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Oldest Extant Off-Air VHS/Beta Tape You Have

This past Saturday, while my parents and I went on a road trip to Atwood Lake Park in Mineral City, we stopped by a flea market in nearby Dover and I picked up a few more tapes. Here's what I found...

TAPE 1: Top Dog (1995) taped from unknown pay TV channel circa 1996; Timecop (1994) taped from HBO circa 1996; Corrina, Corrina (1994) taped from unknown pay TV channel (includes a partial PG rating bumper with an orange background at the beginning) circa 1996

TAPE 2: Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) taped from HBO circa 1994

TAPE 3: Daddy Day Care (2003) taped from Starz in May 2004 with Feature Presentation intro and PG rating bumper at the beginning; last 30 minutes or so of Chicago (2002) taped from unknown pay TV channel circa 2004

TAPE 4: 71st Annual Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, strange recording because whoever taped this switched channels between three different NBC affiliates during the course of the parade, one hour on WKYC in Cleveland, 30 minutes on WTOV in Steubenville, and the rest on WCMH in Columbus, taped on 11/27/1997 with commercials

TAPE 5: The Crossing (2000) taped from A&E on 1/10/2000 with commercials, also includes first few minutes of an episode of A&E Top 10

I did find a sixth tape containing the movies A Christmas Carol (1984 CBS movie), Blood Sport (1973), and Rambo: First Blood (1982), but I won't be keeping it for good reason. The recording of A Christmas Carol has audio but no video (snow), although I was able to tell from the audio that the recording was from WJW in Cleveland in December 1989 and contained commercials. The recording of Blood Sport, from WOAC in Canton (now WRLM) in 1994 with only one commercial break intact that I saw, had a very bright, flashy picture throughout. After a while of fast-forwarding through the recording, I took the tape out and put in one of my newer recorded tapes and saw that tape had the same problem, so the old tape had messed up my VCR. :( Luckily, I was able to clean the heads by playing a new blank tape all the way through, and everything was back to normal. I didn't bother to check the recording of Rambo: First Blood for channel information or commercials.

At the flea market, I also found a rare prerecorded VHS tape. It was a rough cut of the pilot episode of the NBC series Earth 2 made by NBC Entertainment Press and Publicity. I didn't get the best look at it yet, but it would be interesting to see what's on that tape versus what ended up airing on NBC on November 6, 1994.

I also found two audiocassettes containing songs recorded from Cleveland radio stations WZAK and WDMT (now WENZ) in 1986 with various urban adult contemporary songs of the time (Freddie Jackson, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Alexander O'Neal, Bill Withers, the Temptations, the System, One Way, Patti LaBelle, Teena Marie, Skip Worth, Luther Vandross, Roberta Flack, etc.) While the airchecks found on the tape were not unscoped, the tape does contain some disc jockey dialogue in the first few seconds of some of the songs.
 
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Rough cut VHS tapes are very hard to find because they were only supposed to be for background/cast purposes, and not for sale/rental. It might be easier for me to find the Burt Reynolds movie of the same name (Rough Cut) on VHS from Paramount Home Video :D They will likely not have an intro, may have different graphics, and may have no music background, or none at all.
I did see this...! Was this the same box at the flea market? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Earth-2-VHS...tact-/271562896506?pt=VHS&hash=item3f3a68f47a

I almost got (and may get when it comes back for bid) a 25-tape lot (Betamax, by the way, NOT VHS) of various late night and daytime talk shows from the 1980s and 1990s. Old SNL, Tonight Show (both Carson and Leno), early Conan O'Brien Late Night, Greg Kinnear's Later from 94, Geraldo, vintage Ted Koppel Nightline I think....all from NYC. So probably WNBC, WABC etc stuff.
Still having fun looking at vintage NBC first run and USA rerun Miami Vice episodes. USA reran Miami Vice in the late 80s-mid 90s. My USA reruns date to 1988 and are season 1 episodes. Of course, the NBC ones are 1986-89 including the series finale on one tape, off KNBC in Los Angeles with commercials, with the others all off KRON 4 San Francisco. All T-120 VHS tapes by the way, no Betamax. The same guy who's selling the talk show Betamax lot also sold 9 or 10 Beta tapes chock full of Miami Vice as well a couple of months ago, and just sold some vintage NYC/Pittsburgh newscasts from the mid 80s on betamax. This guy seems to be full of VHS and Betamax TV gold. The older the better.

