Non-motoring > Old VHS tapes Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Crankcase Replies: 30

 Old VHS tapes - Crankcase
I'm sure this will be a quick "no" from the panel, but I'll ask.

Having a clear out. Have a load of old commercial VHS tapes, as well as a bigger load of tapes with old tv recordings on. Those go back thirty years or more, and I'm not in a position to run through them all to see what's actually on them.

I've put two or three of the commercial ones on Amazon, as they might just possibly fetch a fiver. The others - what do you do with these things? Anybody know a charity that takes them, here or overseas? The couple of charity shops I've tried near me aren't interested.

It's down the tip with them, isn't it?
 Old VHS tapes - Zero
You haven't got a quick no from me, its a yes.

To the "down to the tip with them" statement that is.
 Old VHS tapes - sooty123
If you live near London www.tiptopmedia.co.uk/recycling/ these appear to take them. If not I think it's the tip, very few places take them for recycling.
 Old VHS tapes - Clk Sec
A neighbour of mine had a whole load of them, but none of the local charity shops were interested and they ended up at the tip.
 Old VHS tapes - Runfer D'Hills
Many years ago, a chap of our good acquaintance had a stroke which sadly left him with some cognitive and speech issues.

He kept asking his wife to rent him a vulture much to her dismay. It took a while for the penny to drop that somehow his brain had confused the words "video" and "vulture".

In our circle of friends, to this day, videos and subsequently DVDs are referred to as vultures.

This confuses those who don't know why.
 Old VHS tapes - devonite
I had this very problem, but I now use them on the allotment! - I use the tape as garden ties, cut to the right length, they are strong, waterproof and last all year! - best of all they are adjustable and free!
 Old VHS tapes - TheManWithNoName
Pull all the tape out and weave it into rope to make a garden hammock.
Or Google 'things to make from old VHS tapes'. Interesting stuff.
 Old VHS tapes - Hard Cheese
I tipped a load recently, they have no value ...
 Old VHS tapes - Crankcase
Ok, thanks guys. The tip it shall have to be.
 Old VHS tapes - legacylad
I cleared out several dozen from my late Aunts...my two local charity shops weren’t interested so tip it was.
Can you recycle old printer ink cartridges? My local tip told me that they decompose once in landfill.
 Old VHS tapes - Pat
You can sell them on Ebay!

I just sold 3 batches of 10 genuine Canon cartridges which made almost £80.

Pat
 Old VHS tapes - Crankcase
I gave up selling on eBay some time ago. The endless policy changes, extra fees, special extra fees and extra special extra fees at every turn made it such a pain.

I think I saw a policy change recently in an email (I'm still registered as a seller) said something about they now will impose the PayPal transaction fee even if you don't use PayPal. I took it to mean that if you advertise it as accepting PayPal, then do a cash deal and cancel the sale to avoid the fee, they'll charge it anyway. Something like that anyway. I might be wrong. It's probably worse.

Amazon however, is much easier and quicker to list and much easier to understand the fee. Great for books, which is most of what I sell.

 Old VHS tapes - Ted

I have just 20 or so tapes left now. I still watch them now and again...old British comedies, Laurel and Hardy, Will Hay, plus some stuff I recorded off the telly in the 80s. I have a VCR/DVD dubber on the desk next to the PC. I put a fair few tapes onto disc and chucked the originals in the bin.

I never use EBay/Paypal now. We have 3 or 4 Facebook local groups, there's always someone who wants what you have, or I find Gumtree very good. Never sold on Amazon but I do buy a lot of stuff. EG..None of the local car shops or Halfords had heard of Hylomar or gasket paper but all this sort of stuff is freely available on AMz
 Old VHS tapes - Stuartli
I have literally dozens of VHS tapes, many of which contain quite valuable musical items.

When my (very expensive) Mitsubishi VHS machine finally gave up the ghost about two years, I chanced on an ex-rental Panasonic machine on offer for £19 in a local independent audio outlet and bought it.

Came with three month warranty, never needed nor has it given any trouble, and links up as intended with much younger Panasonic equipment, including a TV and Blu-Ray player...:-)

PS

I won the Mitsubishi machine (which also doubled up as a stereo hi-fi standard audio recorder), along with a pair of Nikon binoculars, so it never owned me anything.
 Old VHS tapes - Dog
I've a load of ole VHS tapes knocking about in a sideboard in the dining room. I will dig 'em out one of these days as there's some good 'stuff' there.

