calhoun07

I never really bought a lot of VHS tapes. If I bought a tape new, it had to be a title I really, really, really, really wanted to see more than once. I more often bought movies previously viewed, but that was also sporadic. I never liked VHS and hated the format even when it was all there was. I hated how tapes got old and tracking would be an issue on older tapes, or you'd have color drop outs, or (my least fav of all) the bent image at the friggin top. VHS sucked when it was the king on the block and it sucks even more now.

So where did all that money go? Into a massive CD collection.

MrDs10e

I bought fewer than 20 VHS tapes ever. I never bought one new, always picked up used ones cheap from Blockbuster and such.

I didn't want to start collecting movies on a media format so easily degraded or destroyed, and in the incorrect aspect ratio, when I could tape the same off HBO etc. like mythmaker said. I thought about laserdisc in the early 90s, but I'd read about DVDs possibly coming down the pike and I waited to see if the LD format would stick, and sure enough it didn't. So the ability to watch movies in OAR, on a non-decaying media format, and cheaper than VHS is what made me a DVD collector.

Dabaomb

I had less than 50 VHS growing up and at least 45 of those I bought used at Blockbuster.

I've always liked movies but DVD's have taken it to a whole new level. The picture clarity and the small size have made them very collectible.

I now have over 720 DVDs.

Then again, when VHS was big, I was still in high school so I couldn't afford that many.

CPS_ Adventures

I love collecting movies, so I did VHS, then LaserDisk, now DVD, though the number of DVDs I have is far more extensive than my other formats (I think I even had some 8mm films when I was a kid). I had maybe 400+ VHS tapes, about 100 Laserdisks (pricey so I was selective), and nearly 1000 DVDs.

What kills me is that I've had some movies on all formats.

Now I'm looking to unload those videotapes, if I just had some motivation...

Giles

I definately collected more laserdiscs than VHS, so now I am upgrading alot of those films that are now available on DVD.

JesseCuster

The only VHS I ever notably collected was Mystery Science Theater 3000's run on the format. I believe I had all or very close to all episodes that were released on VHS. I also had a small collection of Laserdiscs. The thing that bummed me out with them, aside from the often very high price, were the wildly inconsistent tranfers. What's the point of releasing a film onto Laserdisc if it amounts to VHS level image quality?

With DVD, though, I've really latched on and I'm currently just above 500 DVDs, which is a collection size I never remotely imagined I would attain.

Flave

Danol! Hey, you're back! I'd recognize you anywhere.

Brian Shannon

I bought Laser Discs

fitprod

Never wasted a dime on VHS... I started collecting movies in the early eighties, when laserdiscs first arrived. I believe the first discs that we purchased were Tron, Star Trek II and a Mickey Mouse compelation in the middle of 1984...

Obviously, those early discs are long gone, but it wasthe start of an expensive habit. At the peak of laserdisc collecting, around late 1997, I probably had over 600 laserdiscs.

Once I saw Columbia's releases in April 1997, I started buying most of my titles on DVD. (Warner's early releases were horrible and is why there we're fears about DVD picture qulaity...) I had blown away about 25% of the collection in the first half of 1998, at that point the re-sales value of my LD's had hit the floor.

At this point my DVD collection is somewhere about 1200 disc, while my LD sit at about 375... And yes, there are a lot of duplications at this point.

fitprod

OldBoy

I owned like 10 VHS, now have over 300 DVD's. Passion for DVD's never for VHS.

ArchibaldTuttle

I bought 2 vhs, I didn't really have a passion for movies in genereal, or the cash

JimRochester

I had a few hundred VHS. Mostly PPV from Blockbuster. My original intention was to supplement my VHS collection with DVD. That lasted about 12 minutes. As soon as I had a couple DVD's in WS, I sent the VHS packing on eBay.

meritocracy

Exactly the same thought I had Groucho.

Randy810

Beta, VHS, Laser Discs 8MM tapes . SVHS bought them all and loved them. I am addicted to movies and will continue to over buy and will also go to the new format when it shows up. I need intervention!

Shroud

Only bought a few VHS tapes, like some original James Bond movies. I have almost 600 dvds now.

TheOne

Only a few VHS. Mostly Disney animation and anime.

Both with DVD, it's a different story. Supposed to last longer, no degradation after repeated viewing and better resolution.

cultshock

I bought many films on VHS since the mid 1980's. I've gotten rid of a lot since, but am probably still sitting on a few hundred tapes, including a lot of "grey market" videos (the only way I could get to see most Asian and Euro cult films back in the day). I'm one of those people who got into LD after DVD came around (before that, LDs were too expensive and hard to find in my neck of the woods, but now they are cheap and easy to get at places like ebay).

