We ❤ Retro Media: Vinyl, VHS, Tapes & Film

[Mr.3D]

[video=youtube;47oBPjT5klY]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=47oBPjT5klY[/video]

 

[Mike Wilde]

Once upon a time not so long ago they were all state of the art. of course technologies inevitably advance, so the marketters tell us. Otherwise what new stuff could they convince us that we needed to buy.

I still envoy vinyl, and in fact was looking at spending about $100 to buy a batch of LP's from a guy who does all of the estate sales etc and then agregates and grades and sells off anthologies of artisits or genres.

VHS, well, still have a fair collection, but it does not get looked at as often as it did. DVD is great in visuals; as to content, that is another story. Stlll use my svhs deck to time shift; no fancy hard drive basesd video addiction for us yet.

and yes, film of course.

 

[EdoNork]

And Minidisc!!

 

[Worker 11811]

VHS video tape was never very good from the start, even when it was new technology.
It only captures 240 lines of resolution where the standard definition NTSC picture has 480. Even S-VHS can only capture 420 lines.

Yes, it was great because it allowed people to record television programs to play back later or to make home movies to save for posterity but the picture quality was never very good.

Laser Disk and DVD had better resolution but at the expense of being able to record.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

VHS video tape was never very good from the start, even when it was new technology.
It only captures 240 lines of resolution where the standard definition NTSC picture has 480. Even S-VHS can only capture 420 lines.

Yes, it was great because it allowed people to record television programs to play back later or to make home movies to save for posterity but the picture quality was never very good.

Laser Disk and DVD had better resolution but at the expense of being able to record.

The point of using the VHS tape in the video above was the LACK of quality, along with the ever present dropouts, noise, etc.

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

What an interesting video. Really loved viewing it. Thanks for sharing! For me there was a lot of nostalgia baked in, but there's also a fair bit of new thinking involved. As mainstream industrial world citizens seem to move towards a neatly organized digital library of everything - music, books, movies, maps, camera/photos, etc - a group of society is bound to go against the stream and embrace more tangible formats, where defects of the medium are actually encouraged and loved. I feel that way sometimes when I listen to music, reaching for my vinyl, and it sure is the reason why I love my darkroom so much and dream computer face time to scan and fix things. The content of the well produced video clip really resonates with a lot of my own beliefs.

 

[batwister]

Stopped watching after the woman said 'objectness'... with an inflection. "Like, I just wanna touch things? And own things?"

 

[Roger Cole]

I agree about VHS. Beta was better but the market was seduced by a lesser quality product that promised more run time and thus cheaper media. Sound familiar? Then people made it even worse by recording on the...whatever they called the mode VLP or SLP or some such, where it tripled the runtime but recorded a picture that, at best, looked almost, but not quite, totally unlike what it was supposed to be. When I recorded onto VHS I did so only on the fastest speed with the shortest runtime. It made a considerable difference, but still wasn't that good.

I still have my VCR hooked up and working. My wife and I watched a movie on it two nights ago. But that's because we both have a fair store of tapes, not because it's really worth a crap.

I do love my vinyl and film, however.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Don't forget this one - http://www.cedmagic.com/selectavision.html

 

[Mainecoonmaniac]

The gentleman said that super 8 has "pixelation" instead of grain. I was hurt ;-)

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

The gentleman said that super 8 has "pixelation" instead of grain. I was hurt ;-)

I noticed that too, and chuckled a bit I confess. But I let it slide. Whatever he called it, it's the idea of embracing imperfections as something valuable that I find so endearing. Humans are not perfect, and neither are the technologies we create. We may make them technically better, using numbers to prove our point, but besides the technical side of things - are they really that much better? It takes a significant amount of soul searching to be honest about it, because media and mainstream tells us that Bluray and a 50" LCD HDTV is better. It's the norm, and it is being reinforced and pounded into our brains with real ferocity; it is difficult to ignore.
But I find a lot of value in people that think outside the mainstream, because they help keep these types of technologies alive, not for any reason other than they like it, and that is very very cool.

 

[Mike Wilde]

I agree about VHS. Beta was better but the market was seduced by

I do have a beta deck as well. The original 2 died of old drive belts and pinch rollers. This one I bought for $4 in a dust covered box from an estate auction like it had not seen use since the late 80's. It is one of the all metal construction style first generation decks.

It takes about 20 minutes for the head speed to synch with the tape, but once the lube gets warmed, all is golden.
My wife has a whole trove of Miss America contest tapes indexed as to who was from which region of the country for about 15 years of the pageant.
She is an actor, and uses these segments as coaching aides when she needs to fine tune a regional US dialect.
I know she is going to audition for such a play when she asks me to get the beta deck out and hooked up again.

The Beta I speed images are great. Since a lot of the old pageants were live broadcasts, the image quality is really good.

