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Oldest Extant Off-Air VHS/Beta Tape You Have

I still have all of my uncut Dallas material from the Dec 14/Jan 15 lots, which I purchased from a craigslist seller in Sherman TX. I posted a ton of material to YouTube already (i.e. the KDAF stuff).
I found a wonderful eBay lot with 1983-85 VHS tapes. Miscellaneous TV shows, soap operas, movies, from an eBay seller in Doyle, CA. I already asked him about which market they were taped from - it was all taped from Sacramento/Stockton stations (KCRA, KOVR, KXTV etc).
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-21-b...059765?hash=item2ee87de2b5:g:wCsAAOSwFGNWTALF

-crainbebo
 
I wish some of these people weren't editing out the commercials! You have to wonder if they were just sitting by their VCR's, waiting to hit stop when a commercial came up.

The pound stores or clearance stores (such as Goodwill) are some of the best places for pre-recorded VHS tapes.

It is gradually becoming harder to find VHS tapes from the 1980's. It's much harder to find tapes from the early 1980's. There are tapes dating back to the summer of 1980 at this link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-39-U...427968?hash=item280c158200:g:pLcAAOSwnGJWSo~Y
 
The amount of home-recorded tapes I've found at Goodwill stores has been pretty minute. I generally have better luck at flea markets and garage sales.

That eBay lot looks like it's a pretty good mix of content. Just the other day, though, I purchased a similar lot of 50 tapes from a seller in Texas. It was a buy-it-now purchase rather than an auction. Since I'd never used eBay to buy these before, if I do continue to use it, I may continue to use the buy-it-now option so I don't have to supervise an auction all the time. The tapes I ordered should hopefully arrive within the next week or two.

Also, I already have one of the movies in that Jacksonville lot you posted a link to on tape (Intensity on Fox in 1997).

As for '80s tapes, I do have quite a few of them, but I have more '90s and 2000s than '80s. The oldest tape I currently have was recorded in 1983.
 
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I saw the Jacksonville link as well. Incredibly rare to find any recorded VHS tapes from the early 1980s - 90% of the recorded stuff was on Beta. My oldest tape is again 1983, but I am looking at this and one other lot from Doyle, CA which has early-mid 1980s material.
That GMA clip from June 1980 would be a holy grail for me. I don't see the GMA clip on YouTube, so it would be new to the site.
Best places to find home-recorded tapes in MY opinion, are garage/yard and estate sales. Goodwill's throw them out as does most other large thrift stores. Some of the mom and pop thrift stores may keep them, but I doubt it. And obviously, eBay and craigslist as well. I wouldn't have gotten that Young and the Restless episode from 1987 without checking a yard sale that wasn't even in the local newspaper - and was a block away from another yard sale that WAS listed in the Yakima Herald. Sometimes when people have yard sales, their neighbors decide to have one as well.
Obviously when it comes to estate sales, usually it's the entire contents of the house for sale...which may include VHS tapes. And not many people are going to buy tapes at an estate sale.
 
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Just got a lot of 6 tapes from Wilson, North Carolina (in between Raleigh and the Eastern Shore/Greenville/Washington area).
I've been mostly finding 2006-2008 soap operas. All My Children and The Young & The Restless. Believe there's a 2006-era 20/20 on one of the tapes, found a Hallmark Christmas movie on another tape, and some 1980s Barry Manilow concert on another. The soaps have commercials. Will keep looking, but most of the material is mid 2000s soaps taped from WTVD 11 and WRAL 5.

-crainbebo
 
Most of what I found on all 6 tapes were 2008-2009 soaps - Young and the Restless, All My Children, and One Life to Live - taped from WRAL and WTVD from Raleigh with commercials.
Also found the 2008 CMA Awards taped from WTVD with commercials; an episode of American Idol from early 2008 with ads taped off WRAZ-50 Raleigh, the finale of The Amazing Race 13 taped off WRAL 12/7/2008 with ads; an episode of The Mentalist taped from WRAL with ads; an episode of Ugly Betty from late 2006 taped off WTVD with ads, and a snippet of an old Mystery! episode from the mid 1980s off WUNM-19 Jacksonville, NC (UNC-TV/PBS).
The best find was the last 10 minutes of the 1985 NBA Finals, and the first ten minutes of the 1985 Westminster Classic (golf match) taped off WNCT-9 Greenville, NC on 6/09/1985 with ads.

