due to some sort of malfunction I would laugh in their faces.
But now we realize... by HyphenatedWords	Dec 30th, 2008 11:07:15 AM
...that it was never about the medium. It was about the data, then in analog, that we held on that tape or was etched into that vinyl. I love thinking about the advancement from audio cassette to CD. It was strange, amazing, and high quality. You didn't need to scan through songs to get to the one you wanted to listen to (Hey, this is more like an 8-track!). It could still get scratched, and we weren't sure exactly how it worked, but it was the next thing. I think few people realized how fundamentally different the medium was. We still thought of CDs as being a "thing," an "end product," and not a storage medium. All the public needed was a computer that could read and share the files contained on that disc, and the medium becomes irrelevant. We like owning things. We're physical beings with a transient tenancy here. The tapes and albums we owned were a part of our identity. I knew where every scratch and pop on my Empire soundtrack was. It sounded great when I listened to in on CD for the first time, but it wasn't "mine." It's all about the information, Marty.
gnortsmra by DocPazuzu	Dec 30th, 2008 11:07:56 AM
MegaForce is comercially available in the Netherlands on DVD -- anamorphic widescreen, too. I have a copy and it looks great.
FatherMcGruder by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 11:08:03 AM
I'm just a standard DVD guy. Can't afford a fancy TV or stereo system, so not much point in getting BluRay player yet. The resolution is fine with me, and I agree that the prices for those DVDs keep going down. I mostly get movies for my kids from the library, and I rent or buy used DVDs. Even then, a lot of what we watch at home was stuff we saw at the show. I wish someone would release a DVD of Billy Joel's "Live from Long Island" concert, 1982. That was another huge first VHS for me. That, along with Paul McCartney Rockshow and James Taylor live from Blossom '79 were the first big music home vids for me. And when the documentary Yes Years came out (much later, in like 1991), I rented that thing again and again. one of the best older music documentaries ever. Oh, and someone please release a DVD of all of David Lee Roth's music videos. I want a good clarity copy of all those funny Eat Em and Smile vids, with Steve Vai and the colorful spandex and the glazed donuts to go.
Hyphenated by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 11:10:29 AM
I agree with your point about the satisfaction of owning physical media. I'm still kind of bemoaning how LP cover art has died out, since you can't really squish fancy, lavish artwork in a jewel box. Over the years, I've gone back and (re-)purchased albums I already own on disc just to have the artwork. Stuff like Yes, with the Roger Dean sleeves. I frickin' LOVE that stuff.
the 1980 flash gordon movie by snaredrum	Dec 30th, 2008 11:11:56 AM
recorded off the tv in 1988. a vhs to record it on cost £7.99... those were the days!
DocPazuzu by gnortsmra	Dec 30th, 2008 11:13:08 AM
Thanks for the lead!
The first tape I remember my parents buying by BrandonGK	Dec 30th, 2008 11:15:58 AM
For me and my brother was either Batman or ET.
I remember.... by Thot	Dec 30th, 2008 11:17:20 AM
...my first sales job was in an electronics/appliance store. We sold vcrs (with or without stereo) for upwards of 700-800 bucks, S-VHS anyone?) I was just getting into laserdisc when I heard rumblings of DVD. I wisely held off and got my first DVD player in '98. (a Mitsubishi). I was elated. No more 'pan and scan' or 'cropped' movies!!!! So long VHS, you did your job, rest in peace.
My first store bought VHS was "Gremlins" by The Reluctant Austinite	Dec 30th, 2008 11:24:19 AM
My first VHS rental (when the SPP was $100) was "The Terminator." I still have some VHS movies that have never made the leap to a digital format. I have "Doctor Strange" (the 70s TV movie), Dan Curtis' "The Curse of the Black Widow," MTV's animated "The Maxx" and likely more obscure stuff packed away in boxes that might never see the light of dvd.
Ahhh the video store memories.... by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 11:27:49 AM
When I was young, the closest I could get to seeing an "Elm St" or a "Friday the 13th" movie was by checking out the backs of the VHS boxes. The images on the case would stay im my mind and usually be more frightening than the movies themselves. The younger generations out there will never know what is was like to hunt down or discover a movie in a video store. Even going to Circuit City or Best Buy, they have the DVDs all tossed up sideways on the shelf.
But...... by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 11:28:31 AM
no more tracking knobs to mess with.
Reluctant Austinite by DocPazuzu	Dec 30th, 2008 11:28:47 AM
The Dan Curtis 1970s made-for-TV horror movies were THE SHIT, and a perfect example of movies that live and are spread today thanks in large part to VHS copies which have been digitized and circulated online. I only just recently downloaded The Curse of the Black Widow which scared the shit out of me when I was a kid.
i sill feel know need to get Blu-ray. by BMacSmith	Dec 30th, 2008 11:29:52 AM
Long live DVD!
know =no by BMacSmith	Dec 30th, 2008 11:30:30 AM
yeah, its early
"Sony Dreamcast"? by wash	Dec 30th, 2008 11:32:07 AM
That would be worth more than $500, a rare specimen such as that.
Night Flight on USA by wash	Dec 30th, 2008 11:34:47 AM
I used to record the best bits off of that. And I had a monstrous MST3K collection, up until the dapcentral.org guys converted all the eps to digital.
DocPaz by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 11:36:52 AM
Not trying to be a know-it-all or pain in the ass, but NO data is ever lost. You'd be surprised what you can subject even a cheap-ass flash drive to, and still manage to recover most if not all data contained thereupon. An intense fire could do my drives in, I suppose, but a fire'd kill your DVD collection just as fast, if not faster.
marmoset: by Dollar Bird	Dec 30th, 2008 11:37:15 AM
For some reason, that playcount is a big deal to me, too. Imagine my disappointment when my iPod went on the fritz a year back and, after salvaging the 5000 files on it, every song had to go back to playcount of 0. I was less than pleased. After I bemoaned my situation to one of my friends, she said, "You actually care about that stuff?"
Wash by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 11:38:35 AM
That was, I'd hoped, decipherable wordplay. Guess not.
Doc Pazuzu by The Reluctant Austinite	Dec 30th, 2008 11:41:55 AM
There's a good article on Dan Curtis' 70s horror films in the new Rue Morgue magazine with the "My Bloody Valentine" cover. With the recent release of "Dead of Night," most of his good stuff is on dvd. I have the VHS of "Trilogy of Terror 2" as well, which hasn't made it to dvd either.
I know it was a joke but more hybrid systems by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 11:42:39 AM
Nintendo 2600, Atari Master System, Turbografx 64, Sega Jaguar, and the X-Genesis 360.
BluRay... who cares? by frozen01	Dec 30th, 2008 11:42:56 AM
I've seen the two (DVD vs. BluRay) and unless you have a really nice TV, you're probably not going to notice the difference at home. And even if you can, for the average person, is it really worth the additional cost of buying a new player plus paying extra for the new discs (even if the price has come down)? It all comes down to convenience. CDs beat tapes because of the ease of use in finding the track you wanted (even if it meant having to take a little bit better care of the disc) and the added bonus was clearer, cleaner tunes. Now, we have iPods and other MP3 players, which make it even more convenient because you don't have to carry your collection of CDs around to have all your songs at your fingertips, plus you don't have to worry about skipping. In addition, you can buy a song anytime you want (with an internet connection)... no driving to the store or waiting in lines. I've bought songs and games while sitting in the community college's student lounge with my iPod touch waiting for a friend... how convenient is that? So you have to backup your data... so what? Back in the day, if your CD was lost, stolen, or scratched beyond the ability to continue playing it, that was game over... unless you'd backed it up on your computer. And that happened a hell of a lot more times to my CD collection (stolen from my car 3 times) than my iPod (never stolen, never crashed, never lost even a single song). Time to pull yourselves out of the "good old days", boys... occasionally, progress in technology is just better.
I'm not trying to start anything by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 11:45:52 AM
But this year is make or break for the PS3. Nintendo has a huge lead over Microsoft and Sony, and Microsoft has a sizeable lead over Sony. Is Resident Evil 5 still a PS3 exclusive? I don't think a leading company has made this huge of a mistake since Sega with all of their countless Genesis add-ons and the early Saturn launch.
also, kravmaguffin: by Dollar Bird	Dec 30th, 2008 11:47:38 AM
I remember one night my buddies and I rented "Dagora the Space Monster" (a Japanese monster flick about a giant flying jellyfish that ate diamonds and died by bee stings) and "Gunsmith Cats" (an anime about two chicks who shot things). We watched "Dagora" first and were delightedly bewildered by this movie that was a combination of a heist film and a monster movie. Then we watched "Gunsmith Cats" and hated it. We were so mad at "Gunsmith Cats" that we taped our own little review at the end of the tape, with hand-puppets making endless farting noises and clips of "Dagora" interspersed claiming that was the better movie. Then we returned them both to the video store. One can't help but wonder if anyone ever rented "Gunsmith" after us and watched past the credits.
VHS didn't come after 35mm film by Sick Fixx	Dec 30th, 2008 11:48:53 AM
You're glossing over the videodisc era. When movies were giant discs you had to slip into a giant player, and at the hour mark, you'd have to turn the videodisc over to the other side to continue watching the movie. VHS made videodisc obsolete.
Dollar Bird by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 11:53:27 AM
Classic! Knowing that would make me want to rent it.
Samuel by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 11:55:11 AM
As a PS3 owner and 14-year supporter of Sony consoles, I believe you are 100% right - it's make or break time. RE5 is NOT an exclusive, they lost exclusivity on the newest Final Fantasy, and most damningly, the whole 'PS3 as entry-level Blu-Ray player' holds no water now that a consumer could jaunt to the nearest Wal-Mart and purchase a stand-alone BR player AND an X360 Arcade for less money.
paying for music downloads in canada is pointless by Bouncy X	Dec 30th, 2008 12:08:57 PM
its still not illegal to download music in canada, believe me they keep trying to pass the laws but they havent yet. so i dont understand why anyone living here would pay to download music when you can just use limewire or whatever program and get em for free. as for the actual topic of VHS dying, i havent seen a VHS in a store in at least 7 or 8 years so color me surprised that it wasnt "officially" dead. i thank their existence because i got to see movies i couldnt in theaters because canada was retarded back then and an R rating meant you had to be 18 to even enter the theater, so no convincing someone to take me. i had a cool mom, she would have taken me to all the inappropriate horror and violent movies if she could...so god bless VHS for least giving me the opportunity to eventually see them.
Video Game Systems sales are always crazy by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 12:12:09 PM
Who would have ever thought five years ago Nintendo would have such a hugely successful home system? I figured after Gamecube (which I owned along with a PS2) they'd go the Sega route and just publish. Of course ten years ago I would never have thought I'd see Sega making games for Nintendo. I guess a lot of it is pushed by price and technology. It's been rare that the most technologically advanced system ever wins a system war. I guess on the video front the same thing happened with the whole VHS vs. Beta thing.
This has been a great time killer at the office today. by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 12:20:52 PM
Very enjoyable! Adios folks and Happy New Year!
I rented long before I bought... by sapno_krei	Dec 30th, 2008 12:21:37 PM
...and the first ones I rented were Octopussy and Airplane II, back in 1985. It's amazing how that memory has lasted all these years.
