Kimiakane

My husband was a VHS junkie for many years. He bought many pre-recorded VHS tapes and was huge on recording movies, specials, animated series, TV series, music videos, nature & historical programming, etc. from cable-TV from his first recorder in 1983. He had accumulated thousands of videos which took up no less than 4 rooms in our house. Obsession? Yes, but at least it wasn't something like pornography, gambling, drugs or something like that. When we met, he brought me in to his world and I have no regrets. We are video junkies, we love physical media and I can't see us ever conforming to VOD completely.

Then came DVD and we (especially I) were very excited because he fell in love with packaged media. No more recording for him, except for what we do with our DVR which is subsequently deleted after viewing. We quickly became converts to buying complete season sets of animated shows which we watch with our children, and do so in the same for TV series. We have to be careful with our subscriptions to publications like TV Guide, Entertainment Weekly, People and such to avoid spoilers for newer shows we watch as DVD sets (LOST, 24, ALIAS, etc.). We have enjoyed replacing the old video tapes for the much more friendly DVD format which takes up much less room and is more pleasing to the eye.

Now that we are at the dawn of HD discs which is said to be a complete replacement for DVD, what about the thousands upon thousands of things that have never made it to DVD that did exist on VHS? Since DVD made it's debut nearly a decade ago, there are so many VHS movies, music video collections, and more which still have not made the transition to disc. Will the programs that haven't made it to DVD ever make it at this point? There are so many cheap "schlock" films and cancelled TV shows and things obscure that we all love but will they forever fade into oblivion?

I read somewhere that a full 50% of movies made before 1950 have ceased to exist and that the ratio of TV shows is even worse. Is it probable that as many things that never made the transition from VHS to DVD that the same will happen as DVD makes the transition to the final HD format? At one time it looked like DVD was the salvation of all things on film. We thought that there would be companies scrambling to preserve anything and everything still exisitng out there for prosperity and history. Is it very difficult or expensive to preserve programs on disc? Has everything that is Public Domain been released (and subsequently saved) or is there still massive amounts out there rapidly turning into goo? Will lots of filmed material which is not PD cease to exist just because someone didn't care enough to transfer it to disc?

I was hoping to rid ourselves of these VHS tapes completely. Yes, we do have a VHS to DVD recorder now, but who has the time to transfer to DVD all those tapes that haven't made it to the format yet? Even if we do transfer them to disc, will we always have the ability to play them? To make matters worse, so much of the product he recorded was at slow speed to maximize the content on the tapes, not realizing that the picture quality would fade to the extent that it has over the last 20+ years. I guess the tapes will go out the door no matter what, but we are terribly upset that so many things will apparently be unreplaceable since they still haven't made it to the now seemingly defunct DVD format.

All that said, let the criticisms begin (although I would prefer kind suggestions and solutions as opposed to the frequent "get-a-life" comments), or any other input you may have to offer. Feel free to e-mail me directly if you don't wish to say anything here to offer help in our dilemma. Thank you in advance for any helpful comments you may have.

Cameron

i wouldn't just toss them out. Plenty of tape traders who would love to get their hands on them to make transfers of old commercials, newscast, awards shows, etc. Anything that is readily available on dvd should be donated to the goodwill, or set at the curb. There have been a few threads on this, that I'm sure can be found (I think they were in Otter)

Just don't toss them just yet.... I'm sure someone here would be glad to pay the media mail price to have them to look through.

awmurray

Well, wait a couple more years and you can transfer them all onto 1 or 2 HD discs (HD-DVD or Blu-Ray). Or at least a small handful of HD discs.

Josh H

The pre-recorded ones I'd donate to goodwill, or the local library if they do VHS still.

Kimiakane

Yes, we did actually give a few hundred to Goodwill already. They take the home-recorded as well as the pre-recorded. We got rid of many that had movies we assumed would come out on DVD...of course this was a year ago before it became evident that not everything will make it to DVD.

PopcornTreeCt

Well, I think the obvious answer is to upgrade what you can and keep the rest. HD-DVD will not be the final format barring any apocalpytic showdowns in the near future. And I doubt HD-DVD is gonna take over DVDs, not until the prices come down.

joliom

You could unspool them all and turn your living room into a makeshift "ball bin" like at Chucky Cheese.