Quake1028

I was too young during the VHS/Laser eras to actually buy many of my own. My family did/does own a lot of VHS tapes, but most of them are not mine. DVD hit at just the right time for me to become fully addicted to it.

danwiz

I had less than 10 VHS movies in my film "library", didn't feel like I wanted to bother owning stuff that was going to deteriorate a little bit every time I watched it.

I have about 290 DVDs, guess that answers the question! The only VHS's I still have in the "library" is the "Star Wars Trilogy" - the ORIGINAL one, before they did anything to it. That may be one which I'll have to keep until it falls apart, seeing as the to be released Star Wars Trilogy is NOT going to be the original!

Mike Lowrey

Same here. Well, let's see. I think Widescreen VHS started hitting big around '95 or so. Then DVD hit in '97. I replaced several of my favorite movies in Widescreen VHS. And when I realized that the studios weren't making widescreen VHS anymore, I stopped buying movies completely. I think SPR and Frank Herbert's DUNE series is the only two that I bought once I "stopped" the really big buying.

The event that started to convince me that VHS and widescreen VHS was on the way out was that I had collected the widescreen versions of the Bond films up to Goldeneye, and then when Tomorrow Never Dies came out, there was no widescreen version. So that was about that for my VHS buying.

Bought my DVD player for Xmas 2001, and I'm verging on a 300 title strong collection now. However alot of those are TV shows, so go figure on how many discs I really have.

DrMcKittrick

I had about 100 VHS tapes back in the day. I mainly recorded movies off HBO and Showtime . Three per tape on EP. heheeh

RevKarl

Only VHS pre-recorded tapes I ever bought were as gifts for family or friends. I still have 600 or so tapes in storage, featuring films taped off TV (wore out a few "PAUSE" buttons doing live "edits" of commercials), cable TV and "other" sources.

Eplicon

I bought pre-recorded movies very sparingly. When I was using Beta, I only bought one movie: The Empire Strikes Back. It cost me nearly $90 in 1984 and nearly ended my enthusiasm for buying movies on tape. I would record everything else off HBO. When I switched to VHS, I hated paying extra $$$ for the widescreen version, so I was more selective on what movies to get otherwise I would dub off a friend's laserdisc player or (again) just tape off HBO, even though I knew I'd be losing picture.

joliom

I started with Beta back in the early 80's. My Dad had one of the first Betamax's in the 70's and taped a lot of movies off of HBO and the major networks (and later on, Showtime as well). He had a great movie library and I loved visiting him as a kid and watching all his movies. I had a handful of movies on Beta (all stuff I taped myself)--things like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Superman, etc.--before VHS took over and I switched to that. At one point I had probably 100 or so movies all taped at EP/SLP speed for 3 per tape. By junior high, I began switching over my collection to SP recorded tapes. I rented movies all the time from my local video store and copied them like crazy. I also started buying a lot of pre-recorded VHS tapes at that point. In high school I gave some serious thought to getting a laserdisc player, but it was a big expense for a broke teenager like me, especially when I considered that I would probably need some nice hardware to compliment it. One of my rich friends in high school had a laserdisc home theater setup, and after seeing it in action I decided against it. We watched Terminator 2 and had to flip & switch discs like 4 times. I kept thinking about all the crap that they could cram onto CD-Roms--whole textbooks and encyclopedias and such--and thought that there had to be something better and more practical around the corner. So wisely I held off on laserdisc and stuck with VHS for the time being. At the height of my VHS collection I had something like 200 pre-recorded and 200 self-taped movies. I discovered the glories of widescreen in college and also flirted with re-doing my collection with widescreen VHS's for awhile. But at an average of $25-30 per tape and over 400 movies in my collection, it was just too daunting to consider. Then DVD's hit in '97 and I never looked back. The only mistake I made was not selling off all my pre-recorded VHS tapes sooner. By the time I thought to do it, the value had dropped so severely that I couldn't get more than $.50 per tape at the used music & movie stores. So I ended up giving them all away to friends and co-workers. Today I am proud to say that my DVD collection has surpassed all my previous collections on other formats (500+ and counting). All I can say is thank God they will all be backwards compatible with HD-DVD.

littlefuzzy

I probably only have a couple of dozen prerecorded VHS tapes, and several of those were bargain bin stuff, especially of old time comedians. I had about 40-50 tapes that were used to record from TV, or copy films that I rented.

I decided to get a Laserdisc player in 1990, since it had many advantages to VHS (non-deteriorating format, OAR, special features, alternate audio tracks, etc. I eventually ended up with about 300 laserdiscs, of which 150 were anime. Of course, I managed to buy quite a few of those in hugely discounted sales during the twilight of the laserdisc era.

I got my DVD player in April of 2000, and since managed to acquire over 700 discs (counting by DVD Profiler) or 875 (by my count.)