I know there's some talks given to gurus by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi which I 'acquired' when a guru friend asked me to do a him a copy of said vids.

I also have a vid of some other Indian spiritual geezer, who's name escapes me at the mo.

Device is a nice Panasonic NV-FJ620.
 Old VHS tapes - Crankcase
Not Lobsang Rampa, Dog?
 Old VHS tapes - Zero
>> Not Lobsang Rampa, Dog?

Thats a tea blend, right?
 Old VHS tapes - Dog
>>Not Lobsang Rampa, Dog?

No Cc, I've never heard of him. Interesting though, I'll have to check him out.
 Old VHS tapes - Dog
Found it .. It's this chap www.youtube.com/watch?v=mV2jlr4pbIE talking about Sai Baba.
I'll have to give it a whirl, if it hasn't deteriorated too much.
 Old VHS tapes - Ted

Thought it might be Sitting Bull, Bonzo !
 Old VHS tapes - Cliff Pope
>> I've a load of ole VHS tapes knocking about in a sideboard in the dining
>> room. I will dig 'em out one of these days as there's some good 'stuff'
>> there.


In my experience old video tapes go mouldy, and if you try and play them they wreck the video player.
You need to examine an old one very carefully before risking playing it. If there are any signs of white mould, throw it away. Even if it appears sound, it's worth winding the tape back and forwards a bit to check the spools aren't stuck.

To preserve a tape you need to wind it backwards and forwards from end to end regularly. And if you really treasure it, copy it to disk while it's still working.

The same with audio tapes. They have to be wound regularly to stop the sound printing through to the overlapping section of tape.
 Old VHS tapes - Dog
Cheers Cliff ~ advice heeded.
 Old VHS tapes - commerdriver
>> The same with audio tapes. They have to be wound regularly to stop the sound
>> printing through to the overlapping section of tape.
>>

absolutely, I remember "fondly" the days of cassettes in the car
 Old VHS tapes - Robin O'Reliant
>>
>>
>> absolutely, I remember "fondly" the days of cassettes in the car
>>
Remember fondly? I've still got one in mine. Digging out an old cassette from a box in the loft to give it a try confirmed my belief that cassettes were the worst medium ever invented for playback quality. The volume had to be turned right up to get a listenable sound out of it and despite all the Dolby this and Dolby that on the player it sounded crap.

I can't wait to get a modern motor with one of those new fangled CD players.
 Old VHS tapes - Stuartli
>>"The same with audio tapes.">>

This is crosstalk - Audacity can be used to edit it out to some extent.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KXCAvIUZTc

incidentally, police forces use/used audio tapes for interview recordings for many years although this is, not surprisingly, being phased out.
Last edited by: Stuartli on Thu 23 Nov 17 at 12:58
 Old VHS tapes - No FM2R
>> And if you really treasure it, copy it to disk while it's still working.

But don't make the mistake of thinking that they last forever either, because they don't. 10 years ish? I think is about it.

A VHS tape, for example, will start deteriorating but will not fail. So the picture will get worse and worse, but may well be watchable for 25 years or more. And, of course, that loss is not recoverable. The more often it is used, the more quickly it will fail.

A hard disk or optical disk will not show deterioration in the same way, but once it stops working, its gone. Ideally the data needs to be periodically rewritten - that can even include simply copying from one place to another.



 Old VHS tapes - smokie
I had a quite expensive pack of writable CDs in their early days. They were used as an archive mainly. One day when I got them out the silver had started flaking off!!

May just have been a bad batch but I wouldn't trust any media for too long, and ideally have multiple backups of important stuff on different media.
 Old VHS tapes - Zero

>>
>> The same with audio tapes. They have to be wound regularly to stop the sound
>> printing through to the overlapping section of tape.

And by so doing, you stretch them. Its a rubbish media, its going to screw your stuff up, get it off or lose it.
 Old VHS tapes - No FM2R
It is rubbish. They were just so much easier to carry than CDs - and CDs were utterly rubbish in a car for a long time.

Surprisingly the PPoS has a cassette player. I have no idea why. Because its a PPoS, I guess.
 Old VHS tapes - Dog
>> If there are any signs of white mould, throw it away.

What do you reckon to this VHS tape www.flickr.com/photos/43576259@N04/38619329591/in/datetaken-public/ of Isaac Tigrett which I was hoping to watch for the first time in about 20 years. Tis white mould for sure for sure :(
 Old VHS tapes - Dog
Ah so ... www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jul/20/heritage.familyandrelationships
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