Desk of Steel FTW by ByTor	Dec 30th, 2008 12:23:41 PM
For not only making a Frankenhooker reference but for actually remembering the talking VHS box it came in. This Bud's for you, DoS.
Digital delivery? Bah by Wyr	Dec 30th, 2008 12:24:52 PM
To this day, I refuse to purchase products that can be taken away by a company going under, or just because they feel like it. That is, "purchasable" streaming videos, and downloads that can't be archived. On another note, even being able to burn discs of downloadable purchased movies isn't good enough at this point. Burned DVDs degrade much, much quicker than pressed ones. Sorry, but it's the truth. Granted, better quality media does last quite a while, but I wouldn't expect them to have the massive lifetimes high quality pressed discs have.
I watched THE THOMAS CROWN AFFAIR on VHS yesterday... by Motoko Kusanagi	Dec 30th, 2008 12:35:43 PM
...and what can I say? Nice tits, Mrs. Russo. Very nice indeed.
Eraserhead for $59.95 by Jerri Blank	Dec 30th, 2008 12:36:52 PM
And I worked at a grocery store to save up the money to buy it.
And believe it or not: by Motoko Kusanagi	Dec 30th, 2008 12:39:53 PM
I still record on VHS. Seriously.
Franklin by Vern	Dec 30th, 2008 12:40:08 PM
There would be obvious advantages to having all these movies without having a closet full of DVD covers. But what happens when your external hard drive bites it, which has happened to me more than once? If all the movies I bought were on there I'd be pissed. Do you think the studios really want digital downloads? It seems like it would make it harder to double dip. And what about Christmas gifts? Those collector sets with the fancy statues and shit? We need our physical objects!
VHS Memories by eXcommunicated	Dec 30th, 2008 12:40:44 PM
I used to spend hours taping and watching ST:TNG episodes, then spend countless more hours categorizing each tape. I remember taping all kinds of Sci-Fi shows, including TNG, TOS, or even the crazy shit they used to show back when the Sci Fi Channel first launched in the mid 90s. I wish I could find those tapes again. :(
Vern - you don't pay to record TV by lsleelee	Dec 30th, 2008 12:41:05 PM
You pay for the programming information that allows you to select "Record MASH" or "Record all showings of MASH" or whatever with one or two button presses. If you want, you can hook the Tivo up without a subscription and program your recording time / channel manually just like back in the VCR days. That's what I do.
fyi by jigsaw	Dec 30th, 2008 12:44:44 PM
at the giant music/video store I work at in San Francisco vhs sales are still brisk. Granted they're mostly selling for under $5, but there seems to be a small, fervent, and perennial (even growing? more and more kids seems to be picking up on vhs like it's vinyl) market for the format. This just seems like a random moment to call the time.
We're living in a Golden Era for film by Conqueror Worm	Dec 30th, 2008 12:46:08 PM
When my parents talk about owning music on Vinyl, I realise I missed out on a Golden Era for owning music, great packaging, very collectable, sounds great and is just uber-cool. We have 'bad quality' mp3's, no artwork, compressed to 10% of the original file size, its audiably poor in sound quality, I can tell the difference instantly. I'm worried the same will happen to downloading film, they'll start selling it back to us in a poorer quality - just so we can fit it on our mobile hard-drives. Surely now we are living in the Golden Era for owning film, DVD and Blu-ray are great quality, VHS had a lot of problems - even when it was the best format we knew it was poor, I know I was the first to run to DVD when it arrived. Will we look back, like our parents before us and realise how good we had it?
I remember back then by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 12:50:19 PM
it was a big deal when movies were "released" on VHS at the local movie store. Not like today, where you can check online and know months in advance when a DVD will hit shelves. Back then it was like, "OMIGOD, Beverly Hills Cop is OUT! Gotta rent it!" This talkback has probably been the coolest thing since Sly two years ago. I love you Sly, on VHS
Conqueror worm by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 12:54:16 PM
I agree, but each Era is only as golden as one wants it to be. Like I mentioned here earlier, even though I have a lot of CDs of my favorite artists, I've gone back and bought up LPs just for their visual aspect. Sure, it just takes up space, but I love looking at that shit. It truly is "art" in a way that no itune download could ever be. And music can be found in any quality, on any media you want if you look for it, and--in some cases--pay. Sigh...there's just something about the tattered cardboard corners of an oft-visited LP sleeve or old VHS movie box sleeve.
Plus back then by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 12:55:34 PM
It usually took at least 6 months or more for a film to go from theaters to VHS. Now it's usually 4 months or less. Does take some of the allure away from both the theatrical and home experience.
We're definitly in a golden age by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 12:57:33 PM
Especially when I can go to a discount store and pick up a new copy of the Easy Rider Special Edition DVD with BFI book for only 3 bucks. Get this kind of stuff while you can, because once it gets fazed out you'll have to pay big bucks on the second hand market for it.
My best VHS memory... by Deathpool	Dec 30th, 2008 01:11:02 PM
Wearing out my Ghostbusters tape. I played that thing till it was dead. Good times.
Fulmer by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 01:11:20 PM
Right you are. I take my kids to the show now to see Madagascar or whatever, and my daughter is keen enough to do the math and know it'll be out on DVD in six months, or whatever. I've told her many times that it took a couple years to see a theatrical movie have a television premiere. For a kid like me who didn't have cable or a VCR (until a year or two after they first came out) that was a LONG wait for your Star Wars fix (or whatever). Another movie that I don't think has been released officially in the states on DVD is "Timerider," featuring pre-Remo Fred Ward, a true Warciple. Please God and baby Jesus, give me a Timerider DVD. Until this TB, I never realized how many guys stroked it to Kate Winslet in Titanic. Nice scene, to be sure, but I was already grown up and married by then. In my "spank-it" times, the leading ladies were Kathleen Turner, Teri Garr, Rebecca Demornay, Michelle Pfeiffer, etc. They made this then-12 year old stand very much at attention, until the moment had waned. Heh heh.
I got mine back in '82 by RobinP	Dec 30th, 2008 01:11:39 PM
My first ever tape was a bootleg of Mad Max 2 (Road Warrior to y'all Stateside). Hitachi top loader, state of the art with a wire remote. I remember I had it in my bedroom and used to take it to the living room to record Airwolf because the reception there was better. I'm sad to see the format go, but that's evolution for ya...
I probably also choked it by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 01:13:22 PM
to Kate Capshaw, circa "Temple of Doom" times. And Christie Brinkley, circa "Vacation." I'm sure the list could go on...analog boobies in shadows on VHS tape, sigh...
Raise your hand by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 01:15:48 PM
if you rented "Red Dawn" or "Terminator" on VHS about 1000 times.
I'm not sure about Star Wars on VHS by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 01:15:53 PM
Because I was really young when that came out on video but I think it was 1983. I think Emprire came out in 1984 (because I remember getting it for Christmas), and Jedi came out in 1986. And then of course ET didn't come out until 1987 or 88. Even Jurassic Park took over a year to come out on VHS. I could be wrong, but I think once Independance Day came out Oct of '96 priced to own (when it came out in theaters that June), the big delay in big movies coming out on home formats preaty much disapeared.
Michael Mann's The Keep by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 01:18:05 PM
His first film The Jericho Mile, and the original cuts of both Thief and Last of the Mohicans have yet to arrive on DVD.
Raise your hand by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 01:24:05 PM
if you ever rented U2's "Under a Blood Red Sky" concert on VHS and watched it on a friday night with friends. Or if you got a stiffy when "Rattle and Hum" hit VHS. Any other musical faves on video tape? I was excited when Billy Joel's two video hits (red and blue) came out. I recall renting John Carpenter's "Prince of Darkness" on VHS back in high school and watching it. That was creepy good stuff. Now that I think about it, VHS has a special affinity for me because that stuff was big when I was in high school, so I associate lots of first-fun videotapes fondly with girlfriends and good times and going places and whatnotz
Red Dawn by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 01:24:18 PM
That was pure HBO goodness for me, I think they showed that and The Legend of Billie Jean, back-to-back, 24 hours a day, for like a month. Oh no, wait, I'm sure they also had a comedy special with like Whoopi Goldberg and Howie Mandel wedged in there somewhere, as well as a Men At Work concert.
The House on Carroll Street VHS by Desk of Steel	Dec 30th, 2008 01:27:27 PM
I rented that about 10 times as a kid. It was PG and my parents thought I could be left to watch it alone. I never saw the whole movie, but I saw the part 100 times where Kelly McGillis gets naked and lays in the tub to kill herself. A PG nudity gem!
Walking the plank together.... by Conqueror Worm	Dec 30th, 2008 01:27:32 PM
I have no doubt that the record companies really liked Vinyl as well, it may be their favourite ever format, but they are an industry, a business, they have to keep up with technology and provide the latest format to their ever eager to purchase the 'latest thing' consumers. The fault lies with both parties. DVDs/Blu-Rays are great right now, theyre not bulky like VHS, they look good together on a shelf, when a friend(s) bobs round I can show off my collection and especially my latest purchases, it can be a great discussion/debate starter.
The Stuff by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 01:27:41 PM
Now THAT'S quality rental.
Music Video Fave-WWF Piledriver by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 01:28:40 PM
Watch that with a double feature of Mickey Rourke in The Wrestler. You haven't lived until you've seen Mean Gene in a Blue Wig sing Rock and Roll Hoochie Coo while Hulk Hogan pretends to play a guitar.
Widescreen-only rental tapes in Europe ? by Jaws Wayne	Dec 30th, 2008 01:30:41 PM
Motoko, always thought you were American, apparently I was very wrong. I do know that in Greece and some Northern countries o.a.r on videotapes weren't unique, but that was definitely not the case in Europe's bigger countries (Germany, Spain, France) and my country, the Netherlands. Only the small indies that licensed unknown B-movies sometimes released movies letterboxed on VHS/Beta, but never from the major companies (Warner, Fox, Colombia Tristar etc.).
Two Tape Movies by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 01:32:01 PM
I always like when they'd cram 2 hours worth of a movie on one tape, and 40 on the other. I never quite got why they didn't try to just cut the film in half on each side.
I remember when... by mrfan	Dec 30th, 2008 01:33:29 PM
I bought my first VCR. Cost an arm and leg. My first tape was Raiders of the Lost Ark. Also, very expensive at the time. I remember that there were so many video stores. I didn't even live in a huge town. Everybody was trying to get in on the action. Crazy but fun times.
Captain Power by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 01:34:20 PM
and the soldiers of the future! Anybody? Anybody? Light-gun spaceships aimed at console TVs? Interactive VHS tapes? Anybody? Sven Thorsen? No? crickets
Could someone please by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 01:34:20 PM
print this TB up in booklet form. I'll buy that for a dollar.
My first VHS tape was... by Giant Ape Balls	Dec 30th, 2008 01:34:47 PM
a pirate copy of Return of the Jedi. Living in the UK, this meant I got to watch it months before anyone else. I was such a little shit, I didn't tell any of the other kids at school. It was for my viewing and mine alone!!
Interactive VHS board games by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 01:35:58 PM
I still have a Star Wars one I never opened. It probably sucks.