I remember The Lighter Side of Sports. Back when I was in Seattle, KCPQ our Fox station used to air it in filler on Sunday afternoons after NASCAR or NFL football. They don't air that show anymore but do air an occasional Who's the Boss? on Sundays.
Animal Rescue is still alive and well with Alex Paen, and so is Dog Tales and a lot of his Telco stuff. Telco is also syndicating The Balancing Act and Designing Spaces, which both air from 7-8AM ET/PT on Lifetime.
 
crainbebo said:
Rough cut VHS tapes are very hard to find because they were only supposed to be for background/cast purposes, and not for sale/rental. It might be easier for me to find the Burt Reynolds movie of the same name (Rough Cut) on VHS from Paramount Home Video :D They will likely not have an intro, may have different graphics, and may have no music background, or none at all.
I did see this...! Was this the same box at the flea market? http://www.ebay.com/itm/Earth-2-VHS...tact-/271562896506?pt=VHS&hash=item3f3a68f47a

I almost got (and may get when it comes back for bid) a 25-tape lot (Betamax, by the way, NOT VHS) of various late night and daytime talk shows from the 1980s and 1990s. Old SNL, Tonight Show (both Carson and Leno), early Conan O'Brien Late Night, Greg Kinnear's Later from 94, Geraldo, vintage Ted Koppel Nightline I think....all from NYC. So probably WNBC, WABC etc stuff.
Still having fun looking at vintage NBC first run and USA rerun Miami Vice episodes. USA reran Miami Vice in the late 80s-mid 90s. My USA reruns date to 1988 and are season 1 episodes. Of course, the NBC ones are 1986-89 including the series finale on one tape, off KNBC in Los Angeles with commercials, with the others all off KRON 4 San Francisco. All T-120 VHS tapes by the way, no Betamax. The same guy who's selling the talk show Betamax lot also sold 9 or 10 Beta tapes chock full of Miami Vice as well a couple of months ago, and just sold some vintage NYC/Pittsburgh newscasts from the mid 80s on betamax. This guy seems to be full of VHS and Betamax TV gold. The older the better.

I remember The Lighter Side of Sports. Back when I was in Seattle, KCPQ our Fox station used to air it in filler on Sunday afternoons after NASCAR or NFL football. They don't air that show anymore but do air an occasional Who's the Boss? on Sundays.
Animal Rescue is still alive and well with Alex Paen, and so is Dog Tales and a lot of his Telco stuff. Telco is also syndicating The Balancing Act and Designing Spaces, which both air from 7-8AM ET/PT on Lifetime.
Click to expand...

The copy I bought didn't come in a box, but it's interesting seeing there are other copies out there, knowing how hard rough cut tapes are to find.
 
Another family road trip this past Saturday--this time to Bowling Green, Ohio (where I went to college at BGSU)--included a stop at a locally-run thrift store in the area and yet another VHS haul. I ended up picking up six tapes from this one.

TAPE 1: Final episode of Boy Meets World taped from WTVG in Toledo on 5/5/2000 with commercials; episode of The Nanny (syndicated rerun) taped from WUPW in Toledo in May 2000 with commercials; episode of The 1900 House (PBS miniseries) taped from WGTE in Toledo on 6/26/2000, recording starts with closing funding credits of Antiques Roadshow and a few programming promos; partial episode of Survivor taped from WTOL in Toledo on 6/28/2000 with commercials; episode of Paradise Hotel taped from WUPW on 7/23/2003 with commercials and opening to Fox Toledo News at Ten; partial episode of American Juniors and full episode of Paradise Hotel taped from WUPW on 7/29/2003 with commercials and opening to Fox Toledo News at Ten

