NFT: History is being made as we speak

still made them.

.

stashed in someone's basement vent.

In comment 13040844 Rocky369 said:

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stashed in someone's basement vent.

That was the best troll job in BBI history. I still want to know.

I think I bought it in '78.

It was the size a a suitcase and made the most awesome noise when you put a tape in!

I made the wrong call and went Beta early... It seems like a 'no-brainer' at the time.

First program I can remember us recording was It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

To show my future grandkids

Why stop?

betamax though, right?

in 1986. I remember it was an Emerson 4 head model.

Enoch!

Quality wasn't their concern.

I somehow managed to select both loser formats instead of VHS and cassette.

One of these days we should try to find a working VCR on craigslist and watch some of them. It'll be like a time capsule.

In comment 13040882 Greg from LI said:

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One of these days we should try to find a working VCR on craigslist and watch some of them. It'll be like a time capsule.

I still have a working VCR that we pull out of the closet every Christmas, so that we can play our tape of the WPIX Yule Log.

the story that the porn industry chose VHS and that's how it "won"? or do I have that wrong?

from the Giants great teams of the 80s. I guess I need to finally toss them.

In comment 13040882 Greg from LI said:

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One of these days we should try to find a working VCR on craigslist and watch some of them. It'll be like a time capsule.

I had a yard sale before moving from my old house in 2013. I sold all my CD's and cassettes (hundreds if not thousands of them) and all VHS tapes (maybe a hundred or so). Some good movies too.

it was strange. High school kids in the neighborhood bought every CD and some cassettes I had. it was like a kid finding a baseball card collection at a tag sale and feeling like he struck gold.

Mostly old people bought the VHS tapes and I feel bad because I know at least one of them actually had a porn tape in the box instead of the movie on the cover, but over the years as porn moved off VHS and onto the internet completely I lost track of it. Oh well, just hope it's not a little kid who finds it, but i doubt it considering the media.

So today I am completely CD and VHS tape free.

Showing things do go full circle, one of my 13-year olds asked for a record player for her birthday. Not sure if it's everywhere yet, but the old record player is making a comeback.

In comment 13040889 Steve in South Jersey said:

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from the Giants great teams of the 80s. I guess I need to finally toss them.

You will regret it, convert them first! I spent a few months back in 2011 during the lockout and converted all my old Giants games, NFL films tapes, etc. Didn't bother with DVD, but converted them to .mp4 or .m4v files and put them on an external HD and now can stream them whenever I want on demand. I threw out a bunch of tapes a while before that and I know I lost a bunch of games from the 1980s and 1990s in the process. Since doing the old game reviews, I've been able to meet with other fans and share what I have and trade, and I went from about 50+ games to now over 300 games going back to the late 1960s. There are plenty of programs that you can plug into your VCRs and rip the files. Trust me, you will be happy you did.

Please rewind

In comment 13040887 DanMetroMan said:

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the story that the porn industry chose VHS and that's how it "won"? or do I have that wrong?

That's what they claim, but there are plenty of other reasons. For a long time, Sony was the sole producer of Beta. Since no other company was licensed to manufacture them, while JVC licensed many other companies to build VHS machines, Beta cost much more. Early Betamax tapes also had a running time of only an hour.

Does anyone know of a reliable source/service to transfer old VHS to digital format (DVD)?

Footnote: I actually own a converter, but it's as slow as molasses (I'm impatient and lazy).

In comment 13040846 YAJ2112 said:

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Nice.

when there was the potential of lawsuits for copyright infringement for taping your favorite shows?

In comment 13040917 Moondawg said:

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when there was the potential of lawsuits for copyright infringement for taping your favorite shows?

Any reproduction of this broadcast without the express written consent of the NFL and the New York Giants is prohibited!

In comment 13040921 Greg from LI said:

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In comment 13040917 Moondawg said: Quote: when there was the potential of lawsuits for copyright infringement for taping your favorite shows? Any reproduction of this broadcast without the express written consent of the NFL and the New York Giants is prohibited!

haha

probably also ripped the tags off your mattress -- under penalty of law.

VHS?? 1985?? What's next? A thread confessing you still have your landline hooked up and drive to the post office everyday?? See you in the dust, old people! Bahahhahahahahahahaha

I'd send you all a picture of a middle finger but I'm just a lazy millennial!!!

Bahahahhahahhaha

Signed, lazy mill...eh too lazy to finish bahahahhaha

VHS what a piece of shit those things were

they just had to get the betamax VCR. It was better they were told. Better picture they were told.

There was never anything available for rent!!!! Fucking betamax...it recorded and I could rent some things but the VHS section of the video store taunted me with its wide and diverse array of choices.

Still bitter.

In comment 13040879 Bold Ruler said:

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Quality wasn't their concern.