VHS on how to beat Nintendo games by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 01:36:57 PM
I remeber renting that and watching that to learn how to beat crap like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
SamFulmer by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 01:37:34 PM
You mean like, with the Godfather movies? I know what you mean. That was my first experience with them, renting them all one weekend and having a marathon. Could you imagine if DVD had never been invented, but they decided to include extra tapes of "bonus features" with each movie? They'd be selling VHS tapes in 2 and 3 packs that look like giant bricks.
VHS caused my fear of snakes by Giant Ape Balls	Dec 30th, 2008 01:41:03 PM
My dad took me to the local video store (which probably had no more than 50 titles in it) and I got corned by the owners pet snake!!
Snowcone by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 01:42:16 PM
Funny you should say that, beacause I remember back in 1996/97 there were VHS sets of movies like Scream and The Usual Suspects that bascially imported the Laserdisc supplements over to VHS. SO tape one was the movie, tape two was the movie with the audio commentary soundtrack playing over it, and tape three were the making ofs, deleted scenes, etcs. I guess if the Lord of the Rings DVDs were done that way, each film would take up about 8 tapes. And yeah, I was thinking of the Godfather when I said that about the tape 1 being a lot longer than tape 2.
once upon a time in 1978 by redfishbluefish	Dec 30th, 2008 01:42:32 PM
i spent a summer vacation at a house that had this miraculous contraption called a VCR. They had recorded The Beatles: HELP, War of the Worlds, Dr. No, and And Now For Something Completely Different from the TV. Watched over and over and over and over. Ahh the memories...
Snowcone: Timerider dvd; you don't want it by The Reluctant Austinite	Dec 30th, 2008 01:43:03 PM
Anchor Bay did indeed release "Timerider" on dvd. It's out-of-print now and goes for around $50. The print was excellent and widescreen, but there was a BIG problem with the version of the movie they released. The most memorable scene in the movie was where Peter Coyote gets chopped up by the helicopter leaving only his hacked up boots. In the neutered version they released, he just falls off of a cliff. The director says in the commentary that they changed the ending because of the "Twilight Zone" accident that happened at the time, but I saw it both at the theater and on cable with the helicopter scene in tact. Changing that ending ruined the entire film for me. Maybe you still love it enough to fork out $50, but i doubt it.
Platoon by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 01:45:49 PM
I know some other folks were pointing out the ridiculous prices on VHS back in the day, and I just recalled that mi madre once forked over close to $100 for that tape. Fucking nuts, in retrospect.
Anybody else sort of desensitized to extras by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 01:47:05 PM
I remember when I first got into DVD I used to pour over all the bonus features, even on not so good movies. Now unless it's a movie I really love, I don't even bother watching any of that stuff, or listening to the commentaries. Maybe it's beacause the extras back then were a little bit more honest. Now most of them are just puff pieces, even for old movies where you'd think someone would have the guts to tell it like it is.
Here's a good one... by Manos	Dec 30th, 2008 01:50:22 PM
I still have a VHS copy of The Sword And The Sorcerer. The Triple Bladed sword - best movie weapon ever (The Glave comes in second).
1st vhs: Halloween & Elm Street 2 by FleshMachine	Dec 30th, 2008 01:52:03 PM
i had tons of stuff recorded off tv but those were my first actual movies.
Samuel Fulmer by Giant Ape Balls	Dec 30th, 2008 01:52:44 PM
Extras are a waste of time. It's strange but it's rarer to find one they taken time with nowadays and put anything more on than promos and trailers or some shitty pictures.
Reluctant by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 01:54:04 PM
I know, I saw it on there for like $50, as you say. I'd only pay the usual 15-20 or so for that Lyle Swann action. SamFulmer, I now recall buying a Die Hard triple pack back in '94 or so, and instead of "With a Vengeance" (which wasn't out yet) the third tape had making-of Vengeance, with stuff about how they filmed the subway bomb and shit. I'm sort of densitized to extras now, as you say. Unless it's a commentary by someone I'm really into, like Stallone comments on First Blood or what have you. I heard RD Jrs comments on Tropic Thunder are good, because yes, he's "in character" as Osirus even then.
SamFulmer by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 01:55:38 PM
Desensitized is it, in a word. I largely blame that on the fact that many/most commentary tracks I've experienced seem to run the gamut from pointlessly inane to outright laughable, and the "documentaries" are usually some 10 minute Starz joint. Bonus Features = stellar concept, mostly questionable execution IMO.
The first VHS movie I ever bought was Jaws... by Shepard Wong	Dec 30th, 2008 01:55:52 PM
back when they were selling it for $75, mostly to video stores. I ordered it through Movies Unlimited, the greatest movie chain in this area until TLA Video opened. The first video I ever rented was Greystoke, The Legend of Tarzan.
^ Captain Power Training Tapes by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:56:23 PM
There were 3 Captain Power "Interactive VHS Training Simulation" tapes. They had some really good animation by the same studio that did the animation for Transformers: The Movie. I watched the shit out of my Captain Power training cassette. I'd buy those things on blu-ray!
Neverending story on VHS by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 01:56:33 PM
I remember renting that one saturday afternoon. Rode to the store on my bike on got it, then went to McDs and got a shitload of nuggets and fries, then went home and watched me some Atreyu
Commentary Track by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 01:58:20 PM
The first time I ever saw a commentary track was Big Trouble in Little China. It was on TV in widescreen and I put the supplementary audio channel on by mistake. John Carpenter was describing the special effects and shit. This must have been done for a laser disc or something because it in the mid-90s.
Gymkata by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 02:00:00 PM
on VHS! You know you loved it. Too bad Stomp the Yard will never hit videotape. Or did it? Can you say "The Last Dragon?" You've got the GLOW, bitch
Autodidact by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 02:00:24 PM
YEAH! Power ON!
I agree, Sam Fulmer. by The Reluctant Austinite	Dec 30th, 2008 02:02:08 PM
Not every movie ever made needs a director commentary. When that trend started with laserdiscs it was really cool because the films that got commentaries were already cult classics that were at least 10 to 20 years old. They were films that had already proven to stand the test of time and the director could reflect back on the material. It was like film school in a box. Now directors are recording their commentaries before the film gets its theatrical release. There is no time to reflect; they're still selling their film. And do we need to hear commentaries for "Meet Dave" or "Death Race"? It would go something like this: "I wanted to get paid and the studio wanted to make money one weekend, so we made this movie. I guess I'm done. Enjoy."
Top fucking Secret by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 02:02:53 PM
a dub of that mother lived in my VCR for months.
The best memories of VHS for me by Detective_Fingerling	Dec 30th, 2008 02:03:45 PM
was having a blank 8 hour tape and watching cinemax/hbo and the like during the "after dark" hours. I'd wait for the sex/nude scenes and hit the record button. Man, I've got so much Shannon Tweed on one of those tapes that I could start a new Mr. Skin site dedicated to the girl. I had cable video recording editing down to a science. Good times. Good times. Plus the fact that we'd rent three movies that came out on release date and I'd record them while watching them for the first time was the ultimate way to collect movies. I've got the complete series of Boy meets world and Fraggle Rock on VHS. I really need to buy a converter here at some point. Not to mention making a porn with my girlfriend using my parents big ass vhs camcorder. These are things that you just can't do with DVD and digital. I mean, you can, but there are more hoops to jump through. And on the subject of digital downloads, I'm a collector. I'll never buy a digital copy of a movie before going to the store and buying it.
Commentary Tracks are good when by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 02:04:29 PM
The person speaking is intelligent as well as engaging. It's sort of like what you need in a good teacher. The best commentaries I've heard have been from David Fincher, PT Anderson, Kevin Smith, and John Carpenter. The worst is probably Tim Burton who talks for about two seconds about what you're seeing on screen, then 20 minutes later he chimes in with another similar gem.
I'd Listen to The Meet Dave Commentary by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 02:06:20 PM
If it was the director explaining how such a bad film gets made.
Austinite by FatherMcGruderKicksAssForTheLord	Dec 30th, 2008 02:06:36 PM
Not to hype other sites in here, but have you ever checked out Commentary Tracks of the Damned over on The Onion AV Club? Exactly what you're talking about.
Detective by Abominable Snowcone	Dec 30th, 2008 02:11:25 PM
Your copy of the Shannon Tapes--I'll buy THAT for a dollar
Dawn of the Dead '78 by Jaws Wayne	Dec 30th, 2008 02:17:28 PM
Anybody ever hit the rewind button and went slo-mo on the part with the head explosion in the cassette years? I know we did that a lot with our rented tape from Romero's Zombie classic.
DOD by Samuel Fulmer	Dec 30th, 2008 02:25:26 PM
Oh yeah. Also I remember freeze framing the part in Jedi after Vader throws the Emperor down the pit and you can see the electricity cause a Vader skull X-Ray.
Return of the Living Dead by Taklamakan	Dec 30th, 2008 02:32:08 PM
The Shining, Wrath of Khan, American Werewolf...my first VHS purchases. I also cherished a mixtape I had with Legend, Flash Gordan and Sword & the Sorcerer recorded as they were shown back-to-back on a local syndicated channel, commercials and all, circa 1988.
Ah, Taboo II, how I loved thee... by Kankennon	Dec 30th, 2008 02:43:55 PM
No finer porno could there have been. My family owned a video store in 1983 so I could watch anything whenever I wanted to, EXCEPT the adult titles. I had to sneak those home and watch them when my parents weren't around and then stealthily return them to the store so nobody would notice their absense. I saw more porn at 10 years old than most adults had seen in their lifetime. But Taboo II, now that was special. While browsing through the many taped TV shows and broken/scored movies from the video store that my parents kept on shelves in their bedroom, I came across a handwritten title that read "Superbowl II" and it struck me as odd. I could do the math in my head: Superbowl II would have aired long before my dad could have ever taped it off TV, and besides, what was it doing there in the broken tape area? I popped the case open, and sure enough! It was a porno in disguise! My dad had figured that labelling it with something as benign as Superbowl II would mean that A) It would be important enough that nobody would dare pull it out and tape over it and B) My mother and I would have no apparent interest in it, neither of us caring about ancient football games. Needless to say, that tape became a very dear friend to me. In fact, I still have it in a secure location where my wife can't find it. I haven't seen it in a long time, but I plan to keep it long after our last VHS player goes kaput. (For sentimental reasons of course!) Taboo II: BEST...PORN...EVARRR!
Wrath of Khan Baby! Betamax though...... by Stormwatcher	Dec 30th, 2008 02:46:39 PM
That was my first video, can't recall when we finally got a VHS player. Loved seeing it at home but I hate Pan and Scan and can't wait for it to go away forever.
Kankenon, part 3 and 5 by Stormwatcher	Dec 30th, 2008 02:48:53 PM
Those were the one's my mom of all people had in the house and I'd watch skipping to the good parts. Big surprise when I VOD' them in the present day and learned what they were about. Just freaking weird that is.