TAPE 2: Heavy Weights (1995) taped from the Disney Channel circa 1997, starts with Michael Eisner's introduction to the movie; Tom and Huck (1995) taped from the Disney Channel circa 1997; most of The Distinguished Gentleman (1992) taped from unknown pay TV channel circa 1994; most of Patriot Games (1992) taped from HBO circa 1994

TAPE 3: Eight episodes of Unsolved Mysteries (original NBC and CBS broadcasts from 1997 and 1998), first three episodes taped from WNWO, the rest taped from WTOL, all minus commercials

TAPE 4: Both parts of In the Beginning (NBC miniseries) taped from WNWO in Toledo on November 12 and 13, 2000 with commercials

TAPE 5: Longshot (2001) taped from unknown pay TV channel circa 2004; Swimfan (2002) taped from HBO circa 2004; Killing Emmett Young (2002) taped from HBO sometime in 2004 with a couple of promos leading up to the first couple of minutes of Digimon: The Movie (2000); In Love and War (1996) taped from unknown pay TV channel circa 2004

TAPE 6: Three Godfathers (1948) taped from TNT sometime in 1989 minus most commercials; Swing Shift (1984) taped from WGN sometime in 1989 minus commercials; Fire Birds (1990) taped from Encore in May 2005; The Great White Hype (1996) taped from Fox Movie Channel in May 2005, recording starts with a Production Notes segment on The Great White Hope (1970), which had apparently aired beforehand, recording ends with a partial behind-the-scenes segment of the movie Kingdom of Heaven (2005)
 
Good finds again, especially the final Boy Meets World and that NBC miniseries. I have Witness to the Mob, a 1998 miniseries, off of KNDO-23 (yep, NBC) with commercials.

I used to have a tape of the 1932 horror movie "Freaks", taped off TNT. I just found the date that tape was recorded from memory - it was in the early hours of January 15th, 1996. I remember the coming up bumper showed a time of "4:20AM" for Freaks - meaning 1:20 out here in the west. All the direct response ads aired in the wee hours were outdated by one year as they still had 1995 copyrights on some of them!

-crainbebo
 
If anyone is interested, I may have a box (or two) of old VHS tapes that someone can have. All I need is $$$ in my paypal account to cover the cost of postage to send them to you. Will probably also need your zip code to know what it will cost me to ship. Add a $ or two if you want me to track it for you or for insurance. These were my mother-in-law's old tapes, so we do not know what is on them. But we need to get rid of them soon.
 
I've recently came across a good amount of Ed Mcmahon's Star Search that I've converted to DVD, if anyone is interested or if they have more Star Search between 1986 and 1991, send me a private message.
 
I just remembered that a couple years ago, I had contributed to another discussion board on this same topic on RetroJunk.com, where I talked about some of the tapes I've found. If you're interested in some of the things other folks have found on such tapes over the years, here it is. It seems like a lot of people on this other discussion board have had better luck finding homemade tapes at the more mainstream thrift store chains like Goodwill and the Salvation Army than most of us on this thread have. The website itself is also full of various classic commercials and such ranging from the 1950s to the 2000s.
http://www.retrojunk.com/community/post/index/26867
 
More "time capsules" found!! Received a lot from a craigslist seller near Dallas, dating late 1980s/early 1990s up to about 2004.
Checking a few tapes, I've found the following:
CBS's "50 Years from Television City" special, taped 4/27/2002 off KXII-12 Sherman, TX with commercials.
Episodes of "The Lucy Show" and "I Love Lucy" taped off Nick at Nite in 1992 with commercials.
Several episodes of "Street Smarts," some incomplete (the game show with Frank Nicotero) taped off an unknown station (likely KFWD-52 Fort Worth) around 2002; unfortunately commercials were paused. One of the episodes was the "Turkey Day"/Thanksgiving episode and both contestants lost all their money at the end! That had to hurt.
Episodes of the short lived "Dirty Dozen" TV series (Fox) with John Slattery from 1988, from what I can tell, unfortunately no commercials again.
Some season 1 "24' episodes; yet again no commercials but original broadcasts off Fox in 2002 (probably KDFW-TV).
A whole tape chock full of KDAF-33 (WB) programming from around 1999 - Boy Meets World rerun, Home Improvement rerun, some Frasier, 7th Heaven (WB Network broadcast, not syndicated rerun), 9:00 newscast, Forgive and Forget, Change of Heart (dating game show) etc. All with ads! 8 hours too!
A tape with "Wild About Animals" specials taped off retail tapes (they were from 1997). One is about celebrity animals, one is about Australian animals, there are some others. At first when I popped the tape in and saw the opening of "Wild About Animals," I thought these would be original E/I broadcasts with Mariette Hartley. But as I rewound and found a big "FBI WARNING" screen, I knew these were retail. Oddly enough, I don't think Mariette Hartley is on any of these specials; just a male voiceover.
Some Family Matters episodes from 1991-1992, with no commercials. Probably taped off WFAA. The first episode is from 11/08/1991 and it's the one where Urkel plays basketball.
There's more, including some Murphy Brown and Judging Amy I have to get through as well, I got 28 tapes.

