Oldest Extant Off-Air VHS/Beta Tape You Have

[willdav713]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I keep finding my tapes at a local record store up in Everett. The owner sells TONS of VHS tapes, and at any given time boxes are in the store, full of VHS, as high as the ceiling (10 feet!) Most of the time I look through the boxes for tapes that are interesting. The "On the Town" Gene Kelly tape from 1983 off WFLD was in a box that was easy to dig through (on top!) The no-commercial "Missing in Action III" tape - well, not so much. Had to go through a few boxes to get that. Seems like that box had a couple other movie tapes, and then tons of (old!) tapes that someone recorded gameplays of video games over. (i.e. hooked up the VCR to the PlayStation or XBOX and let it run)

It was also easy to find the M*A*S*H and Star Trek tapes, as they were in a pile right on top. For some reason however, the M*A*S*H tape has #1: been reduced to "some commercials" as some episodes have ads cut out, and #2: has a fast forward problem. When I fast forward through, when taking it out the tape looks like it was ate up bad. When I carefully place the tape back in it's area, it works fine until I click FF. Wonder what the issue is there...no other tapes I have had that problem.

-crainbebo

The one tape of Super Bowl XXV I got a couple of months ago had a similar problem. I played it back for about a minute during Hank Williams Jr.'s theme song at the beginning, then tried rewinding it, but when I did that, my VCR ejected the tape and shut off by itself. Turns out the inside of that tape was very dusty. Unfortunately I'm kind of reluctant to try to play that tape again because I'm afraid of damaging my VCR.

LOL! What do you mean by that, shouldn't you use a cleaner. If you damage the VCR, you won't record no smile of a child, I keep my VCR and VHS clean, so that it can last long. BTW I have a bunch of old VHS from 87-present and they haven't fade out. Why did the VHS from the 80's hasn't fade away yet?

It depends on the brand of tape (Scotch rules, Sony Drools and so does Top Crest aka Randall's Brand) and the VCR you recorded it from.

The best of my tapes came from either a Top Loading Panasonic VTR Top Loading VCR, Magnavox 1983 VCR which remotes for it are frequently found on ebay on the cheap for it, and the Canon VR-HF800 VCR. Followed by the 2003 Sony VCR that I bought for $50 at Best Buy on Gessner and 59 in Houston.

The worst came from a 1990 model Zenith VCR, followed by GoVideo Dual Deck VCR 1994, and 1997 model. Stay away from Sony V tapes, JVC XR's, TDK HS after 1991 and before 2000 also preform poorly.

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I keep finding my tapes at a local record store up in Everett. The owner sells TONS of VHS tapes, and at any given time boxes are in the store, full of VHS, as high as the ceiling (10 feet!) Most of the time I look through the boxes for tapes that are interesting. The "On the Town" Gene Kelly tape from 1983 off WFLD was in a box that was easy to dig through (on top!) The no-commercial "Missing in Action III" tape - well, not so much. Had to go through a few boxes to get that. Seems like that box had a couple other movie tapes, and then tons of (old!) tapes that someone recorded gameplays of video games over. (i.e. hooked up the VCR to the PlayStation or XBOX and let it run)

It was also easy to find the M*A*S*H and Star Trek tapes, as they were in a pile right on top. For some reason however, the M*A*S*H tape has #1: been reduced to "some commercials" as some episodes have ads cut out, and #2: has a fast forward problem. When I fast forward through, when taking it out the tape looks like it was ate up bad. When I carefully place the tape back in it's area, it works fine until I click FF. Wonder what the issue is there...no other tapes I have had that problem.

-crainbebo

The one tape of Super Bowl XXV I got a couple of months ago had a similar problem. I played it back for about a minute during Hank Williams Jr.'s theme song at the beginning, then tried rewinding it, but when I did that, my VCR ejected the tape and shut off by itself. Turns out the inside of that tape was very dusty. Unfortunately I'm kind of reluctant to try to play that tape again because I'm afraid of damaging my VCR.

LOL! What do you mean by that, shouldn't you use a cleaner. If you damage the VCR, you won't record no smile of a child, I keep my VCR and VHS clean, so that it can last long. BTW I have a bunch of old VHS from 87-present and they haven't fade out. Why did the VHS from the 80's hasn't fade away yet?

It depends on the brand of tape (Scotch rules, Sony Drools and so does Top Crest aka Randall's Brand) and the VCR you recorded it from.