1988: My first two VHS tapes by Deus X Meshuga	Dec 30th, 2008 02:52:10 PM
Came from a bargain bin assortment...1. A copy of the original "Little shop of horrors" 2. A tape of the 3 Stooges cartoons from the '60s...There were so many of those small companies making el cheapo tapes,and I was hooked immediately,because you could find so much bizarre,crazy,obscure stuff on them...it was just so much fun.For years I had an active circle of friends with whom I traded tapes.I just recently got a new DVD / VCR combo,and damn if some of my 20+ year old tapes still don't play as good as before! I have no plans to dump my VHS collection,but a lot of the ultra-rare,irreplacable ones I will convert to disc.Thank you,Harry,for a really nice trip down memory lane....I still miss the tape trading part...fun times. :)
Another slo-mo VHS fave from when we were young. by Jaws Wayne	Dec 30th, 2008 02:55:28 PM
Hey, another head exploding scene, from a film called Scanners, made by a guy called Cronenberg. Come to think of it, back then we had some truly classic exploding head scenes in films. There's the Dawn of the Dead one, Scanners, Joe Spinell blasting through a car-window in Lustig's Maniac, and last but not least that amazing one from the piggy-tailed girl in Lucio Fulci's the Beyond. Did they leave that scene in the "Gates of Hell" tape version in the States ?
Nice article, Harry! by unionJACKass.webs.com	Dec 30th, 2008 03:00:29 PM
More though please. :)
Insist on physical media by SoylentMean	Dec 30th, 2008 03:00:51 PM
While I enjoy digital downloads and their portability I will never, ever feel comfortable saying that I "have a movie" solely in that format. Some sort of physical media must exist for ownership. While I certainly didn't have as extensive a collection of vhs tapes as Harry, I did have a ton. It helped that I worked at a videostore in my youth and got a wicked sweet discount. Throw in the discount on top of already drastically reduced in price products and well, it was fuckin' awesome. VHS was definitely how I built up my first film library and for nostalgic (and non-availability on any other format) reasons, I still own a handful. But damn, they are bulky, ugly, and just overall bothersome. Fuck rewinding. Rest In Peace VHS, although honestly, I thought you were already dead.
The word is "burgled." by Lenny Nero	Dec 30th, 2008 03:01:24 PM
"Burglarized" is not a word. Sorry to be that guy.
My first VHS by Gilderoy	Dec 30th, 2008 03:04:05 PM
Young Sherlock Holmes
Pornwatcher :D by Kankennon	Dec 30th, 2008 03:06:44 PM
I vaguely remember seeing Taboo 3 in the 90's and feeling let down because it was not even close to the quality of #2. I don't know if I ever saw #5, but after a certain point in the series, they lost all attempts at making a standout movie with great hardcore sex scenes and just ended up making them generic cookie cutter pornos. The very first one is okay, but the second one is where it's at. I view the Taboo series as directly corrolating with the Superman films. Superman #1--a good start, some people's favorite in the series, etc, but Superman II? KAPOW! Number three and on? Blasphemy! It's all about the second one. Kneel before Zod, baby, Kneel before ZOD! Cue early 80's porn music
my first VHS was a porno I stole from my friend's dad by kamar	Dec 30th, 2008 03:13:01 PM
called "The other side of Julia." John Leslie is the husband and like a lot of husbands he won't touch her anymore ... in one scene she gets all worked up stuffing the thanksgiving turkey and then winds up doing herself in the bathroom with an empty wine bottle. I was 9 or 10 and that was a fantastic movie to a 10 year old I can tell ya!
burglarized IS a word by kamar	Dec 30th, 2008 03:21:46 PM
bur·glar·ize (bûr'glə-rīz') Pronunciation Key v. bur·glar·ized, bur·glar·iz·ing, bur·glar·iz·es v. tr. To enter and steal from (a building or other premises). To commit burglary against: The second-floor tenants have been burglarized twice. v. intr. To commit burglary.
Josh Town by wutane	Dec 30th, 2008 03:23:38 PM
I used to cruise around with a radio taped to the front of my bike thanks to No Retreat, No Surrender!JCVD 4 Life! I also own my very first copy of The Last Starfighter. Bought it for a Dollar from a video store going out of business. I also have RAD and Street Trash! VHS was Gawddamned good to me and my best friend. So many good memories!
My VHS memory by Redux	Dec 30th, 2008 03:28:08 PM
My VHS memory is of a tape where I had recorded (in order): the end of "Batman", "Hook", "Honey, I Shrunk the Kids", and the the first 95% of "Batman". I had hoped that there was enough space after the second movie to squeeze in Batman, but after Keaton had crashed the Batwing, the tape stopped recorded and automatically started rewinding to the beginning. I remember as a kid screaming at the VHS to rewind faster so I can continue to tape the end. The beginning of the tape starts with the Joker spitting out the fake teeth. I watched that tape for an entire summer vacation and to this day I treat the part of the movie where Batman goes up the cathedral staircase as some kind of extended edition bonus scene.
STAR WARS by Jaka	Dec 30th, 2008 03:45:40 PM
That's all I have to say about DVD. I still have my original, black covers, STAR WARS VHS and I will never let them go. I will keep a VCR attached to my "system" until those tapes are broken beyond repair.
VHS “I’m still not dead yet, it’s just a flesh wound!” by Agentcoop007	Dec 30th, 2008 03:46:14 PM
Wow I could write a 15 page essay on this subject, as it’s so close to my heart, but I’ll try to keep it one. I’ll just say that I can’t remember the 1st “pre-recorded” VHS Tape my family had, because we had 100s of VHS recordings from as far back as I remember. Living in Oahu Hawaii in early 80s we were one of the first families in our area to have one. My mom made money part time going to friends, and friends of friend’s houses hooking up their VCRs and showing them how to use it. We had so many VHS tapes with 3 movies on them taped off HBO, Cinemax, etc. in the early 80s in SLP mode, I knew how to fill VHS tapes of my favorites cartoons by 5 years old, and I so wish my family didn’t lose all those tapes to unpaid storage foreclosures many years ago. Anyways it was after returning to the mainland that we got Star Trek 4 which I remember being one of the first Paramount studios VHS releases under $30 (along with Crockodle Dundee, etc.). My wife’s first was “Who’s that Girl” Over the years our collection got huge, but I’ll never forgot the feeling of the “hunt” for that perfect movie in the old wherehouse sized video stores of years past. I remember racing weekly into the video store the moment it opened on Tuesdays to grab the only copy of “Earnest goes to camp” that they ordered. And wait lists, oh god the waitlists some stores had got out of control. One store I worked at had a three month wait for its single copy of “Clerks” or “Friday” they grossly under ordered. I moved onto Laserdisc, then DVD, but VHS never went away mostly due to its recording ability. Say what you will about DVRs but they fill up and then what do you do, sure you can record all the MASH episodes off TV Land you want, but you can’t keep them on your DVR forever, where will all the ALF episodes record too? I still record to VHS today, just last month I had to transfer a showing of “Cho Cho and the Philly Flash” I recorded off the Retro channel from my defective Fios DVR to VHS. That movie has never been on VHS or DVD. Why, why no “Cho Cho and the Philly Flash” DVD?!? Also I still love going through all the used VHS tapes at Goodwill, and the few video store selling off their 20 years used rental tapes looking for more OOP titles. I found “Scavenger Hunt” last year  Neil P.S. I ask all of you who think they have something special on VHS that isn’t or maybe will never be available again, to back that shit up digitally. The VHS tapes I was able to keep, recordings of MST3K from 1995 are dying a quick death. You should all check out the great things they are doing over at the dapcentral.org, the Digital Archive Project needs good quality VHS SP sources of MST3K and other programs that will never see future release due to copy write issues.
VHS “I’m still not dead yet, it’s just a flesh wound!” by Agentcoop007	Dec 30th, 2008 03:48:38 PM
Sorry my above post looks like the ramblings of a mad man :(
Taboo 2 by Agentcoop007	Dec 30th, 2008 03:51:51 PM
It seems very strange to me that I also lost my porno virginity to Taboo 2. Small world :)
First VHS: David Lynch's DUNE-1985 by SeXX ED	Dec 30th, 2008 03:59:32 PM
Chuuuuuk- SA!!!
I did the same thing Detective by Agentcoop007	Dec 30th, 2008 04:00:21 PM
But my Skinemax porn was at the end of regular movies better hidden from Mom. You are right about not being able to do the same thing with DVD. I could watch 20 nude/sex parts of movies in the time to load 2-3 DVDs and advance to the good parts. Also "The Cool Surface" was a stupid name for a movie thats only good part is Lois Lane's breasts.
VHS put porn in every home by ArcadianDS	Dec 30th, 2008 04:06:38 PM
The internet killed VHS, not DVD.
VHS tapes degrade over time, y'know... by David Lazarus Long	Dec 30th, 2008 04:11:12 PM
Probably about half to 3/4 of those 8000 tapes are white noise now, Harry. I feel your pain, we have a decent 3-4000 tapes in boxes and on old bookshelves stacked 3 deep and 2 high. I'd love to transfer some of the important stuff, but good lord I would need to hire a staff.
Great quote Desk of Steel by Agentcoop007	Dec 30th, 2008 04:12:52 PM
"The younger generations out there will never know what is was like to hunt down or discover a movie in a video store." True that!
Hockey Fights by FluffyUnbound	Dec 30th, 2008 04:18:50 PM
When I was a kid my brother collected hockey fights on VHS. Our cable got the Rangers, Bruins, Flyers, and Islanders and he would tape the games and copy the fights onto master tapes, which he then traded with people all over North America. He had hours and hours of that shit. Watching Canadian junior teams you've never heard of have bench clearing brawls and go into the stands never gets old.
Samuel Fulmer by DocPazuzu	Dec 30th, 2008 04:25:57 PM
Mann's theatrical cut of Last of the Mohicans is the standard edition on DVD in R2 land. I own both. There's also a pretty good widescreen laserdisc rip DVD of The Keep floating around the net.
Harry is a terrible writer by batzilla	Dec 30th, 2008 04:26:27 PM
isn't he? It's difficult to read his shit. He comes off as kind of dumb. Still like the big fat slob though.
My first VHS... by KING OF THE BASTARDS	Dec 30th, 2008 04:37:53 PM
The Muppet Movie. I still have the copy of it that I would put into my top-load VHS player, which was a Panasonic, which I still have as well.
Nice to see the Taboo love. by DocPazuzu	Dec 30th, 2008 04:45:48 PM
Kay Parker was so unbelievably hot, the original and ultimate milf. I'll bet most guys in their 30's or early 40's who've had a thing for older women at one point have a Kay Parker VHS experience in their past. She was even hotter in Private Teacher. Damn...
I'm son of Betamax by cifra	Dec 30th, 2008 04:49:43 PM
Which I still remember with care. VHS came afterwards and was better in some things, worse in others. DVD was a blessing, specially when I got a burner so I could actually make my shorts look more "pro". Lol. Bluray is just amazing but it won't be as important as these anothers have been, since the future is just memory storage in your hard drive.
Raiders of the Lost Ark... by boba_rob	Dec 30th, 2008 04:53:54 PM
was the first movie I owned. I believe it was a Christmas gift. Back then I remember movies were like $50 or more. And that was on Beta by the way. I already had a huge library of movies. We would copy every movie we rented, crappy or not, two or three to a tape. We would rent on beta and record onto VHS, since we had both. I still have alot of those movies but the quality has gone swiftly downhill. And you can see where some movie scenes were re-watched over and over because its worn in that spot. (Like the shower scene in National Lampoons Vacation for instance or the heads exploding in Raiders.) Ahh, the good old days.