Joseph B

See ... It's quotes like this that drive me crazy! The DVD format is *not* going away just because HD-DVD/Blu-ray is (almost) here. Since the new decks can directly play DVD, and since a lot of old stuff will not be good candidates for Hi-Def, there will still be new releases of DVD titles ongoing for the next decade! Lot's of stuff that hasn't made it to DVD *will* now. The titles may not be as "cleaned up" as they would have been when DVD was "top dog"; but that aspect of DVDs new status will actually make it more financially feasible for the studios to release the older stuff to the format.

As to the topic: We just recently donated all our pre-recorded VHS tapes to our local library, and they were happy to have them! The rest (mostly old college football games), we're slowly transferring to DVD+R.

Nebiroth

Keep stuff that you can't get on DVD.

I fully agree that standard DVD isn't going to go away anytime soon. Even if one of the HD formats manages to be just as big a success as DVD has been it will take time to reach as many homes. Many obscure titles have been put onto DVD because of the sheer mass of DVD owners, which makes it worth releasing something that will only sell to a few percent. For that stuff to appear on HD discs, HD must reach that same "critical mass" of owners. Moreover, a lot of things - TV particularly - won't benefit much from being on HD discs as it wasn't made in HD anyway. You might get higher bitrates and whole seasons on one disc but that's about it.

Things are still far more likely to debut on standard DVD than HD DVD; there are simply so many more consumers with standard.

And of course, unlike the switchover from VHS to DVD, there will be backwards compatability. Expect the new players to play standard DVD discs perfectly well. From DVD to HD-DVD is just not the same thing as the leap from VHS to DVD, which involved a much more radical change in physical formats with a number of benefits such as the medium not wearing out.

Even if you transfer your stuff to recordable DVD, I would still keep your tapes. I for one don't regard recordable discs as having proven themselves as having a good shelf-life; VHS has, so long as it's reasonably treated and isn't worn out through heavy useage.

Lastly, consider that despite it's enormous success over the last decade, and the rapidity in which the format became "the" standard for releases, it has still not killed off VHS completely.

HD has a much bigger mountain to climb before it ever kills off standard DVD. I expect standard to remain the dominant format for years to come, and to spend more years after that being parallel with HD. And even when, or should I say IF - HD becomes dominant, there will be plenty of legacy owners to keep things going after that.

DVD is in no way similar to say laserdisc, which never became a mass market format.

Fincher Fan

Donate them to a museum.

nightmaster

Unlike a lot of people I found that even though I did keep a number of VHS tapes after the switch to DVD, I simply don't watch them, so in the last month or so they've been thrown out. If you still watch them, then by all means I think you should keep them, but if not then I would donate them to Goodwill or the recycle center.

Jason

snorlaxnut

I have almost 150 VHS tapes, 6 to 8 hours each, of stuff recorded off of TV channels. After I find and get all the movies and TV shows that I have recorded that are on DVD right now, I would then get a DVD recorder and transfer to DVD all the other stuff I have recorded. Stuff like classic commercial specials (one hosted by John Ritter), 3 different years of a TV music concert special from Japan, several movies that are only available as bootlegs on eBay, plus every episode of Mad TV.

I figure out what I can give to my parents, since they still use VHS, and just throw out the rest.

digitalfreaknyc

Anything that's not on DVD is kept...and to be honest, I don't think I own a single VHS that hasn't made it to DVD yet. Laserdisc, just a couple of concerts. I guess I'm lucky in my mainstream tastes. As for the over 100 videos of Harrison Ford, Star Wars, Madonna, Tori Amos and whomever else appearaces, they'll all be kept...with me archiving things as they come up.

Eddie W

My parents used to have some friends who had walls and walls of self recorded VHS tapes. Three movies to a tape at EP speed. But they looked so horrible that they'd never watch them. They just liked to say they had all these movies.

What I'd do is set a goal. Anything you watch on VHS during this time frame you'll also record to DVD at the same time. Whatever hasn't been recorded at the end of that time will be tossed out.

If most of the collection remains unwatched/unrecorded, you are probably more interested in 'having it' than actually ever watching it.

costanza187

I had a Rubbermaid container full of recorded from tv VHS tapes, last fall I pitched them. I felt a little strange about it at first...but it was a liberating experience!

mythmaker18

I'm willing to predict that it is not DVD, but rather HD-DVD and BluRay who will both suffer a similar fate to laserdisc and wind up being only a niche market for the high-end videophile.

DVD will suffice for Joe Sixpack and the Wal-Mart crowd, who vastly outnumber the high-end consumers.

DVD: the new VHS
HD-DVD/BluRay: the new Laserdisc (and the loser of the inevitable format war = the new Betamax)