The best of my tapes came from either a Top Loading Panasonic VTR Top Loading VCR, Magnavox 1983 VCR which remotes for it are frequently found on ebay on the cheap for it, and the Canon VR-HF800 VCR. Followed by the 2003 Sony VCR that I bought for $50 at Best Buy on Gessner and 59 in Houston.

The worst came from a 1990 model Zenith VCR, followed by GoVideo Dual Deck VCR 1994, and 1997 model. Stay away from Sony V tapes, JVC XR's, TDK HS after 1991 and before 2000 also preform poorly.

JVC XRs - Definitely. I had an XR tape with a few movies on it, and the tracking problems were horrendous. I have good results with TDK HS and Sony V (my relatives have used Sony V since the 1990s for EVERY home-recorded tape).

I'd stick away from RCA (DEFINITELY!) and ANY no-name brand. No-name = crap! One of the best tapes IMO were the old Scotch black boxes in the 1980s, as well as the HS Memorex tapes from the early 1990s. Both worked well. BASF is hit or miss. I have a BASF from 1987 that has a little bit of audio "muffling" (it was recorded in SLP mode), but I have another 1990s BASF that works well. Maxell works great as well.

-crainbebo

 

[willdav713]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I keep finding my tapes at a local record store up in Everett. The owner sells TONS of VHS tapes, and at any given time boxes are in the store, full of VHS, as high as the ceiling (10 feet!) Most of the time I look through the boxes for tapes that are interesting. The "On the Town" Gene Kelly tape from 1983 off WFLD was in a box that was easy to dig through (on top!) The no-commercial "Missing in Action III" tape - well, not so much. Had to go through a few boxes to get that. Seems like that box had a couple other movie tapes, and then tons of (old!) tapes that someone recorded gameplays of video games over. (i.e. hooked up the VCR to the PlayStation or XBOX and let it run)

It was also easy to find the M*A*S*H and Star Trek tapes, as they were in a pile right on top. For some reason however, the M*A*S*H tape has #1: been reduced to "some commercials" as some episodes have ads cut out, and #2: has a fast forward problem. When I fast forward through, when taking it out the tape looks like it was ate up bad. When I carefully place the tape back in it's area, it works fine until I click FF. Wonder what the issue is there...no other tapes I have had that problem.

-crainbebo

The one tape of Super Bowl XXV I got a couple of months ago had a similar problem. I played it back for about a minute during Hank Williams Jr.'s theme song at the beginning, then tried rewinding it, but when I did that, my VCR ejected the tape and shut off by itself. Turns out the inside of that tape was very dusty. Unfortunately I'm kind of reluctant to try to play that tape again because I'm afraid of damaging my VCR.

LOL! What do you mean by that, shouldn't you use a cleaner. If you damage the VCR, you won't record no smile of a child, I keep my VCR and VHS clean, so that it can last long. BTW I have a bunch of old VHS from 87-present and they haven't fade out. Why did the VHS from the 80's hasn't fade away yet?

It depends on the brand of tape (Scotch rules, Sony Drools and so does Top Crest aka Randall's Brand) and the VCR you recorded it from.

The best of my tapes came from either a Top Loading Panasonic VTR Top Loading VCR, Magnavox 1983 VCR which remotes for it are frequently found on ebay on the cheap for it, and the Canon VR-HF800 VCR. Followed by the 2003 Sony VCR that I bought for $50 at Best Buy on Gessner and 59 in Houston.

The worst came from a 1990 model Zenith VCR, followed by GoVideo Dual Deck VCR 1994, and 1997 model. Stay away from Sony V tapes, JVC XR's, TDK HS after 1991 and before 2000 also preform poorly.

JVC XRs - Definitely. I had an XR tape with a few movies on it, and the tracking problems were horrendous. I have good results with TDK HS and Sony V (my relatives have used Sony V since the 1990s for EVERY home-recorded tape).

I'd stick away from RCA (DEFINITELY!) and ANY no-name brand. No-name = crap! One of the best tapes IMO were the old Scotch black boxes in the 1980s, as well as the HS Memorex tapes from the early 1990s. Both worked well. BASF is hit or miss. I have a BASF from 1987 that has a little bit of audio "muffling" (it was recorded in SLP mode), but I have another 1990s BASF that works well. Maxell works great as well.

-crainbebo

BASF, I have several from the 90's the 7 1/2 hours and the 8 hour ones. Never bought the 12 hour tape though.