Ahhh VHS. Ahhhh porn. They just fit together. by Stuntcock Mike	Dec 30th, 2008 04:57:25 PM

VHS and digital downloads share a common enemy... by SoylentMean	Dec 30th, 2008 04:58:45 PM
MAGNETS
The future is having back up storage on by Dingbatty	Dec 30th, 2008 05:06:11 PM
Holographic Versatile Disc, or whatever else hard copy format that goes into the terabytes, because solid-state drives, though wonderful as they are, can indeed be accidentally erased by electromagnetism. I don't trust a corporation to allow me infinite downloads of something I've purchased.
I had two vcr's. One for porn. One for "legit". by Stuntcock Mike	Dec 30th, 2008 05:06:31 PM
The porn one had lightning speed fast forward. And the remote was left-hand friendly.
Downloads are NOT the be-all and end-all of the future of consum by jazzdownunder	Dec 30th, 2008 05:30:53 PM
I've said it before and will say it again.... downloads/streaming are NOT the future of video consumerism! This is a FACT. How do I know? Easy... because if that's what consumers wanted we would already have had the article discussing the ACTUAL DEATH of CD at the hands of downloadable music (not impending, not far off in the future, but already dead and buried). CD's don't (except very rarely) come with "extras" or other content that is missing when downloading an MP# for stuffing onto an iPod - things that DVD's and BluRays even more so, deliver in spades (whether we view them more than once, they are an APPEAL to - and for - the consumer). Plus of course, music is nowhere near as much of a bandwidth hog as video - adequate infrastructure has LONG been in place for a LOT of consumers. So downloads/streams could and - if the download/streams argument were sound - would and SHOULD have killed CD LONG ago. But in fact whilst music downloads are growing (when starting from ZERO/less market share, growth is INEVITABLE - this is not rocket science) the other area that is growing is.... VINYL. Yep, not only a PHYSICAL medium, but an ANALOG one at that. And CD sales may be IN DECLINE, but that's a decline from a pretty enormous PINNACLE. There is a long way to go yet before CD dies - if it ever does. What has died (was pretty much still-born in fact) are the likes of DVD-AUDIO, HDCD and SACD. These were, perhaps, to CD as BluRay is to DVD, BUT the difference with BluRay is that when people get a nice new HD TV - something else that is becoming an increasingly "normal" purchase - the difference that a BluRay makes over a DVD is ENORMOUS, even to Joe Blow Consumer. A difference that simply did not exist - to Joe Blow - when they plugged their DVD player into their hi-fi (as comapred to CD), or got an SACD hooked up for a demo. A big ol' audio "meh" moment. Where-as blu-Ray is a massive "WOW!" moment. Add to that the FACT that BluRay QUALITY sized downloads/streams simply aren't practical in any but a pathetic fraction of a minority of homes, and won't be for a LONG time yet (investment in infrastructure is not a priority for private capital during an economic downturn as the upside is too fragile). So mainstream downloads/streams are DVD quality - AT BEST - now and for the foreseeable, and do not provide any of the additional interactive content packaged on the disc formats, so downloads/streams may aid and abet BluRay in killing off DVD, but it won't harm BluRay in anyway, shape or form. And until consumer level display technology takes a better than fourfold step in resolution or homes double in size to accomodate screens of 100" or more AS STANDARD, BluRay is pretty much IT as far as delivering the best picture quality for the consumer market, so BluRay's future I'd say is pretty secure, especially given the open-ended, extensible and enhanceable nature of it's specification. i.e. what will "kill" BluRay is BluRay "3.0" (current gen BluRay is profile 2.0, but aiui a 2.0 disc will play on a 1.0 or even 1.1 profile player, just without as many "features")
Oh, and my first VHS tape... by jazzdownunder	Dec 30th, 2008 05:33:41 PM
Our family was late into the VHS game, and I remember when Dad finally got us a deck, we went out and rented.... Breakdance 2 - Electraboogalooo. THE SHAME! The first tape I actually bought - I think - was "48 Hours".
^ STOP quoting and "air quoting" EVERY second thing you say by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 05:42:20 PM
It makes YOU look like a "moron"
uhhh I mean "STOP capitalizing and "air quoting"" by Autodidact	Dec 30th, 2008 05:43:08 PM

I remember drilling holes to make VHS into SVHS in the early 90' by ufoclub1977	Dec 30th, 2008 05:45:02 PM
I remember finding out the only difference between a high grade vhs tape and a super-vhs tape was a little hole in the case that indicated to the player what format it could record. I'd buy packs of vhs tapes, drill them, and rent laser discs and record to SVHS on my top of the line Sony SVHS VCR. It was so cool back then to collect all these widescreen (letterboxed) movies. The variety: Enter the Dragon, Deliverence, Star Wars, Dragonslayer, CE3K criterion, Moonraker.... fun times.
jazzdownunder, gotta disagree by FluffyUnbound	Dec 30th, 2008 05:49:39 PM
CD continues to hold on because of the huge installation base of equipment that exists to play it. That shit doesn't turn over all at once. Heck, they only recently stopped releasing cassette tapes. Know why tapes held on so long? Because of the tens of millions of car radios that didn't have CD players. People buy music to listen to it at home, and to listen to it in the car. I have two cars - the stereo in one of them will only play audio CD's, and the stereo in the other will play mp3 CD's, but has no direct ipod feed [it was one of the first stereos that allowed you to play a CD burned with mp3 files - I upgraded too early and got stuck with a shitty in-between version]. Those stereos aren't going anywhere any time soon. They'll go away when I buy new cars, and I'm cheap and keep things a long time. I have an immense collection of largely stolen or traded music, but I still buy blank CD's and make either audio CD's or mp3 data CD's out of them for the car. So is CD alive or dead in my use? The guy selling me the blank CD's probably thinks it's alive. But it's not. It's just a zombie technology that will continue its undead life with me for only as long as I have my current equipment, and not a minute longer.
My VHS collection: by mraig	Dec 30th, 2008 05:59:40 PM
The blank cassette that used to have a piece of masking tape as a label which had been ripped off, but left a white mark, and had the plastic piece that covered the tape broken off. The cassette that had originally been a recording of my brother's school play that we bought, but I put a piece of tape over the broken-off recording protection tab so I could record on it. The tape that was labeled: "Aladdin, Three Ninjas, Dick Tracy" (Aladdin was copied off a rented tape and pulsed dark and bright because of the copy protection, the other two were recorded off TV with the commercials paused out) The cassette that had the crack in the clear plastic window that showed you what side the tape was spooled on. And so on. Whenever we watched anything on TV, I would flip through these tapes and find the one that had the thing on it I least needed to keep. All of them had been recorded over at least twenty times. The labels had nothing to do with what was actually on them; it was just an abstract way of knowing what tape you were using. Each tape had its own personality and quirks. I would put the tape in, hit record, and lie on the floor beside the player so I could hit pause when the commercials came on. As someone above mentioned, there was a fine art to editing out the commercials, and I usually ended up screwing up at least once. I would sometimes have plans to record an entire TV series in order on VHS. The ideal outcome would be the episodes in order, six or twelve to a tape (depending on if it was an hour or half-hour show), with the commercials perfectly edited out (which would actually let one or two extra episodes fit on a tape). But what would invariably happen is that I would miss an episode, I would have the tape cued to the wrong spot and record over part of an earlier episode, I would mistime it and run out of time in the middle of an episode, I would have to record it on the upstairs TV that didn't have cable so one of the episodes would be staticky, I would accidentally have the TV tuned to the right channel but the VCR tuner not tuned in, and so record something else--there were too many possible traps to fall into. Quality, availability, and convenience are so much better today, but the quirks and character of VHS made it seem so much more human. I'll never feel like I connect with the DVD or Blu-Ray format like I did with VHS. VHS is like the kid you went to school with that you kinda hated sometimes, but hung out with so much that he's just a part of your childhood, whether you like it or not. Now I want to pop in one of my old tapes, just to see what's on them. Of course the first five minutes or so is just snow and lines, because it's been recorded over so many times. Unfortunately, I don't think I own a VCR.
Agentcoop007 by Rebeck2	Dec 30th, 2008 06:14:28 PM
Did you ever go to that drive-in that was on the Pali? With the bug zappers? I know it's torn down now. I have some great childhood memories there. In those days they didn't care about showing hardcore R-rated trailers with PG films. I had my eyes opened to the real world, if you know what I mean. Kickstarted my puberty and yeah, scared me a little. Women In Chains!
What a great talkback... by MCSuchandsuch	Dec 30th, 2008 06:19:11 PM
I say that with no sarcasm or assholishness whatsoever. Just a group of geeks reminiscing over their first exploitation and porno tapes. Countdown until DANNYGLOVERS_DICKBLOOD or some other douchebag comes in and ruins it?
Agentcoop007, you've got "Scavenger Hunt"? by The Reluctant Austinite	Dec 30th, 2008 06:19:12 PM
That's a serious VHS score! I was working at a sci-fi/geek convention last summer, and one day I was sitting at Dirk Benedict's table. He was cool; loves Kentucky oatmeal. Anyway, I asked him about "Sssssss." I asked him about "Ruckus." But I forgot to ask him about "Scavenger Hunt." I bet he would have had some good stories about that film!
My earliest VHS memories... by kronos6948	Dec 30th, 2008 06:20:38 PM
I remember our family getting our first VHS. It was an old Sharp VHS, which also had the remote control with the cord. It was a new fangled "front loader". I liked it better than the older "top loaders" (which, technically speaking, were easier to repair). Anyway, we didn't have cable, so some of our earliest recordings were quite fuzzy (horror movies from Saturday Night Dead and the Sunday "Svengoolie" movies). We had a neighbor who had cable with Prism (what eventually became Comcast), and she would record movies for us, along with certain wrestling events for me. There was a video store we belonged to back then that had rentals for 17 cents a night. Got a lot of horror fare from there. Then the days of having 2 VCRs came around, and any movie my grandmother liked, we dubbed. That lasted until the accursed Macrovision!! By that time, we finally got cable, and our recordings came out a ton clearer. As I got older, I started buying my own VHS cassettes. Like most people here, my first VHS was Star Wars. I just wanted that top quality VHS look with the stereo sound!! Then, when they packaged the trilogy, I got that. I still have VHS in my collection, and still watch some of them (usually my copies of MST3K). But, my oldest purchased video in my collection would be the 1989 Batman movie. It has a coke commercial with Alfred in it. I don't know how long it'll be before I get rid of my VHS (it'll probably be once I get all of my stuff transferred onto a HD, in HD. And Vern, if you're worried about losing digital info, all you really need to do is set up a RAID array (or at the easiest, load up a DROBO), then you can have a HD die, and you can hot swap it, without losing info.
