Free to a good home

[threemonkeys]

So it looks like Blu-ray is winning the HD format wars. You know what? I don't care. When people start giving HD disks away with cereal and the next format is being pushed - then I will care because I won't be able to use anything else. Well that might be an exaggeration. I am a bit interested because it really means my collection of old VHS tapes is becoming remarkably redundant. I can't even lend them to people because "oh we don't have our VCR plugged in any more". To be honest, I never watch them anyway either. Nor can I ever see them having the kind of retro chic that vinyl records have (I still have mine).

So it is time to do another pruning of my collection. Last time I did it, about 3 years ago, I got rid of a hundred or so tapes and had no trouble finding people who would take them off my hands. Now I'm not so sure. Does anybody want a bunch of old VHS tapes?

Actually there might not be so many this time. You see I'm having a problem sorting out what to throw out. They all have stuff on them. Last time it was easy - just get rid of all the old Star Trek & B5 tapes. But now it comes down to a case by case deal. Now there are easy ones where I have the piece of video in another format or I know that I'll never want to see it again. At the other end are things that I know I want to see again and can't get anywhere else - these I'll keep for conversion and even watch a few while I'm doing this exercise. But then, in the middle, there are a whole bunch of "I might want to watch these again". That is by far the biggest pile. I need more resolve because I sure need the shelf space.

Comments

[shrydar.livejournal.com]

We have about a hundred tapes of the Stuff We Taped While Living in England.

Ditching the things we could get on DVD was easy. As you say, it's all the case by case things that are hard. In the mean time, they're all degrading, and they weren't that good to begin with as we recorded double speed, and they're fiddly to transfer, slice and compress...

[threemonkeys.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I forgot to mention the degrading as one of the drivers for a cleanup and upcoming format change. I have had to throw out a fair few tapes that shed oxide all over the heads. The head cleaner gets a bit of work. Interestingly, it isn't necessarily age related - some of the tapes are > 20 years old and still hold up while newer ones don't.