Have LMT stuff and Denton Cooley on those Memorex HS tapes. TDK HDX-PRO is a tape of itself. I have Rev. Robert Schuller's Hour of Power on that tape from 1987 and you could swear it was taped off cable yesterday.

KODAK's are hit or miss. Have America's Most Wanted on it, and the Simpsons. Not too bad, but not as great as Scotch EG+, or the awesome HDX-PRO.

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Scotch EG+ - you gotta love those! I have a Scotch with Star Trek TNG taped on it, and it looks great. But the RCA's with "Strange Luck" (1995 TV show) taped off Fox? Horrible. Lots of tracking problems.

I had a Kodak with Total Recall taped off an unknown channel, and it looked just fine.

-crainbebo

 

[Scott2011]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I picked up a few more tapes within the past few weeks. One I found at a flea market, the others I found at garage sales.

TAPE 1: All That Heaven Allows (1955) taped from AMC on 4/3/1993; Crazy About the Movies episode taped from Cinemax on 4/6/1993; Unsolved Mysteries episode taped from WKYC on 4/14/1993 minus ads; American Justice episode (The Jonestown Massacre) taped from A&E on 7/7/1993, one commercial break was found, the others were cut out

TAPE 2: Short Circuit (1986) taped from WKYC on 6/5/1988 with ads; half of an episode of Wheel of Fortune, full episode of Jeopardy, episode of Growing Pains, and first few minutes of Head of the Class taped from WEWS on 7/20/1988 all with ads

TAPE 3: Fiddler on the Roof (1971) taped from WUAB on Mother's Day 1987, ads from the first two hours of the movie were included, ads from the last hour were cut out; half of an episode of Newhart taped from WJW in February 1987 with a few ads; part of Romancing the Stone (1984) taped from WEWS in February 1987 with ads

TAPE 4: Biography episode on Patsy Cline, hosted by Jack Perkins, taped from A&E sometime in 1998, one partial ad break was found, but most were cut out

TAPE 5: Frank Patterson: God Bless America (PBS concert) taped from WNEO/WEAO on 3/5/2000 with pledge drive intermissions

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

In a video drought at the moment. VCR is unplugged and I haven't been looking for any self-recorded tapes lately. Plan to go back to Everett in a few weeks however.

-crainbebo

 

[branda1979]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Hey Scott2011, Kaylor's house in Haskell, AR has all of the recorded tapes.

So we will give you a rundown of all recorded tapes at Kaylor's house beginning later today, OK?

 

[kinphoenix2]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

The reason why I'm asking, because I want to see the old smile of a child promos from then, in fact I want to see what KLTJ looked like then, in fact what stations in Houston are on thrift stores?

Ex-Houstonian here- wish I could help you with finding good thrift stores that may have old Smile bumpers- home taped VCR cassettes are getting very, very rare. Many thrift stores will not carry home made tapes for many reasons, the only ones I can find are titled commercially released ones. Goodwill now has a policy of not selling homemade tapes. I would try contacting KLTJ directly. I'm sure you know already how difficult it is locating VHS tapes.

I found a goodly bounty from a neighbor who had them in a bag in his front porch along with a stack of used, dusty VHS video recorders- these are folk who don't know how nor will NOT use the web to sell. These are the types people you need to find.

Someday, and I think *soon*, used VHS tapes and recorders will demand quite a high price in the used market. There are already titles of releases that have had their title's rights sold and digital releases actually altered from the original, thereby making the analog titles virtual collector's items (Monty Python's Life of Brian had an entire sketch removed in all releases- hold on to those VHS tapes!! You can command a princely sum for it)

Here is what I would do logistically if no help from the station directly:

print out flyers and post on older neighborhoods with a short request: old VCR tapes of (station, content whatever) another possible gold mine could be amateur radio operators, they save EVERY thing

Put a request out on the "Items Wanted" board on Craigslist.org Houston. Be careful... I've had some *interesting* issues dealing with the public regarding used tapes :-X

I hope my reply was not TOO useless, just wanted to throw my 2 cents out there to another VHS collector.

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

will thrift stores take other used writable media?

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Since thrift stores are getting more snobish, you'll probably have better luck at yard/garage sales or estate sales whey all kinds of old junk is for sale. Has anyone found anything worse than copyrighted material on old tapes?

 

[nomadcowatbk]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Has anyone come across Beta tapes, or when was the last time you did?