VHS is to me what Tattooine was to Luke Skywalker. by LlGHTST0RMER	Dec 30th, 2008 06:22:54 PM
It was my home. It was where and how I grew up. It made me what I am today. Well, mostly. Dad bought our first RCA VHS machine in '84. We didn't exactly have a "first movie," because, at the time, dad borrowed his friend's VCR and a whole lot of their tapes, so we hit the ground running with our 2nd -gen movie collection. ButI do remember some of the titles: the obligitory Star Wars and ESB (RotJ didn't hit VHS for another 2 years,) The Last Starfighter, Robin Hood (Disney version,) The Electric Horseman, the first 3 Star Trek movies... well, I can't remember all of them. But my sister and I definitely watched what we had ad naseum. And I began taping every thing I could from the TV - Transformers, Growing Pains, You Can't Do That On Television. Lots of vintage 80's ridiculousness. In 1990, when I was a few months short of my 14th birthday, I realized you could plug different sound and video sources into the VCR and record them simultaneously to create something new (think of the Wizard of Oz / Pink Floyd phenomenon.) So I began testing with the video (played off our other VCR) from the "Joker vandalizes the art museum" scene from Batman, replacing Prince's "Partyman" song with Bon Jovi, Barbra Streisand, New Kids on the Block, etc. Then I started to build my own videos from scratch, making music video "collages," (i guess they could be called,) full of movie clips and such. Basically, I taught myself how to edit at 14 years old, using store-bought VCRs and a tape deck. As time went on, I got slightly better tools to use - a copyguard breaker at 16, a really cheap "effects generator / video mixer" for Christmas that year, then a $500 JVC VCR with a jog dial and a flying erase head for clean edits when I was 17. (That was really the main device that stepped my work up in quality.) The best thing was that I was actually learning how to pace edits, how to make them look better, editorial timing, certain tricks that most other people wouldn't have thought of off the top of their heads. So here I am now, at 32 years old, a nightclub DJ in San Diego. As luck would have it, I'm one of the only Video DJs in town, and I put all that editing experience into making remix videos to play at my clubs. I edit on my computer now, of course, and all my work is on DVD. But had it not been for the advent of the VHS invasion and its hold on me throughout my childhood and adolescence, I'd likely never be doing what I do now. And, now that I think about it, I still do have that $500 JVC that I had when I was 17, plus the $350 JVC deck I bought when I was 20 . . . plus a Sony I paid $80 for when I was 24 or so... And I still have MOST of my extensive VHS porn collection and about half the episodes of MTV's The State. So VHS will probably never be completely dead in my household. ;-)
48 Hours now that was a great rental that and Total Recall by Stormwatcher	Dec 30th, 2008 06:23:09 PM
I remember being to young to go see it in Theatres due to doucebag ushers but the parents were totally okay with the rental of them. Great times.
BTW, UFOclub, that's GENIUS! by LlGHTST0RMER	Dec 30th, 2008 06:23:54 PM

Oops... as I was saying... by LlGHTST0RMER	Dec 30th, 2008 06:25:39 PM
...had I known that was the only difference between the VHS and S-VHS tapes, I would've bought an S-VHS deck a long time ago!
"Burglarized" is a word the same way... by Lenny Nero	Dec 30th, 2008 06:26:51 PM
...that "snuck" is a verb, meaning that so many people have mistaken the false word for real that it becomes part of the lexicon. But much like pronouncing the second month "Feb-You-Air-Ee," it's still technically wrong.
RowanM & FatherMcGruder by CaptainBass	Dec 30th, 2008 06:29:10 PM
RowanM: I still have that same Highlander VHS, and love it! FatherMcGruder: A friend of mine had that Dave Lee Roth VHS, an absolute Jem (little Vai pun there for those in-the-know!) and it took me years but I finally managed to obtain a copy from a torrent site. Hope DLR doesn't mind..."Son of a biscuit! My ancestors spit on your haircut!" Speaking of Vai, another pal had one of the VCRs with a mic input and we had much fun overdubbing "Crossroads"... My folks were well late in getting a VCR, about 1987 iirc. First tape rented was "The Elephant Man" but it had been rented so much it was totally snowy and unwatchable. To this day I have never seen that movie! So we got "The Last Dragon" next time - I loved that movie back in the day...good times, but the only thing my VCR gets used for these days is to record the football (soccer to you shermans) if I have to go out. I'll buy some form of digital recorder eventually, maybe around the same time I buy a big fuck-off TV and Blu-ray player. That won't be for a while tho, they're all way too expensive. I'm reluctant to buy one of the current generation of consoles too, the PS3 is too dear, the Wii is a bit too cutsey for me, and every single 360 owner I know has had the thing break. I thought the PS2 had reliability issues but wow, what a piece of shit the 360 is! Anyway, VHS, as shit as you were, I will always love you...
First movies were... by Crisp_One	Dec 30th, 2008 06:36:26 PM
...all bootleg, thanks to the fact that my dad was a techno-geek, and we had a gigantic (Quasar, I think) top loading VCR, plus a smaller "portable" VCR, so we'd just hook them together, rent stuff, and dub it. The first movies I can remember watching over and over were Popeye (the live action version with Robin Williams - and in the car, no less, on the portable) Tron, Star Trek TMP, Buck Rogers. We eventually made up our own lines for the last two and dubbed our own voices over them. We thought it was hilarious.
I remember the first letterboxed movies on VHS... by Chishu_Ryu	Dec 30th, 2008 06:38:07 PM
with the "letterboxed" tag on the box...Star Wars, Raiders, Lawrence of Arabia, etc....ah, the magic memories...
...I mean... by Crisp_One	Dec 30th, 2008 06:38:53 PM
Buck Rogers and Nate & Hayes - those are the two we audio dubbed.
No, "burglarized" IS a word. by The Bicycle Sharer	Dec 30th, 2008 06:48:54 PM
It's just the American derivation and has existed since at least the late 1800s. The commom English word is "burgled," but the common American English "burglarized," and is indeed a word of over one hundred-thirty years usage, which, by the way, is about how long that the word "burgled" has existed. 1871 vs. 1872, by some accounts.
Nate and Hayes! by The Bicycle Sharer	Dec 30th, 2008 06:50:20 PM
Damn, I need to see that again! Good movie, lotsa fun!
But I also remember having to rewind those stupid things... by Chishu_Ryu	Dec 30th, 2008 06:56:07 PM
...and the tape getting stuck in the players. And VHS player cleaners, and tracking...ugh...I was so glad to leave the land of VHS in the 90's...
Should I write it? Okay...BE KIND. REWIND. by Alfie Boy	Dec 30th, 2008 07:05:02 PM
Our kids and grandkids will never see that sticker!
People like Ghostwood bug the shit out of me... by Sick Fixx	Dec 30th, 2008 07:27:23 PM
with their obligatory references to going outside, fishing, breathing fresh air and generally being so much more well rounded than those of us with indoor hobbies. Just fuck off with that elitism! We can't all be hikers and skydivers and hoops players and capable of identifying every poisonous mushroom in the region. Regardless of whether it's lived indoors, outdoors or a little bit of both, a life is still a life.
Life was so simple with VHS by romanocc	Dec 30th, 2008 07:42:16 PM
As much as I love my HDTV, and BluRay player, I really miss the VHS days. Life was so simple, I didn't care about the quality like I do now as I am accustomed to 1080. I didn't care about black bars, as I only watched Full Screen cause that is all I knew. Back then I just watched the movies no matter what quality they were shown in, but as everything advanced, you worry about everything else but the damn movie anymore! Even the Star Wars Trilogy is ruined because Lucas won't release it in Anamorphic, so I can't even enjoy my favorite movie trilogy anymore as the only good quality versions of Star Wars on DVD are those awful Special Editions with Hayden standing there at the end of Return of the Jedi next to Alec Guiness and Yoda! Ignornance is bliss.
Autodidact he's right ... by MurderMostFowl	Dec 30th, 2008 07:49:36 PM
assuming you're talking about jazzdownunder's usage of quotes for terms like "extras" and "normal". That's the proper way to add the emphasis he wants for those terms. Especially since talkbacks don't allow "real" markup like bold, italics, underline, etc., what else do you expect someone to do?
When vhs came out by johnnyangel	Dec 30th, 2008 08:39:47 PM
I went out and rented The Grafenburg Spot starring Traci Lords and Ginger Lynn for $8.00. In 1984 dollars! Now I could download it for free off Usenet. Fuck the good old days.
VHS isn't dead. It's still the top recording choice for most peo by darthflagg	Dec 30th, 2008 08:40:06 PM
I love DVD, but recordable DVDs are a pain. Many burned discs won't play on some players, and it the disc fucks up when you're finalising it all you're left with is a coaster. VHS may have looked like shit, but at least you knew you could record and play a tape in pretty much every machine.
My first VHS tape by KCViking	Dec 30th, 2008 08:47:18 PM
was actually a recording of the Godfather in 1983.I had never seen the movie until we got cable that year.Can't believe I didn't see it until I was 17 years old!Needless to say,it's my favorite movie of all time. Abominable Snowman-my personal fav for music videos/films is Stop making Sense.Nothing wrong w/ the U2 films,though.Come to think of it,I still have those on VHS. Thanks for the memories Harry.
DVD-R by Chishu_Ryu	Dec 30th, 2008 09:07:50 PM
Only burn movies onto DVD-R. All DVD players will read that format, as opposed to DVD+R or RW. Why that idiot situation exists, I don't know.
Mom, Dad didn't buy one until 1984.... by mjgtexas	Dec 30th, 2008 09:18:37 PM
Yes, I was in what you would call a Flanders-Lite Southern Baptist family, where Mom returned my Cheech and Chong record to Target upon seeing the middle finger cover and Dad chaperoned my brother and his date to the APril Wine Concert. But oh, that Christmas of '84, that oh-so-sexy Magnavox VHS under the Christmas tree. At the local Arab-owned Cactus Video, the family compromised on our first two videos: Trading Places and Where The Red Fern Grows. The value of canine companionship and responsibility mixed with Murphy farting bubbles and getting my first boner upon seeing Jamie Lee's tits.
My first VHS music video concert was Rick Springfield by The Reluctant Austinite	Dec 30th, 2008 09:27:56 PM
Rick Springfield: To The Beat of a Live Drum--directed by David Fincher. Yes, that David Fincher.
still use vhs to 'time shift' by firehawk_thexder	Dec 30th, 2008 09:28:59 PM
but only for stuff like the daily show or mythbusters that I don't really care about the quality of.. I was going to get a tivo but everything else I watch real time or just download from the internets.. I generally agree that the true death knell will be when blank tapes stop being availible.
Recording choice for me now is... by ufoclub1977	Dec 30th, 2008 09:40:52 PM
an HD dvr... I have the Comcast box. Got Star Wars, ET, Conan all recorded... in HD. In case I want to have them on.... I guess an HD Tivo would be better.
This is not true by projectionist-punisher	Dec 30th, 2008 09:41:56 PM
I work for a company that transfers 8mm and 16mm to dvds and vhs tapes. Our vhs tape supplier is alive and well and is a vital part of our thriving business. They are still being manufactured with no end of the line in site.
My old man picked ours up... by DougMcKenzie	Dec 30th, 2008 09:43:04 PM
to record Live Aid. He still has the tapes too. Porky's, Caddyshack, Cheech and Chong... BACHELOR PARTY! These movies just do not have the same Cachet on DVD. I chucked our last VHS when I picked up a DVR w/ CD Burner. And Harry, I admire your families conviction. I would have used that $25,000 to have that fucker's legs broke.
