Oldest Extant Off-Air VHS/Beta Tape You Have

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Tape 3-there's actually at least three episodes of Personal FX on the same tape. I checked the first two+ hrs of the tape yesterday. They were taped 1/31, 2/1 and 2/2/1995, all with ads [lots of Breakfast Time promos!]

-crainbebo

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Tape 1-continuing with the tape, the movie "Emmanuel Around the World" is incomplete, only around 15 min of the movie is on this tape. After that, there's most of an episode of Seinfeld [The Virgin] from 11/11/1992 taped off KING/5 with ads, first minute of Mad About You from the same night with ads before, last 30 sec. of a Jenny Jones episode taped off KTZZ/22, then half an episode of NightTalk with Jane Whitney [topic: what to do when you think you are paying a price for the way your in-laws are raising your spouse] also taped off KTZZ/22 [when they were know as The Big ZZ] in 1992 with ads, part of the CBS Miniseries "Sinatra" taped off KIRO/7 in late 1992 with ads, then part of a boxing match w/ Azumah Nelson taped off Showtime in late 1992 at Lake Tahoe, part of a KING 5 News broadcast with a report on the Huskies trip to Tucson, part of another KING 5 News broadcast with Election '92 news coverage, then nothing else recorded on it.

-crainbebo

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

While my family was out at their boat in Everett a couple days ago (I was not there), they found some VHS tapes by a dumpster. One was blank, and the other four were prerecorded studio tapes. Looking briefly at the blank tape, here's what was on it in the first 2+ hrs, of a T-120 TDK. A little disappointed with the dates...

Two episodes, one partial, of Lost taped off ABC/KOMO 4 in early 2009 with commercials, including some KOMO 4 News teasers. This was taped over two other shows, an episode of "Puttin' on the Hits" from the mid-late '80s, and an unknown CBS show, recently (saw the CBS HD bug for a split second).
Then, the partial ep of Lost gets taped over by a Vice Presidential Debate (Biden and Palin) from October 2008, will look at more tomorrow.

-crainbebo

 

[willdav713]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Any body have the show "Drexel's Class" From Fox (9/1991) on one of these tapes? I would record "The Simpsons", "Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack", and "America's Most Wanted" but never recorded "Drexel's Class"

Due to the fact, my 2 head 1983 Magnavox VCR I used to have and the remotes for it sell dirt cheap on E-Bay. Didn't have Timer Recording, It had analog fine tuning push button 10 channels (had to be hooked up to a converter, with one of those buttons programmed on Channel 3) for it to record.

At that time, my Granddad in Houston had a JVC 4 head VCR with timer recording capabilities. But he was always recording on it non stop, and Cronkite's "Twentieth Century" was on at the same time on another cable network.

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

No, but I have three episodes of the Simpsons on home recorded VHS tapes. One tape has the episode "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment", taped off WKCH 43 Knoxville (now WTNZ) in early 1991, and two other episodes taped in early 1996 off KPTM/42 in Omaha, NE.

-crainbebo

 

[willdav713]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

No, but I have three episodes of the Simpsons on home recorded VHS tapes. One tape has the episode "Homer vs. Lisa and the 8th Commandment", taped off WKCH 43 Knoxville (now WTNZ) in early 1991, and two other episodes taped in early 1996 off KPTM/42 in Omaha, NE.

-crainbebo

Is that when the Simpson's got free cable? I have that one off of KRRT Fox 35 San Antonio (now KMYS).

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Correct! When Homer hooked up illegal cable, and Lisa said it violated the 10 commandments (thou shalt not steal). It has all of the original commercials as well (my WKCH-43 tape). It also has that night's episode of "Babes", with special guest Dolly Parton.

-crainbebo

 

[Scott2011]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Any body have the show "Drexel's Class" From Fox (9/1991) on one of these tapes? I would record "The Simpsons", "Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack", and "America's Most Wanted" but never recorded "Drexel's Class"

Due to the fact, my 2 head 1983 Magnavox VCR I used to have and the remotes for it sell dirt cheap on E-Bay. Didn't have Timer Recording, It had analog fine tuning push button 10 channels (had to be hooked up to a converter, with one of those buttons programmed on Channel 3) for it to record.