A rather disappointing mix of programming - but soap opera episodes are usually never seen again after the original airing.
The seller has one more 6-tape VHS lot, and a 6-tape Betamax lot for sale. I just wonder if those BETAMAX tapes have 2008 soaps on them...
 
The soap operas today look somewhat different than the soaps from two or three decades ago- quicker scenes and a few more outdoor scenes.

A couple of things that you never see anymore on network TV: When the announcer mentions a commercial sponsor, and they show a slide(!) of the sponsor's product. No video, just a slide. Worth noting that KABC and KNBC in Los Angeles were actually putting up brief PSA's on slides during some of their newscasts as late as the mid 1980's. I recall that on the original CBS This Morning, after they did their last cut-in for local weather (around 8:55 in the morning), they would then show a slide of Dan Rather, with the CBS Evening News logo, while Harry Smith or Paula Zahn would say what was coming up that night. This was going on as late as the early 1980's.

As late as 1988, I recall that ABC, during coverage of one of the League Championship Series in Major League Baseball, would actually have the play-by-play guy say they were pausing for station identification at the top of the hour, mention that people were watching the ABC television network, and then give the local station a few seconds for a VO ID.

Speaking of sports, there are some sports events and other programs dating back to the 1980's at this link:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/172015369723?ssPageName=STRK:MESELX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1555.l2649
 
I got the Brownwood, Texas VHS collection I ordered from eBay this past Friday and am still going through the tapes in the box. Here's a PARTIAL LIST of what I've found thus far:

TAPE 1: Collection of Gaither Homecoming concert telecasts from 2008 and 2009--Rock of Ages taped from RFD-TV in summer 2008 with commercials; Amazing Grace taped from Gospel Music Channel in January 2009 with commercials; Canadian Homecoming taped from Gospel Music Channel in March 2009 with commercials; Lynda Randle: I'm Free taped from RFD-TV in March 2009 with a few commercials; episode of The Dog Whisperer taped from National Geographic Channel in March 2009 with commercials; partial episodes of Wheel of Fortune and Card Sharks taped from GSN in August 2008 with commercials. The GSN footage at the end includes a GSN Live segment with Bob Goen and Heidi Bohay during the Wheel episode.

TAPE 2: To Love, Honor and Betray (CBS made-for-TV movie) and partial broadcast of KTAB News at 10 (Bob Bartlett and Jennifer Douglas at the anchor desk) taped from KTAB in Abilene on 5/12/1999 with commercials; both parts of Texas Justice (1995 ABC miniseries) taped from KTXS in Abilene on June 7 and 10, 1999 with commercials; Rock N Roll Forever: Ed Sullivan's Greatest Hits (CBS special) taped from KTAB sometime in 1999 minus commercials. Part two of Texas Justice includes several on-screen weather alerts and a couple of News 12 Storm Alert cut-ins with George Flickinger during the network broadcast. Wal-Mart Conductor Series T-160.

TAPE 3: A few episodes of Judging Amy and Chicago Hope taped from KTAB in 2000--only commercials found in these programs are from the 1/18/2000 episode of Judging Amy; partial broadcast of the Family Fourth Fireworks Show and partial broadcast of KTAB News at Ten on location from the fireworks show, taped from KTAB on 7/4/2000 with a few commercials; another Chicago Hope episode taped from KTAB minus commercials; partial broadcast of Extra taped from KTXS on 1/2/2000 with a few commercials. BASF T-160.