 

[Worker 11811]

If you use the programs on those tapes, you'll want to think about transferring them off magnetic media and onto something with more longevity.

Video tapes have a tendency to self destruct over time. As I understand, their life span is 10 to 20 years under average conditions.
Even a home-burned DVD has an expected lifetime of 50 years or more if stored properly.

Secondarily, rewind the tapes every once in a while. Leave them "heads out" or "tails out" at alternating intervals.
As the revolutions of tape lie together on the reel, the magnetic signature tends to "print through" onto the adjacent layers, thus degrading the data on the tape.
Rewinding the tape and leaving it in the opposite orientation helps to randomize the positions of the layers of tape that lay together, thus preventing print-through.

 

[lxdude]

The gentleman said that super 8 has "pixelation" instead of grain. I was hurt ;-)

Me too. Ain't even pixelation! I wish he'd speak the right language.

 

[Kevin Caulfield]

First he said "grain", then he said "pixellation". To me that is fine.

 

[AgX]

Concerning my experiencees on film-use I only can refer to this again:

(there was a url link here which no longer exists)


Concerning records (vinyls): I spoke with a lot of 2nd hand dealers and aside from shops in hip-cities they only have a very, very limited number of clients in their twenties.

Concerning audio cassettes: two years ago I came across a cassette project at an art show.

Concerning VHS: I have not even heard of someone else using a VHS-camera.

 

[Renato Tonelli]

I have a fair amount of LP's and really enjoy listening to them - it's almost a ritual: the disc itself, the sleeve, the artwork, finding the tracks, cleaning the disc, looking at coverart or reading the liner notes while listening...

 

[Worker 11811]

I have a fair amount of LP's and really enjoy listening to them - it's almost a ritual: the disc itself, the sleeve, the artwork, finding the tracks, cleaning the disc, looking at coverart or reading the liner notes while listening...

...Finding pot inside them...

 

[MattKing]

In our area, London Drugs (which has stores all around Western Canada and is now more like an all purpose store) has a "technology" section in each weekly advertising flier. The most recent features a big spread on the new box set of Beatles vinyl LPs, as well as a fair number of their other titles that seem to sell well as LPs from their audio visual section.

Here is the link to the "vinyl" page on their website: http://www.londondrugs.com/Vinyl/electronics-moviesmusic-vinyls,default,sc.html

 

[Thomas Bertilsson]

Here's a place in Kansas that markets about 22,000 new and used vinyl albums: http://store.acousticsounds.com/c/5/Vinyl_Record

Not sure it has any bearing on photography, but I'm glad there are folks that appreciate these things still (so that I may continue buying them too).

 

[Diapositivo]

If you use the programs on those tapes, you'll want to think about transferring them off magnetic media and onto something with more longevity.

Video tapes have a tendency to self destruct over time. As I understand, their life span is 10 to 20 years under average conditions.
Even a home-burned DVD has an expected lifetime of 50 years or more if stored properly.

Secondarily, rewind the tapes every once in a while. Leave them "heads out" or "tails out" at alternating intervals.
As the revolutions of tape lie together on the reel, the magnetic signature tends to "print through" onto the adjacent layers, thus degrading the data on the tape.
Rewinding the tape and leaving it in the opposite orientation helps to randomize the positions of the layers of tape that lay together, thus preventing print-through.

Also, the tape should be stored flat on the surface so that each coil rests on the next coil. For a VHS or a Compact Cassette tape that would mean keeping them vertical on the short side. Failure to do so, as far as I know, can produce a damage to the tape (physical damage to the tape, regardless of the information on it).

 

[m1tch]

Lol vinyl, thats quite a new form of musical format, I use 78rpm Shellac records - ACOUSTICALLY recorded records, none of this electronically recorded records

 

[RPC]

If you use the programs on those tapes, you'll want to think about transferring them off magnetic media and onto something with more longevity.

Video tapes have a tendency to self destruct over time. As I understand, their life span is 10 to 20 years under average conditions.
Even a home-burned DVD has an expected lifetime of 50 years or more if stored properly.

Secondarily, rewind the tapes every once in a while. Leave them "heads out" or "tails out" at alternating intervals.
As the revolutions of tape lie together on the reel, the magnetic signature tends to "print through" onto the adjacent layers, thus degrading the data on the tape.
Rewinding the tape and leaving it in the opposite orientation helps to randomize the positions of the layers of tape that lay together, thus preventing print-through.

I have heard that recordings keep better if the tape is stored slow wound, such as after playing, instead of fast wound, such as after rewinding, but don't know how true it is.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Lol vinyl, thats quite a new form of musical format, I use 78rpm Shellac records - ACOUSTICALLY recorded records, none of this electronically recorded records

Hah. I'm still using ca 1450 print technology, aka "books".

 

[BetterSense]

I still don't think codex is going to catch on. Scrolls are far superior!