A decent lot so far, lots of TV programming but more tapes without than with commercials and promos.

-crainbebo
 
I found out my KDAF-33 tape with the 9PM news dated to 2/15/1999. Full 5PM-1AM aircheck!
I have also found a tape with Dawson's Creek, taped off KAKW-62 Waco in 2000 (both WB and UPN) with ads.
Judging Amy tapes were all TNT reruns and no commercials - darn.
Found a tape with the "V" miniseries, off KDAF-33 (in the Fox days) without commercials unfortunately.
Episode of "Fresh Prince of Bel-Air", all syndicated reruns, all off KTXA-21 Fort Worth in 1998 with commercials were found.
Murphy Brown reruns off KDFI in 1995 with ads; 6-hour SLP tape.
I also found a long tape chock full of 1998-ish TV Land, Family Affair, Green Acres, Rhoda etc. all with ads and "Retromercials". One of them was a 1960s 9-Lives ad! Back in the days when TV Land was watchable, was not chock full of commercials and the episodes were completely intact, not snipped out for more commercials. And no movies/Hot in Cleveland/reality shows/Family Feud in those days!

-crainbebo
 
Latest VHS haul I brought home was from a flea market in Elyria, Ohio last month.

TAPE 1: Scent of a Woman (1992) taped from WEWS in Cleveland on 12/29/1996 with commercials and first couple minutes of News Channel 5 at 11:00 (Michael Settonni at the anchor desk); partially taped-over episode of Murder She Wrote, a 1989 rerun taped from WOIO in May 1995 with commercials and first couple minutes of 48 Hours

TAPE 2: Seinfeld rerun taped from WOIO on 12/30/1996 with commercials; episode of Siskel & Ebert at the Movies taped from WKYC on 12/29/1996 with commercials and first few minutes of NFL on NBC pregame show; partial broadcast of Wall Street Week with Louis Rukeyser taped from WNEO/WEAO on 12/27/1996; partial broadcast of the 1996 Orange Bowl Parade (first 30 minutes or so) taped from WOIO on 12/28/1996 with commercials; partially taped-over Seinfeld rerun taped from WOIO on 12/24/1996 with commercials; two more Seinfeld reruns taped from WOIO on December 25 and 26, 1996 with commercials; most of a broadcast of Wall Street Week taped from WNEO/WEAO on 12/20/1996; one last Seinfeld rerun taped from WOIO on 12/21/1996 with commercials; partial episodes of Keeping Up Appearances and Are You Being Served taped from WNEO/WEAO in December 1996 with three or four promos sandwiched between them

TAPE 3: Strange six-hour hodgepodge of miscellaneous shows and specials from 1992--most of them incomplete--including Big Bands (PBS documentary) taped from WNEO/WEAO; short clip from CNBC/FNN, including a package from a then-little-known reporter named Neil Cavuto; clip from the 1992 People's Choice Awards taped from WJW on 3/17/1992; last few minutes of the Ohio State Buckeyes vs. Michigan Wolverines basketball game with the Fab Five, taped from WJW; a couple of World War II documentaries taped from A&E and the Discovery Channel; Johnny Carson's final Tonight Show taped from WKYC on 5/22/1992; Jay Leno's first Tonight Show taped from WKYC on 5/25/1992; a couple of short clips from a broadcast of Hard Copy taped from WEWS--no commercials except for a partial break from Carson's last show