At that time, my Granddad in Houston had a JVC 4 head VCR with timer recording capabilities. But he was always recording on it non stop, and Cronkite's "Twentieth Century" was on at the same time on another cable network.

Right now the closest thing I have are three Drexell's Class promos shown during a couple of original broadcasts of The Simpsons from September 1991 (taped from WOIO in Cleveland, now a CBS affiliate). But since I'm always searching for more tapes at the flea markets and garage sales, you never know if I'll end up finding any episodes of Drexell's Class.

 

[Scott2011]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

More tapes I found within the past couple of weeks.

TAPE 1: Muppet Treasure Island (1996) taped from Disney Channel on 1/1/1997, afterward we see that whoever recorded this used the DirecTV program guide to find another Disney Channel feed (West Coast feed I would think) when it aired A Goofy Movie (1995), only the first 30 minutes of that movie are shown

TAPE 2: The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), A Miser Brothers Christmas (2008), and the start of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (2005) taped from ABC Family in December 2008, some ad breaks included, others cut out

TAPE 3: Episodes of Kim Possible, The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, Life with Derek (two episodes), and the start of a Phil of the Future episode taped from Disney Channel in December 2006 with promos

TAPE 4: High School Musical (2006) taped from Disney Channel in May 2006 with promos, this presentation of the movie also included segments of the cast showing how to dance to "We're All in This Together" after each promo break

TAPE 5: Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Michigan Wolverines, originally aired on 11/18/2006 on ABC, but this tape has an ESPN Classic Instant Classic rebroadcast shown in December 2006 with ads, but is missing the last five minutes of the fourth quarter due to tape running out (T-160 taped in SP speed)

TAPE 6: Seven complete episodes and one incomplete episode of The Magic School Bus taped from WVIZ in Cleveland in December 1996 with promos before and after the shows included, all episodes started with the last few minutes of Arthur (which aired before The Magic School Bus) and most ended with the first minute or so of Kratts' Creatures (aired afterward)

TAPE 7: (Most of) Saturday Night Live Remembers Chris Farley taped from WMAQ in Chicago on 5/13/1998 with ads

TAPE 8: ER episode ("Hindsight") taped from WKYC in Cleveland on 12/12/2002 with ads and first ten minutes of Channel 3 News at 11:00 (which included top stories on the national debut of Lebron "Traitor" James back when he played for the St. Vincent-St. Mary Irish); end of Crossing Over with John Edward episode, Days of Our Lives and Passions episodes, and first ten minutes of Montel Williams episode taped from WKYC on 12/13/2002 with ads; incomplete broadcast of WSBT News 22 at 5:00 (which was bumped back due to CBS coverage of the Masters), Hoosier Millionaire episode (Indiana's Hoosier Lottery game show), Touched by an Angel episode, and most of a 48 Hours Mystery broadcast, all taped from WSBT in South Bend on 4/13/2002 with ads

TAPE 9: Most of the 1990 Daytona 500 taped from WISH in Indianapolis on 2/18/1990 with no ads

TAPE 10: Six episodes of Miami Vice taped from FX in December 1996, only one commercial break was found on the tape, but a couple of live segments with the FX original programming hosts were also found

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I see you got some newer tapes this time. It seems like most of the time I find some good tapes, they're all in the 1990s...

Quite a bit of newer Disney Channel "Discrap" material on those tapes too. Tape 1 was back in the good ol' days of Disney, when it was at the waning weeks of the premium service...

-crainbebo

 

[Scott2011]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Yeah, the one garage sale I bought tapes from turned out to be a bit of a disappointment because those tapes were recorded pretty recently. The other one I went to just the other day had some of the older tapes from this list though. I was hoping the 1990 Daytona 500 would have had commercials from the race on it, but no such luck. There was also another tape I found that, according to the label, contained the movies Runaway, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Sheena, but the tape was broken. I'll see if I can try to repair it at some point. On the bright side, it was pretty interesting to see Hoosier Millionaire on the one tape to see how different it was from Cash Explosion here in Ohio.