TAPE 4: Dr. Thomas Siegel: How to Live Between Office Visits and Straight Talk on Prostate Health taped from KDTN in Dallas sometime in 1994 with pledge breaks during the shows and promos between the two shows

TAPE 5: Remember the Titans (2000) and partial showing of Heavy Metal 2000 (2000) taped from Starz in April 2002 with promos before each movie

TAPE 6: Smattering of NBC soap operas--Days of Our Lives and partial episode of Another World taped on 4/21/1997; DOOL and partial AW episode taped on 4/22/1997; partial DOOL episode taped on 4/17/1997; DOOL and partial AW episode taped on 4/18/1997; partial DOOL episode taped on 2/20/1997; partial Sunset Beach episode and full DOOL episode taped on 2/21/1997--all taped from KRBC in Abilene with commercials. Incidentally, I already have the 2/21/1997 DOOL episode on another tape my mom recorded, as she would record the show on a regular basis. That recording was taped from WKYC in Cleveland.

TAPE 7: 12 episodes of Sensible Chic and partial episode of Decorating Cents taped from HGTV in September and October 2004 with commercials

TAPE 8: Boston Public third season premiere episode (the one with the student riot) and partial pilot episode of Girls Club taped from KTBC in Austin on 10/21/2002 with commercials

TAPE 9: First-run airing of The Simpsons episode "Some Enchanted Evening" taped from KWKT in Waco on 5/13/1990 with commercials; rerun of "The Tell-Tale Head" taped from KWKT in Waco on 5/20/1990 with commercials; rerun of "Bart the Genius" taped from KWKT in Waco on 5/27/1990 with commercials

TAPE 10: More HGTV programming--episode of Outer Spaces taped in December 2004 with commercials; episodes of Mission: Organization, Decorating Cents, Designers' Challenge, and Debbie Travis' Painted House taped in October 2004 with commercials, tape keeps rolling into the network's sign-off and part of a Time Life Music infomercial. Also on the tape is an episode of What Not to Wear taped from TLC in October 2004 with commercials.

TAPE 11: The Cosby Outtakes Show taped from KRBC on 2/12/1990 minus commercials; partially taped-over NBC showing of Spies Like Us (1985) taped from KRBC on 2/4/1990 with commercials

TAPE 12: Bill Gaither Remembers Old Friends copied from retail tape; partially taped-over showing of Junior (1994) and partial episode of Walker Texas Ranger taped from USA in May 2002 with commercials

TAPE 13: Partial syndicated rerun of The X-Files, two reruns of Roseanne, syndicated rerun of Cops (Houston Police and Harris County Sheriff's Department), Fox 4 News at 5:30 (Richard Ray and Shirley Washington at the anchor desk), rerun of The Simpsons episode "Brawl in the Family," first-run broadcast of The Simpsons 13th season finale "The Frying Game," two-hour final episode of The X-Files, and partial broadcast of Fox 4 News at 9:00 taped from KDFW in Dallas on 5/19/2002 with commercials

TAPE 14: A Disney Halloween and partial presentation of Falling with the Stars (special program about stuntmen in movies) taped from Disney Channel in October 1985 with promos between the two programs

TAPE 15: Four episodes of The Backyardigans taped from Nick Jr. in January and February 2011 with promos after the fourth episode; tape ends with partial broadcasts of KTXS News 12 at 5:00 and ABC World News with David Muir taped on 5/21/2011 with a few commercials during the local news. These episodes of The Backyardigans were dubbed to the tape from Dish Network DVR recordings. The on-screen DVR graphics at the end of the fourth episode shows that these episodes were recorded on DVR in January and February 2011, then played back and recorded onto the VHS tape in May 2011.

TAPE 16: Four more Backyardigans episodes taped from Nick Jr. in January 2011 with promos after the fourth episode--after the fourth episode ends on the DVR, the Dish Network receiver changes channels to Nickelodeon during an episode of iCarly shown in May 2011 with a few commercials
 
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More things I found in the Brownwood VHS lot today.

TAPE 17: Second Honeymoon (CBS made-for-TV movie) taped from KTAB on 3/11/2001 minus commercials, includes a couple of on-screen weather alerts from KTAB; partial CBS showing of Turner & Hooch (1989) taped from KTAB in May 1992 with a few commercials; partial broadcast of part one of Trial: The Price of Passion (NBC miniseries) taped from KRBC on 5/3/1992 with commercials; Liar Liar (1997) taped from KRBC sometime in 2001 minus commercials, picture is black and white due to poor antenna reception; 35th Annual CMA Awards taped from KTAB on 11/7/2001 minus commercials; partially taped over showing of part two of Trial: The Price of Passion taped from KRBC on 5/4/1992 with commercials and followed by the start of Big Country News at Ten. BASF T-160.