TAPE 4: The American Experience episode "MacArthur" taped from WVIZ on 5/17/1999 with promos and start of Charlie Rose afterward; partial broadcast of a City Club of Cleveland forum taped from WVIZ on 4/30/1999

TAPE 5: Great Performances episode of "Cats" taped from WVIZ on 10/27/1998

TAPE 6: About three and a half hours of Disney Channel programs during its Sneak-a-Peek Weekend in April 1986, including episodes of You and Me, Kid; Welcome to Pooh Corner; Dumbo's Circus; and Winnie the Pooh: Too Smart for Strangers, including a panel discussion geared toward parents shown after the special--in between each show were Disney Channel promos, including several spots with Jim McKrell and Kathryn Leigh Scott

TAPE 7: The Cherokee Kid (1996) taped from HBO on 12/14/1996

All but the last two tapes were purchased from the same flea market vendor selling them in two large cases. I recall seeing such content on labels as broadcasts of Frontline, a Peter Jennings year-in-review special for 2001, more Great Performances episodes, 9/11 news coverage (which I already have three tapes of), Charlie Rose, Martha Stewart Living, and others. Another vendor selling VHS tapes also had two tapes each supposedly containing one part of Masterpiece Theatre's "Sense and Sensibility" miniseries from 2008, which I didn't pick up.
 
I was wrong about a couple of tapes. On the "Fresh Prince" tape, I also found an episode of "Martin" (syndicated rerun) off KTXA; two episodes of I Love Lucy and an episode of the dating game show "Change of Heart" taped off KDAF (WB) with commercials around September 1998.
The "I Love Lucy" tape also has a Perry Mason episode taped off KDAF in the Fox days, around 1992.
Also found one tape that has several KDAF shows from January 2003: Everybody Loves Raymond rerun (The Angry Family), Friends rerun (Chandler's wedding), Simpsons rerun and Dawson's Creek. Have not checked the rest of it but I might be able to find WB-33 News at Nine, if it was recorded. I have the 2/15/99 broadcast and would be nice to have a 2003 broadcast as well. Hardly have any newscasts from any cities.

SCOTT2013: I have been wanting to sign up for YouTube and share all of my commercials/promos from my VHS tapes (dating back as early as December 1983). What capture software do you use? I have a Windows Vista Compaq computer (I know, I know, Vista sucks and my computer dates back to 2007...) And how do you get those commercials onto YouTube? Finally, what commercials would have "content ID matches"? Promos for various shows?

I have a BASF T-120 that has a strange mismash of 1992 Seattle TV programming as well. Roseanne, Coach and a partial "Going to Extremes" episode off KOMO, an unknown Meryl Streep movie and part of "Emmanuel Around the World" off Showtime, Seinfeld off KING, partial "Night Talk with Jane Whitney" off KTZZ, a little of the "Sinatra" miniseries off KIRO, a partial Azumah Nelson boxing match off Showtime, and two KING-5 news snippets, one on the UW Huskies trip to Arizona, and one on Election 92. Odd! Little of this and a little of that. Whatever was off the air also had commercials as well, including a local ad for KUBE 93 on the Night Talk segment.

-crainbebo
 
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The software I use is the AOA DVD Ripper. It allows content to be ripped from DVDs to your computer. First, however, you would have to dub the clips you want to upload onto DVD+R discs using a VCR/DVD recorder combo and then finalize them in order to play them back on your computer and ultimately rip them.

Believe it or not, most of the content ID matches I have gotten come from the corporations WWE and T3MediaSports (the latter being affiliated with the NCAA) in relation to random commercials (likely commercials that are shown during certain wrestling programs or college football or basketball games). I'll never understand why that's the case because I'm pretty sure those two corporations don't actually own the content of most of the ads, even though the products are being advertised during their programming. If you do get a content ID match, most of the time it doesn't do anything for your YouTube account standing, but if you click on the link that reads "matched third party content," a video player will pop up on the right side of your screen and point to the content (i.e. commercial or sometimes a song or musical composition) in question. When I find out any of my videos have a content ID match, I use that to find out what to edit out when I re-edit such videos if I feel the need to do so, using Windows Movie Maker.
 