 

[willdav713]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Yeah, the one garage sale I bought tapes from turned out to be a bit of a disappointment because those tapes were recorded pretty recently. The other one I went to just the other day had some of the older tapes from this list though. I was hoping the 1990 Daytona 500 would have had commercials from the race on it, but no such luck. There was also another tape I found that, according to the label, contained the movies Runaway, Nightmare on Elm Street, and Sheena, but the tape was broken. I'll see if I can try to repair it at some point. On the bright side, it was pretty interesting to see Hoosier Millionaire on the one tape to see how different it was from Cash Explosion here in Ohio.

The tape is easy to repair, I repaired mine in less than 15 minutes. All you need is tape and scissors in the case of the tape fell off the spool, or a T-120 el cheapo blank cassette, and no you can't use old head cleaning tapes to replace the shell, (I've tried) unless it is the damaged cassette is a T-5. Much easier than Cro2 Cassettes like Maxell XLII's, or Sony UX's that's for sure.

 

[stevations]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I look for old recordings on vhs tapes at thrift stores, auctions...etc. About 99 percent of the tapes that people bought as blank to record have movies from HBO, Cinemax type channels. It was a way for a person to have a copy of the movie and not worry about the problems with copy guard when a pre recorded movie was being copied to another VCR. Of course these movies can be bought anywhere and are of little value to me. Probably people recorded local shows from local channel but have since thrown them out....sldo when people die the relatives don't find much value in other peoples hobbies.

 

[Scott2011]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I look for old recordings on vhs tapes at thrift stores, auctions...etc. About 99 percent of the tapes that people bought as blank to record have movies from HBO, Cinemax type channels. It was a way for a person to have a copy of the movie and not worry about the problems with copy guard when a pre recorded movie was being copied to another VCR. Of course these movies can be bought anywhere and are of little value to me. Probably people recorded local shows from local channel but have since thrown them out....sldo when people die the relatives don't find much value in other peoples hobbies.

Yeah, that's something I seem to find a lot of, recordings of movies from pay cable channels. I still manage to find quite a bit of local stuff though, particularly newscasts that may have aired after network broadcasts of movies, sports, etc. that those who originally recorded them had intended to record.

 

[Giacomo Siffredi]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

This is a really interesting topic It's interesting learning what is recorded on many of these VHS tapes.

For those of you in Northeast New Jersey as well the NYC Metro Area, I want to direct your attention to a potential treasure trove in Bloomfield, NJ. that is being listed on Craigslist. Unfortunately, I do not have any room for these, but some of you may. And, BTW, this is not my listing.

http://newjersey.craigslist.org/zip/3292280556.html

 

[willdav713]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

This is a really interesting topic It's interesting learning what is recorded on many of these VHS tapes.

For those of you in Northeast New Jersey as well the NYC Metro Area, I want to direct your attention to a potential treasure trove in Bloomfield, NJ. that is being listed on Craigslist. Unfortunately, I do not have any room for these, but some of you may. And, BTW, this is not my listing.

http://newjersey.craigslist.org/zip/3292280556.html

50? Hell I have almost 700!

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

And I've got 78! My new life will be a hoarder... ;D

-crainbebo

 

[MCarney]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I'm cleaning out my house and I found a bunch of DVDs I taped from 2005-2006 or so. Couldn't believe what I found when I went through them - local news with commercials (including a then-married anchor team who went to work for separate stations and then divorced), lots of original network airings of Fox Sunday programming (The Simpsons, American Dad, Family Guy, Married...With Children), specials and documentaries from E!, A&E, TV Land, etc. I also found a ton of VHS tapes that I haven't gone through yet. I think of it this way - it's my legacy to my nieces and nephew. I wish someone in my family did this during the 1970s - I would love to watch those tapes now. But how many people had VCRs back then?

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I wish someone in my family did this during the 1970s - I would love to watch those tapes now. But how many people had VCRs back then?

Star Wars fanboys had them

 

[willdav713]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I wish someone in my family did this during the 1970s - I would love to watch those tapes now. But how many people had VCRs back then?

Star Wars fanboys had them

Didn't the U-matic, or Reel to Reel film (forgot what is was called) come before the VHS?