TAPE 18: Three more episodes of The Backyardigans taped from Nick Jr. sometime in 2011; partially taped over showing of an unknown Poirot movie taped from the Biography Channel sometime in 2005 with a few commercials

TAPE 19: Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron (2002) taped from DirecTV Direct Ticket Pay-Per-View in February 2003, promos after the movie, then the tape keeps rolling into another showing of the movie until the tape runs out, as it aired on the All Day Ticket that particular day

TAPE 20: Six episodes of Divine Design taped from HGTV in October and November 2004 with commercials

TAPE 21: The Bucket List (2007) taped from DirecTV Pay-Per-View sometime in 2008
 
From The Ones That Got Away Dept.: I had a May 1992 tape of Johnny Carson's final Tonight Show from WHO-TV Des Moines which included a few minutes of their 10PM newscast. Yes, the Spousal De-clutter Unit snagged it for someone to claim at Goodwill. Most likely the oxides are shedding off of the tape under tons n'tons of garbage.
 
Goodwill's now just throw away any T-120 used blanks, due to copyright and the possibility of some other private shenanigan...other than the program recorded.
I wonder if the outlet stores may have blank tapes show up in the bulk arrivals. Grab 'em before it's too late!
There are two new lots from Brownwood. One random lot, the other mostly has a bunch of Vietnam War specials, oil painting PBS shows and a few old movies, and Ray Stevens stuff (most likely from a retail tape).
 
joebtsflk1 said:
From The Ones That Got Away Dept.: I had a May 1992 tape of Johnny Carson's final Tonight Show from WHO-TV Des Moines which included a few minutes of their 10PM newscast. Yes, the Spousal De-clutter Unit snagged it for someone to claim at Goodwill. Most likely the oxides are shedding off of the tape under tons n'tons of garbage.
Click to expand...

I have Johnny's last show on one of my tapes as well. All the commercials from it were cut out though.
 
Ever fool with the closed captioned/text modes when running your tapes from the late 80s-early 2000s, particularly during network programming? Try it sometime. On ABC network stuff from about 1986-1993ish, especially pay attention to text 1 & 2.

Also, if anybody has any S-VHS recordings from TBS in the 80s and early 90s, you may very well have a recording of the Ceefax-like WST-based Electra teletext service. You might consider loaning it to these guys: http://teletext.mb21.co.uk/appeal.shtml to see what they can pull off it. Granted it'll be NTSC and the MB21ers are in PAL turf, but chances are they might still be able to read it.

I'm a little wary on unlabeled tapes, due to the fact that it could contain anything // a secret homemade pr0no.
Click to expand...

Yeah, that's specifically WHY I sometimes grabbed up unlabelled tapes when I was younger! You know, just on the off-chance.
 
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I have a lot of TBS/WTBS stuff from 1987-1993...all of them are T-120 VHS tapes however. How come it only worked on Super VHS tapes?
I have seen program information on old tapes...including XDS IDs. I don't see any closed captioning options however on my Mitsubishi HS-U36 VCR however.
 
Can someone tell me if this is a good set of VHS tapes?

TimL said:
> What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not commercial)
> VHS or Betamax tape you own?
>

I am just learning about VHS tapes because my boyfriend collects them. It appears from these posts that tapes from the 80's are about as old as you can get? He likes old commercials and news programs with station IDs on them. I want to buy some for him for Christmas. I am currently looking at two on Ebay. Could someone let me know if these are good ones to bid on? The auctions end in a couple of days, so if you could reply soon, it would allow me to bid on them.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-30-U...469279?hash=item3ab7e6f35f:g:vKMAAOSwbdpWXPz7

and

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Lot-of-24-U...369723?hash=item280cea3dfb:g:obYAAOSwNphWXPoU

Thanks.
Click to expand...
 
Yes! They are good ones to buy. Not very new (2006 is the newest), material is a mix of TV shows and movies, mostly taped off local TV stations in various markets; and a good variety altogether. These are lots I would bid on too - but they might get too expensive. I have seen 1980s lots go for over $100.