 

[MCarney]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Someday, and I think *soon*, used VHS tapes and recorders will demand quite a high price in the used market. There are already titles of releases that have had their title's rights sold and digital releases actually altered from the original, thereby making the analog titles virtual collector's items (Monty Python's Life of Brian had an entire sketch removed in all releases- hold on to those VHS tapes!! You can command a princely sum for it)

Another great example of a title changed from videotape to DVD is "The Fugitive". Season 1 had much of the music changed on DVD, but it's as broadcast on VHS.

There are also a lot of titles (both TV and film) never released on DVD that are on videotape. Some of them are already commanding high prices on Ebay.

 

[ssetta]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

I went to the Goodwill in Cambridge on Friday, and here's what I found:

Tape 1: "Howard's End" taped of Cinemax, and another movie I forget which, taped off HBO, features "With HBO/Without HBO" promo
Tape 2: Museum special taped off Discovery Channel in 2001, features another recording of an episode of M*A*S*H taped off TNT sometime in 1998, both feature local commercials from Erie, PA.
Tape 3: "Simpsons" marathon, all taped from Fox 25 in Boston.
Tape 4: 3 movies, not sure if they were recorded from TV or just copied from prerecorded tapes.
Tape 5: Tape labeled "Look who's talking" which is taped in EP, which taped over an old recording of a movie called "IT" from ABC affiliate WPRI in Providence in November 1990.

 

[RetroCirq]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Well guys, looks like the thread is getting a major bump so here it goes:

Found airings of "Motown Returns to the Apollo" (orignal NBC broadcast with commercials), "Laugh-In", "The Monkees", "War and Rememberance" (part 1 and 2) off WPLG, "Trading Spouses" (2004 airing WSVN), and much more.

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Motown Returns to the Apollo was from 1985! Great find VSN!

Someday, I'll go back to Everett and get more tapes, none for a while yet...

-crainbebo

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Possibly getting a few tapes tomorrow from a swap meet at the fairgrounds. Didn't have any money and was just looking, but found some tapes with movies and Simpsons/Roseanne episodes.

-crainbebo

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Got some tapes today.

Tape 1 and 2 - MANY different episodes of "The Simpsons" - all syndicated reruns - taped off KTTV Fox 11 Los Angeles around 2001 with commercials. Some episodes had ads cut out, but most have commercials.

Tape 3 - "A Fish Called Wanda" [1988] and "Stakeout" [1987] taped off an unknown channel without commercials.

-crainbebo

 

[crainbebo]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Looked at my Tape 3 again - at the very end of the tape is about ten minutes or so of a KCPQ "Cleopatra" broadcast -around 1988 or 1989 with a commercial break featuring ads for Cal Worthington Ford in Federal Way and an optical store. SP mode so it is a very short recording.

-crainbebo

 

[RetroCirq]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Motown Returns to the Apollo was from 1985! Great find VSN!

Someday, I'll go back to Everett and get more tapes, none for a while yet...

-crainbebo

Indeed it was, I had it transferred to DVD of course, including the commercials. Can't forget that!

 

[kinphoenix2]

Re: Self-made VHS tapes at Thrift Stores

Got some tapes today.

Tape 1 and 2 - MANY different episodes of "The Simpsons" - all syndicated reruns - taped off KTTV Fox 11 Los Angeles around 2001 with commercials. Some episodes had ads cut out, but most have commercials.

Tape 3 - "A Fish Called Wanda" [1988] and "Stakeout" [1987] taped off an unknown channel without commercials.

-crainbebo

oh crain that's awesome and brings back some very cool memories!! I'd LOVE to see old KTTV Channel 11 stuff. You really did get a "find". I can't seem to locate any home made VHS anywhere. Plenty of titled stuff, but I won't give up the searching. Our thrift stores don't carry home mades, and hubby won't stop the car at garage sales (oh sorry hon, we'll hit it on the way back from the grocery store) knowing FULL well we won't, not with cold stuff in the trunk! :

I did manage to find some cool titles though-

"A Visit with General Albert Pike" re-enactment put out by the Scottish Rite dated Oct 2nd 2001. Cool find.

"Triumph of the Will" 1937, Hitler propaganda film- which is on youtube fyi.

"Houston, We Have a Problem" describes dramatic moments of return flight Apollo 13 - sorta like Bloopers NASA style lol

I'd love to get my hands on some old Los Angeles stations content, especially KCOP, KTTV, or independent KCAL 9. The ads were unforgettable "Go See Cal, Go See Cal, Go See Cal!" Worthington and his "dog Spot!"