The problem is, is there any way I can go straight from VCR to computer? I wouldn't want to buy 125+ blank DVDs for my 125+ home-recorded VHS tapes. I know there are video capture devices out there, but it would make it easier.

And Scott, you would be surprised how many TV markets I have on tape. I have Seattle, Yakima, Dallas, Waco, Knoxville TN, Detroit, Toledo, Chicago (WGN only), San Francisco, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Omaha, Orlando, Roanoke VA and maybe others, not counting cable. Hundreds of hours of TV programming 1983-2012. Still on the hunt for a used RCA VK-250, which would seal the deal for potentially early 80s or even 1979 programming.

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
The problem is, is there any way I can go straight from VCR to computer? I wouldn't want to buy 125+ blank DVDs for my 125+ home-recorded VHS tapes. I know there are video capture devices out there, but it would make it easier.

And Scott, you would be surprised how many TV markets I have on tape. I have Seattle, Yakima, Dallas, Waco, Knoxville TN, Detroit, Toledo, Chicago (WGN only), San Francisco, Minneapolis, Los Angeles, Omaha, Orlando, Roanoke VA and maybe others, not counting cable. Hundreds of hours of TV programming 1983-2012. Still on the hunt for a used RCA VK-250, which would seal the deal for potentially early 80s or even 1979 programming.

-crainbebo
Click to expand...

Of those cities, I have Toledo (WTOL, WTVG, WDHO/WNWO, WBGU, WGTE and WUPW), Chicago (WMAQ, WLS and WGN), San Francisco (KTVU, KRON, KNTV and KBHK) and Los Angeles (KCBS, KNBC and KTLA).
 
My oldest tape (1983) has the movie "On the Town" off WFLD (very early Metromedia days but still had Field Communications-era promos and IDs) and "Here's Television Entertainment," an NBC special taped off WMAQ-5. It will be 32 years old next year and it works great! Vintage TDK T-120 by the way. All ads are included and there are many local Chicago commercials in the WFLD segment.
Will think about the Dazzle software. My goal by 2015 is to have a YouTube account full of TV gold from the Northwest and throughout the country. I've got WGN stuff (pre-WB) from 1989-1990, a couple of the 7PM weeknight movies. One is "Wake of the Red Witch" from 1948 and the other is the 1966 "Batman" movie, the ORIGINAL with Adam West, not the 1989 Warner Bros. one.

-crainbebo
 
I have decided in the next couple of days (I hope) to get a Honestech VHS/DVD converter...you can also put VHS samples on Youtube with a one-click option. Expect in the near future to see new videos with Seattle, SF, Dallas, Yakima etc. commercials and various TV samples.
I will NOT under any circumstances post any sitcoms...unless they are very rare shows that lasted a short time. Same goes with crime dramas and other network dramatic/action shows, except for those rare ones. I may post full episodes of "Houston Knights". Checking YouTube, I only see about five episodes posted, out of 31. I have probably 11 or 12 episodes on two 6-hour tapes from 1987. Some with commercials, some without, but all from KPIX-5 San Francisco.
The A&E Mysteries will not be posted (and I have about 15 tapes), just commercials and promos only.
Also, I will NOT post any movies, except for the commercials or promos (or even station ID bumpers) that air during the movie. Copyright problems there. I have some HBO/Showtime stuff dating back to 1984 I'd like to post as well.

I will try to post every minute of a local newscast that I can find on tape. I'm also hoping to post several "Street Smarts" episodes, but the whole 8-hour tape was minus ads. The episodes I have are from the 2003-04 season (when the "Pick Your Brain" round replaced "Pick Your Pony"). There are no local logo bugs, so I cannot tell if it was taped off KDAF (Dallas) or KAKW (Waco). I also have two "Change of Heart" episodes from 1998-99, and a Pat Bullard Love Connection episode I may post.

-crainbebo
 


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