I too have fond memories... by jackofhearts29	Dec 30th, 2008 10:51:08 PM
.. my first VHS was Raiders of teh Lost Ark. True magic, gentlemen and ladies, knowing you held a WHOLE FEATURE MOVIE in your hands with that jerky, jittery little piece of plastic. Still, I am glad that the phase of ALL tape-based media is over. Talk about fiddly... warping, breaking, VHS, cassettes, 8-tracks, whatever... the last of the motor-driven media technologies that always dragged and stretched and got magnetized. Good riddance, you clunky beautiful bastards.
Divx players rule by mr.underwater	Dec 30th, 2008 10:57:47 PM
I'm on my second (The dvp 5960). If you frequent newsgroups or torrnts, I highly recommend you pick one up. Just burn the avi to a CD and you're on your sofa watching downloaded flicks in your living room, rather than hunched over a cpu monitor.
"my home was burglarized by a friend of the family"? by Batou	Dec 30th, 2008 11:23:27 PM
LOL. Is the term for that Oxymoronic?
I still use it by bkpark1	Dec 30th, 2008 11:26:36 PM
I don't have Tivo, so I still use VHS to record shows
I just watched Star Wars on VHS last night.. by conspiracy	Dec 30th, 2008 11:33:15 PM
Letter boxed...no shitty CGI Jabba..and Han shot first. Gotta be careful with that one...one of you will pay top dollar for that tape in 20years or so.
MY FIRST VHS TAPES WERE by aabiohazard1972	Dec 31st, 2008 12:22:34 AM
Time after Time (Malcolm McDowell) and the Philadelphia Experiment, personally I own too many DVD's to ever convert to Blu-ray Harry that would be a stupid amount of money as for DVD going by by stop forcing it Harry, cheap cost is what drives us normal working schmucks and DVD is CHEAPER to make and not THAT much different from your beloved Blu ray ( ADMIT IT IT ONLY A LITTLE SHARPER !!) so sit on that one oh mighty Texas Budda
and digital downloads by aabiohazard1972	Dec 31st, 2008 12:24:53 AM
probably will reign supreme (not even DVD quality at times but who cares when we can get it and watch when we want and with little to no cost involved!)
star wars by HessenRoots	Dec 31st, 2008 12:35:49 AM
The only VHS I still own and will likely pass on as an geeky heirloom is the Letterbox Star Wars boxed set released in 1992. All the tapes, the hologram emblazoned storage box and the picture book are in perfect shape. I own the DVDs but I have a soft spot for the original non-digitized versions.
Vern and Doc and Co by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 31st, 2008 02:59:17 AM
It could be you're right. It could be my fantasy of world with all digital bits and bobs is fueled entirely by my desire to avoid dusting. That said, it just seems inevitable that we're all heading that way. Shops selling CDs are already going out of business (and very few places will buy your used CDs anymore because they can't shift them), which suggests that people are getting their music other ways (ie, online), and it doesn't seem much of a stretch to imagine the same thing happening with films. You make a good point about backing stuff up, though. I'm stumped on that one, although I am confident that the boffins will crack that problem. What about this 'cloud' business? Aren't we all going to be storing stuff remotely in the future? And then, when your houses burn down (or are burglarized), I will one the one who is laughing in your faces. P.S. No, not really. I wouldn't laugh at that. That's not funny.
That's 'a world' and 'be the one' by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 31st, 2008 03:28:10 AM
Sorry. It's still early.
But did you ever convert your VHS to AUDIO TAPE? by JamesTCT	Dec 31st, 2008 03:53:58 AM
When I was growing up, me and my sister shared a betamax top loader, and my parents had a VCR downstairs. Occasionally they would let us carry the heavy mother downstairs so we could watch our betamax movies IN COLOR on the BIG SCREEN! But the real pain was that when you couldnt buy movies in anything but VHS anymore, obviously we couldnt watch what we wanted upstairs on the betamax. Our solution? Wed tape the audio from the VHS to an audio tape and LISTEN to our favorite movies anytime we wanted. I swear we must have listened to our casette of Empire Strikes Back so many times, just IMAGINING the images. And I cant recall the ammount of times I would run around the room , swinging my arms and hearing the authentic VROOM VROOM noises from the sabres. Happy times.
Wrong by theplant	Dec 31st, 2008 04:22:18 AM
Prossor, you couldn't buy a tape in england to watch it in the US, it was different formats (PAL VS SECAM VS MESECAM VS NTSC) it took a while for prices to come down on multi-vcrs
DVD dying? by brodiebruce_405	Dec 31st, 2008 04:26:17 AM
Unlikely. A lot of people saw the upgrade from VHS to DVD, seriously, not nearly as many people care about Blu Ray.
JamesTCT I did, i did! by Agentcoop007	Dec 31st, 2008 05:07:11 AM
I converted audio from rented VHS to Audio tape. "Ferris Buelers Day off" of all movies stands out in my drunken mind. Neil P.S. Best talkback ever!
Vinyl records don't sound better than cds? by Its a LION	Dec 31st, 2008 05:12:22 AM
http://tinyurl.com/7bhnsa
That's funny, Its a LION by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 31st, 2008 05:38:25 AM
Your backside must hurt riding that donkey to work every day.
... by Its a LION	Dec 31st, 2008 05:58:22 AM
http://tinyurl.com/72swde
Wizard of Oz by GhostJax	Dec 31st, 2008 06:06:27 AM
Our copy of The Wizard of Oz was taped off of ABC one fine afternoon in 1986. Unfortunately, my Dad was watching the '86 Celtics take another step in their championship run, and didn't flip over and hit REC until about 20-30 minutes into the movie. I went through my entire childhood thinking that The Wizard of Oz started with the shot where Dorothy runs back to the farm and throws open the gate with the twister in the background. I didn't see the beginning (i.e. 90% of the black-and-white footage) until I was well into my teens. I don't know how well you remember The Wizard of Oz, but they pack a surprising amount of content into those twenty minutes. Things I never put together about the film included the fact that the farm workers and her friends in Oz where the same guys, and the connection between the movie and a little song called Somewhere Over the Rainbow. The film still worked, though.
Okay, bonus points for using the Dude by Franklin T Marmoset	Dec 31st, 2008 06:08:35 AM
The Dude is between projects right now. "By the way, do you think that you could give me that $20,000 in cash? My concern is, and I have to, uh, check with my accountant, that this might bump me into a higher, uh, tax..."
Taping off TV by Desk of Steel	Dec 31st, 2008 06:42:58 AM
I have tapes of ALF when it aired on NBC, loaded with commercials that are like a time capsule. I also have a heavily edited copy of Re-Animator that aired on a local UHF channel that was so butchered, it only ran 90....with commercials. I remember getting to watch that one night when I was 6 because my father went outside to walk the dog and ended up talking with a neighbor in front of our house for a while (probably smoking a joint).
Taping off TV 2 by Desk of Steel	Dec 31st, 2008 06:54:50 AM
There used to be movie nights on on WSBK TV 38 in Boston that would air unedited movies (with commercials) called "The Movie Loft". I taped "The Terminator" and that was the way I viewed it for years. On a JVC VHS tape with a robot head drawn on the label. I also remember them airing the "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" with Donald Sutherland and I saw an unexpected rack that became beat bank material for my younger years.
Ghostbusters by alanmoore	Dec 31st, 2008 08:25:58 AM
My first VHS was Ghostbusters. Man, I musta watched that sucker a million-billion-squillion times. You couldn't pry me away from it. If my mom wanted me to settle down or be good, all she had to do was promise to let me watch Ghostbusters. Looking back, that probably warped me a little. Or a lot.
I just spent the day watching on demand HD yesterday by The Decider	Dec 31st, 2008 08:59:34 AM
I was home sick yesterday, so I turn on my Xbox 360 and stream the Office in HD via Netflix. The loading time was approximately 10 seconds. I guess the future has arrived.
Alot of people are really exaggerating Blu-ray overtaking DVD by Coughlins Laws	Dec 31st, 2008 10:49:30 AM
First of all, the jump from VHS to DVD was enormous and apparant to everyone while the details about the upgrade from DVD to Blu-ray are alot less clear. First of all, you have to invest in an HDTV in order to really benefit from the hardly noticeable upgrade in screen quality. DVDs can already show the movie plus 3 Commentary tracks and 6 hours of extras. Do you really need more content than DVDs can currently handle? Also, I don't think that everyone is as into seeing everything in High Definition as a lot of its proponents seem to think. To me, when they show the side by side displays at Cricuit City or Best Buy, I actually prefer the DVD version on movies. Who wants to see a big battle scene all crystal clear as if it's on video tape as opposed to th gritty realness that the Director's intended. I believe that a lot of the time that HD actually takes away from the movie than adds to it. True, I enjoy watching Sporting Events in HD, but not movies. I really just don't see the demand for people to abandon DVD yet the way that VHS was abandoned. The fuctionality, ability to jump to a scene, all the extra content, commentary tracks, etc, were the reason people quickly abandoned VHS. But their is no new revolutionary need to abandon DVD for Blu-ray. I agree with what Moriarty has said. Some tech geek people will go to Blu-ray but the majority of AMericans will not, at least not for years. In order to get an HDTV to even see the difference you need to invest thousands of dollars which just isn't realistic. I think that Blu-ray will never surpass DVD and by the time it catches up to even, Digital Downloading will become so fast and easy it will surpass them both...
Not to mention, as soon as VHS's one advantage over DVDs by Coughlins Laws	Dec 31st, 2008 11:03:57 AM
was affordably solved (recordable DVD Players), the coronation of DVD over VHS was complete. Unless I'm missing something, can someone please explain to me why I absolutely need invest a couple grand to get a Blu-ray player when I'm perfectly happy with the TV and DVD player I have? Is it really THAT much better?
Studios should release obscure titles on DVD by BadWaldo s Revenge	Dec 31st, 2008 11:53:31 AM
...like TEEN WITCH and COOL AS ICE. Hilarious and kitschy as hell. Yet UNIVERSAL refuses to release COOL AS ICE on DVD. It's doomed to VHS/LD only existence. I owned a laserdisc copy. It would a party to watch COOL AS ICE and laugh at Vanilla Ice hamming it up. TEEN WITCH was a lame-assed musical but at least it has 80's charm.
I'm not fucking 'upgrading' to digital downloading. by Sick Fixx	Dec 31st, 2008 12:08:30 PM
Get fucking used to it! Electronic systems like computers, mp3 players, etc. are too unreliable. I get viruses every year or so just from signing on to the damn things. Strangely, my vhs players and dvd players work until they wear out. I don't have to reinstall everything in them every time they go on the fritz. This is why digital download will not replace something you can hold in your hand.