The porn industry was a big reason VHS won.

In comment 13040879 Bold Ruler said:

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Quality wasn't their concern.

No it wasn't.

The video and audio quality of beta was far superior. But Beta was inferior in many other ways:

1) The machines cost significantly more.
2) The tapes cost significantly more.
3) The tapes only had a 1 hour recording time, insufficient for movies or sports.
4) Sony didn't build relationships with the movie studio whereas JVC did. So when rental tapes became a big deal, they were predominantly available in VHS and not Beta.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

There were Friday afternoons spent in the aisles of the video store picking out what you were going to watch over a pizza.

There was the constant vert hold and tracking nightmares.

There were surprise tapes Dad made recording Return of the Jedi, The Neverending Story and The Secret of NIMH.

There were the chores that needed to be completed on Sunday afternoons but "not to worry, Im taping the game", only to settle in our spots and find Murder She Wrote recorded instead.

Ill still look back on it fondly.

my brother and I used to set the VCR to record our favorite rated R movies late at night (Beverly Hills Cop, Rambo, Commando, Cobra, the Conan movies, and several others) and then we put labels with random false names on them like "TV Shows". Our parents weren't tech-savvy enough to figure out what we were up to.

Every time my parents went out to dinner we'd plot to watch one of our secretly recorded movies.

Good times.

I remember when my mom sprung for one in 1984; I was 14 at the time. Then, one of my neighbors who was a senior in high school gave me a tape of something I was unfamiliar with at the time...something called Swedish Erotica. I soon became a big Seka fan...thank you, VHS industry.

In comment 13041057 mfsd said:

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my brother and I used to set the VCR to record our favorite rated R movies late at night (Beverly Hills Cop, Rambo, Commando, Cobra, the Conan movies, and several others) and then we put labels with random false names on them like "TV Shows". Our parents weren't tech-savvy enough to figure out what we were up to. Every time my parents went out to dinner we'd plot to watch one of our secretly recorded movies. Good times.

Right after you gave up trying to unscramble playboy channel on your wired cable box?

You can still buy VHS tales at CVS for 5 bucks each? I remember when they were under a buck.

You can record a show and watch it later? Wow!

in the entertainment center. I just need to find the VCR.

that someone you thought was dead was dying.

Just have nothing to play them on.

In comment 13041063 pjcas18 said:

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In comment 13041057 mfsd said: Quote: my brother and I used to set the VCR to record our favorite rated R movies late at night (Beverly Hills Cop, Rambo, Commando, Cobra, the Conan movies, and several others) and then we put labels with random false names on them like "TV Shows". Our parents weren't tech-savvy enough to figure out what we were up to. Every time my parents went out to dinner we'd plot to watch one of our secretly recorded movies. Good times. Right after you gave up trying to unscramble playboy channel on your wired cable box?

Haha now you're talking - remember watching Playboy channel even though it was still fuzzy?

Or now and then they'd have 'free preview' weekend. Hubba hubba

Panasonic "Reggie Vision". Thing weighed about 50 lbs. and took up the whole top of our old console tv. Nothing beat setting it to record the big ball game only to come home and figure out the vcr clock was am instead of pm and you missed the whole thing.

used it come in a ridiculous little Samsonite suitcase, with extra long cables to hook up to the TV. Damn thing must have weighed 40 lbs.

In comment 13041116 mfsd said:

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In comment 13041063 pjcas18 said: Quote: In comment 13041057 mfsd said: Quote: my brother and I used to set the VCR to record our favorite rated R movies late at night (Beverly Hills Cop, Rambo, Commando, Cobra, the Conan movies, and several others) and then we put labels with random false names on them like "TV Shows". Our parents weren't tech-savvy enough to figure out what we were up to. Every time my parents went out to dinner we'd plot to watch one of our secretly recorded movies. Good times. Right after you gave up trying to unscramble playboy channel on your wired cable box? Haha now you're talking - remember watching Playboy channel even though it was still fuzzy? Or now and then they'd have 'free preview' weekend. Hubba hubba

the theme song for Electric Blue caused a pavlovian response in almost every 13/14 year old boy, it was like the song in Strange Brew, you heard that song you had to monkey around with the dial on the cable box and try and get the squiggly lines to break for a second hoping for a boob shot.

Kids today have it so easy.

The VHS tape in the vent thread was one of the most annoying threads in BBI history.

I had to content myself with the fuzzed-out Skinemax Friday After Dark movies. Over time, it came in better and better until it was as if we actually got the channel. After a long time, however, our cable box broke and when we got the new one it was back to the fuzzy picture :(

when I forgot about and failed to return a copy of Tommy Boy for half a year after it fell behind the TV. My very first job as a teenager went towards paying that farkin' bill.