-crainbebo
 
How come it only worked on Super VHS tapes?
Click to expand...

Supposedly it's because of the higher video bandwidth of S-VHS as opposed to conventional VHS. Most documentation I've seen about it relates to PAL, so maybe it's possible to recover NTSC WST teletext data (to some extent or other) from standard VHS. This is for conventional world standard teletext services like Electra (WST is what Ceefax and just about all the others use/d); I have no idea if it was possible to record NAPLPS teletext, or to what extent. If you have an analogue video capture/tuner board in your computer, you might try feeding it from your VCR. I understand most are capable of reading and decoding WST teletext, so if there is something on those tapes it may be able to grab it. (And if you don't have one, get one. They're cheap these days.)

I guess there's also supposed to be a few laserdisks "out there" that have ancillary material in WST format, but I think most (all?) of those were released in PAL format.

Note that WST, NAPLPS and the black box that covers up half the screen are not the same thing nor are they compatible! World standard teletext is what most people are familiar with, NAPLPS is a fancier implementation of that, with real bitmap graphics (remember that old dialup service "Prodigy"?) and the black box is an extension of EIA-608.
 
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Unrelated, but I can tell whenever I bought a T-120 blank tape with a movie copied from a rental. Either, in Macrovision, the picture goes from bright to dark (unwatchable), I see the black/white Macrovision bars in the vertical blanking input, or I can see codes in the VBI. "CBSFOX," "MAGVID", etc. Whenever I see those, I forget going through them for commercials (you aren't going to see any!)
 
Interesting you should mention that. KRCW used to broadcast code ("KRCW-TV 32/PORTLAND" if I remember correctly) in its VBR until the very end. I should check my tapes of channel 32 with the vertical hold slightly ajar and see if it was recorded.
 
Even more finds from my large eBay VHS lot from Brownwood, Texas!

TAPE 22: Partial presentation of Tremors (1990), News Channel 11 at Ten (Abner Euresti and Karin McCay at the anchor desk), The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and partial episode of Rush Limbaugh taped from KCBD in Lubbock on 2/25/1994 with commercials--coincidentally, Rush was also one of Leno's guests that night; episode of The Frugal Gourmet taped from Lifetime in February 1994 with commercials; episode of Viper taped from KCBD on 2/18/1994 with commercials; partial episode of The X-Files taped from KJTV in Lubbock on 2/18/1994 with commercials

TAPE 23: Calendar Girl, Cop, Killer?: The Bambi Bembenek Story (1992 ABC made-for-TV movie) taped from WFAA in Dallas in June 1995 with commercials; both parts of Deadly Matrimony (1992 NBC miniseries) taped from Lifetime in June 1995 with commercials

TAPE 24: Jurassic Park (1993) taped from KRBC in Abilene on 11/25/2000 with commercials; episodes of Rolie Polie Olie, Bear in the Big Blue House, The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh, and Out of the Box taped from Disney Channel (Playhouse Disney block) in November 2000 with promos between shows. I already have another tape with a partial recording of another NBC airing of Jurassic Park taped from WKYC in Cleveland on 5/7/1995, which also includes that night's Channel 3 News at 11:00 and a partial broadcast of Hard Copy afterward.

Several tapes in the 50-tape lot didn't have any commercials or promos to speak of. There were also some tapes that I didn't look at in their entirety, either due to poor picture quality or my VCR having playback problems, likely due to the age or condition of some of the tapes. One tape, for example, contained an NBC broadcast of The Sound of Music (1965) taped from KXAS in Dallas on 12/23/1995 with commercials, but after I had gotten only two of the ad breaks digitized, I hit the play button after the tape was stopped for a few minutes and the picture froze, so I ended up throwing the tape away. Another tape from the lot also had a Saturday Night Live broadcast taped from KCEN in Waco in May 1990 with commercials, but near the end of that program, the picture worsened greatly due to what appeared to be a weak antenna signal of the station. I found some footage of an unknown wrestling program that aired after SNL, but I hardly looked through any of it because of the bad picture and ended up throwing it away as well after digitizing whatever commercials I could from SNL.
 
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