Headgeek, remember me sending you some tapes? by BadWaldo s Revenge	Dec 31st, 2008 12:12:29 PM
A Japanese LD copy of PRINCESS MONONOKE on VHS with mono-only soundtrack (sorry!) and some LUPIN OAV vids. Also a videotape with bootleg of STAR WARS EPISODE I and stunning THE THIN RED LINE trailers, despite shitty illegally-snuck-in cam that tries to autofocus at intervals. Yes, I was F.D. I used to have a large VHS collection of Japanese animation fansubs such as NEON GENESIS EVANGELION and all of the Studio Ghibli movies up to WHISPER OF MY HEART/ON YOUR MARK. GOLGO 13 THE PROFESSIONAL, FIST OF THE NORTH STAR and other shitty Streamline Carl macek dub anime movies are worth a laugh party. I was an anime freak who have memories watching VHS rental tapes, new release, general and obscure. Now-defunct TOWER MUSIC/VIDEO was awesome for its collection of Japanese (language only) animation imports on rental VHS. I learned about laserdisc in 1994 by hanging out to browse at TOWER and got into the hobby of collecting LDs, both Japanese imports and American movies & misc, in 1998. Sadly, LaserDisc passed away in 2000 and I had to sell most of LaserDisc collection on eBay in late 2003. I finally bid farewell to the last few LDs and a LD player Pioneer CLD-A100 LaserActive (w/ Sega module) with a custom-installed AC-3 module in late 2004. One of my favorite laserdiscs ever was THE THIN RED LINE - pristine transfer. Yeah, I owned THE SIXTH SENSE and FIGHT CLUB Japanese laserdisc by the time the LD manufacturing has been announced to have ceased in Japan. Had over 100 LD copies, mostly collected from eBay. Good times. I'm sure James Cameron loved LaserDisc (see his essay in THE ABYSS Director's Cut 1993 LD box set). I'm not sure about Jim's LD box set exclusive essays (ALIENS Dir's Cut, THE ABYSS, T2) are available on official DVD of the movies. Farewell, VHS! I'll keep blank VHS tapes around to tape some shows, because I still have no clue about DVD-R.
Best Birthday Ever by Kenway	Dec 31st, 2008 12:34:15 PM
I was twelve-years-old when I had my first experience with VHS (other than school films). Mom and dad rented a VCR and got Commando, Back to the Future, The Wild Bunch and West Side Story. I had zero belief a western could be any good, but I quickly changed my tune. And West Side Story...to this day I cherish it just for the sentimental value. Then I remember getting up early the next day and trying rewatch as many of them as I could before they had to be returned.
Vinyl and DVD by Jaka	Dec 31st, 2008 01:14:37 PM
Vinyl sales were up this year! Yaaay! U2 is releasing their new album on vinyl next year. The re-master of Pearl Jams 'Ten' will include a bad ass vinyl version. Vinyl never went away if you live in or near a big city. Not the way VHS has. How many places can you rent VHS tapes these days? Most indy labels have never stopped pressing vinyl, and a few of the majors do limited pressings of select releases (often a week or two before the CD is released). Also, having finally stood in front of a decent HD tv, watching a movie I know and love on Blu-Ray (Serenity), I'm pretty sure that DVD will slowly be phased out. The difference with this advancement in tech is that most people are now aware of backwards compatability. You can still play your DVDs on your Blu-Ray player. That makes it much easier to move consumers on to the "next big thing".
First and Last by knobjockey	Dec 31st, 2008 02:03:59 PM
Not entirely unexpected, but sad nonetheless. VHS is something we'll look back on with affection far more than DVD (which will be tweaked and surpassed by none-physical forms of ownership. Our first video was actually a Phillips Video 2000 system, FAR superior (like BetaMax) to VHS as it held many more hours of recording as it taped on both sides. The first film I got there was Raiders in '83, but vefore that was Michael Jacksons Thiller video earlier that year. As for VHS, the first in 86 was the obligatory Star Wars trilogy, the last Revenge of the Sith a couple of years back. While DVD and Blku Ray far surpass VHS and video in general, much like vinyl I think we'll all look back in 30, 40 years time and have very fond memories of pirate videos (my first was The Blues Brothers) 'blue movies (Electric Blue 007 and Video Nasties (I Spit on Your Grave and Zombie Holocaust). I had quite the education when I was 10 years old...
Action and Martial Arts movies are better on VHS by most excellent ninja	Dec 31st, 2008 02:11:49 PM
nothing like watching the old Rambo movies, commando, predator on VHS. And then Martial arts films like Kickboxer or The Perfect Weapon on VHS. Glorious.
Kickboxer by Jaka	Dec 31st, 2008 02:39:02 PM
I don't judge peoples movie tastes - to each their own. But a friend got all excited when this was on cable a couple weeks back, so we started watching. Damn! that's got to be some of the worst acting EVER! Just horribly awful. I don't think I'll ever re-watch another Van Damme movie.
Can we get over blu-ray already? by groorgman	Dec 31st, 2008 03:24:31 PM
It's not taking out DVD. Blu Ray is this generation's laser disc. I've yet to see anyone actually buy a blu-ray movie, I go to that section to get away from the crowd and make a phone call. What you are right about is the digital download. Hard drives getting biger capacity smaller in size, it's a no brainer.
Ah 1983 by proper	Dec 31st, 2008 04:12:03 PM
My first VHS films were Blackbeard's Ghost and Fist Of Fury,cheers Dad,now thats a double bill :).I must of watched that weeks top of the pops on tape about 50 times esp eurythmics sweet dreams video FFWing Bonni Tyler (sorry Bonnie).I can laugh now but I rewound ET (Pirate copy,you know when pirates were pirates http://tinyurl.com/8su5xp)manu ally because I was so inexperienced not knowing that you pressed stop then rewind,silly child.The biggest high point-getting Return Of The Jedi 2 days before it's release(I know I've mentioned it before.....I don't care).Nowadays I only use VHS to tape off Wrestling PPV's and whatever TV is on on a given day.I've had 2 VCR's pack up on me in 2 months,liberties,I'm using my sisters VHS as even her set up is too advanced to deal with it.I tried to upgrade to a vcr dvd combi but the fact I had to allocate 2 scarts to it blew my mind and sent me running to the hills and I got a refund within 2 hours.I really should convert some choice footage and this is another sign,oh well more computer work ;
I still tape cinemax late night on vhs by alienindisguise	Dec 31st, 2008 04:43:51 PM
and it still does the trick!
jaka, I think you're wrong. There is no public obsession by Coughlins Laws	Dec 31st, 2008 04:44:25 PM
with Blu-ray. Most people are perfectly content with DVDs.
alienindisguise by Jaka	Dec 31st, 2008 04:44:54 PM
Ummm.... www.xnxx.com lol
alienindisguise by Jaka	Dec 31st, 2008 04:44:55 PM
Ummm.... www.xnxx.com lol
Whoa...this is weird by TylerDurden3395	Dec 31st, 2008 05:53:14 PM
As I'm reading this, I'm in the process of converting all of my old VHS tapes into DVDs with my new Digital Recorder I got for Christmas. First tapes I'm dubbing are ones of me on local TV from when I was 4 years old, then I'm dubbing a bunch of old Star Wars making of docs from TV (Classic Creatures was the shit). Then it's Monstervision and MST3K tapes. It's sad to think that back in the day I said I'd never get rid of all of my old tapes, yet my VHS collection is only around 150 when it used to be around 850. The Times They Are A Changin'...
BTW...First VHS tapes were... by TylerDurden3395	Dec 31st, 2008 05:57:07 PM
Star Wars, Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein and Raiders of the Lost Ark. (That Temple of Doom teaser before the movie started was the bomb.)
impending words of digital doom by BendersShinyAss	Dec 31st, 2008 11:39:29 PM
Look, digital may look and feel better than analogue, but see it this way. Analogue vhs can still be played today and all you have are a few scratches not unlike analogue film scratches. They give charater. Digital flicks and pops are annoying and as time goes by will only grow more frequent on any digital format. There will come a time when anything created and distributed solely on digital will become lost. Dare i say, if there is a system wide failure of digital worldwide, then all our faith which has been put into digital could see us lose more than we could ever imagine. the elimination of vhs analogue is a mistake. they should be making SUPER DOOPER digital style VHS. THAT will give blue ray a run for it's money - guaranteed.
In short, FUCK ALL THE POOR PEOPLE? by chien_sale	Jan 1st, 2009 04:54:37 AM
This is stupid. There are MANY people still on VHS and don't have the money to go DVD. But more importantly, even if I own a DVD player and one that you can tape shows and movies with, there are tons of things that VHS tapes do that DVDs cannot do. Just for the simple thing as recording shows and movies, VHS is so simple to stop and get back to where you were to record while with DVDS you just can't stop and return to were you were without all this procedure as far as recording.
The best of both worlds.. by Texbear2000	Jan 2nd, 2009 12:15:54 AM
In the late 70s I went to my friends house in Watauga and got to see his dads VCR. It was a big as a suitcase and seemed like something from Star Trek the way the top would open to load a tape. His dad explained how great this new device was a showed us his fresh copy of "Roots" that was an important piece of TV history that we needed to watch.. Later after his dad went to bed my friend snuck out the copy of "Deep Throat" his dad had hidden in his office. Then we truely learned the awe inspiring worth of the VCR. Yow will be missed!
ah yes, despite being 19 years old I have plenty of VHS memories by The Amazing G	Jan 4th, 2009 10:08:19 PM
I remember my town use to have a ton of video stores outside of Blockbuster (including a Movie Gallery) and me and my mom would visit them all, I remember this one small mom and pop store that of course had the obligatory porn section (one however that was blocked off with a door so I couldn't see in) and the place even had super Nintendo and Sega genesis games you could rent, I remember I use to love to just look at the covers of all the movies (one that stuck out for some reason was the cover of Tank Girl, which years later I watched and didn't like) and I use to always look at the covers of horror movies and get the piss scared out of me, ahhh good times, good times....
part 2 by The Amazing G	Jan 4th, 2009 10:19:52 PM
some movies I rented often were Maximum Overdrive (funny how I didn't know that it had anything to do with Stephen King till years later) and Toys (an awesome Robin Williams movie), one creepy story I have to share is one night when my mom was away my dad went out and rented a porno, he came back, unplugged the VCR player and hooked it up to the tv in MY room, he then locked the door and stroked his Johnson while I was left wondering what the fuck was going on (subtle wasn't he?)
also this is the best TB ever by The Amazing G	Jan 4th, 2009 10:26:32 PM
I'm bookmarking this shit, also some horror movie covers that scared me were the Chucky movies (especially the one where he's cutting the jack in the box's head off), Ghoulies (fucking thing coming out of the toilet), The Hand, Return Of The Living Dead (which I later saw on TNT Monstervision late at night at my grandparent's house I was 8 and loved), Slugs, IT, Sleepaway Camp, The Shining (which I saw on tv plenty of times), The Thing, Bloody Birthday and the Dead Alive cover which was a big mindfuck just to name a FEW
Monstervision by tommann49	May 12th, 2009 10:31:35 PM
I really miss Monstervision. If anybody has or is interested in trading shows I have over 200 Monstervision episodes and am always looking to add more. Email me at reider49@yahoo.com and I'll send you my list.
Dude, don't post your email her by Orcus	May 15th, 2009 02:54:22 PM
That's spambait!
hey tommann49 are you serious? by The Amazing G	Oct 3rd, 2009 11:17:05 PM
I may have to check that out, I loved me some Monstervision back in the day, I don't have anything to trade though
Life still here?? by Orcus	Oct 5th, 2009 12:53:06 PM

Talkbacks

Wow... VHS is going the way of the dodo...

User login

Quick Talkback

Talkbacks