Throwback Thursday: Do you still own some VHS or BETA tapes? #TBT

[#1]

It's Thursday!

We went back to Iceland last year as a family. It was great! We brought with us all of our old VHS cam recorder tapes (you know, the small ones). We are really looking forward to transferring them onto digital media so we can watch old footage of our kinds when they were young. I also found a couple of regular size VHS tapes. One from my 20th birthday that my friends gave me. It is basically interview of my friends, probably giving me advice and such :) Dang! I really want to find a VHS player now and watch it...

Soooooo do you still own some VHS or BETA tapes? 

Let’s make it a great Thursday!
KGM

[Amanda Barber]

About 10 years ago, my husband had a converter available to borrow from his job at the time. I went through all of my family's tapes and converted them. It was a fun (although lengthy) process!

[Andy Gladstone]

My wife and I got married in 1999 = wedding video is on VHS. I keep saying that I need to transfer it to a digital format, but I think that subconsciously I have some irrational fear of it being too easy to proliferate. Right now it's an event just to watch it, can't imagine having it on my phone.

[Tuncay Senturk]

I've got dozens of VHS and miniDV cassettes that I've been itching to convert into digital formats! Sadly, I don't have the equipment to watch them, but I'm on the hunt for a trusted paid-service that can help me out.

[Dave Mathijs]

I never used Betamax, but I used to own my favourite movies on VHS tapes.

Our family never had a VHS camera though which is a pity because I like old photos and videos.

VHS rentals at the video store, those were the days ...

My wedding (long long gone) has been recorded both on VHS and DVD.

So happy with Cloud storage now.

[Randy O_Neal]

We have probably 50 or so VHS tapes, and I probably have 100 or so Super-8/Digital-8 tapes.  Yeah, I need to convert 'em... hasn't happened yet.  I still have functional players in both formats, so no issues there, but still...

[Peter Van de Voorde]

I still have a couple of VHS tapes lying around, and even have a DVD / VHS player combo.
But it's been years since I watched any of them, I honestly don't know if they still work :)

[tsmith]

What good timing! I was actually thinking about the collection of VHS tapes (mostly movies from childhood) that I left at my parents' house. They were on my mind before I even checked email today. They're still in my old room, which is occupied by my younger sister now. I was thinking we should do something with them so she can utilize that space.

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Yep, two sets of my favourite old TV shows. 

In the UK, owning multiple copies of stuff you are entitled to on different media is legal.  So the downloaded/ripped copies of the shows I have available on a hard-disk are legal because I've got a box of the VHS recordings of them (stored in a box I don't think I've opened since I last moved house)

One of them has just been made available to stream though, probably because there's a new series starting in a couple of weeks.

FWIW, same goes for my CD collection and the bits of the DVDs I've got around to ripping. 

And tapes.  I still have my first music album purchased on cassette (it would be CD, but at the time, they were about four times the price, and we didn't have a CD player), and some LPs, but they are all in the "nostalgia" box.  

Like @Peter Van de Voorde I have no idea if any of them still work.  The VHS machine is in the box with the tapes!

[Laurie Sciutti]

If memory serves, I have one with a cooking show I did as a project for my Japanese class in college -- at least I hope I still have it tucked away somewhere.  That would be a riot to watch again.   We made chicken teriyaki and even had a commercial for Sapporo beer - hahaha.  If I do still have it, I don't have a player anymore so it will need to get converted.  Sounds like a two-weekend project (one to find the dang thing and another to convert it).  😆

[Halina Cudakiewicz_Deviniti_]

I hope you'll find the way to watch the old videos - that'll be lots of fun!

My family still has tons of tapes with old movies :)

[Valerie Knapp]

I have a special memory about this. When I was younger, my uncle worked at a studio and he somehow managed to create for me, from a VHS, a BETA tape of The Jungle Book, which at the time was my favourite film. We watched it so many times, I am sure it is completely destroyed by now, lol!

[Ram Kumar Aravindakshan _Adaptavist_]

Still, I own a couple of old VHS tape movies from the '80s, mainly for those which I could not find a DVD replacement. 

[Dan Breyen]

Still have plenty of movies on VHS.  We had home movies on VHS-C that we broke out the VCR so we could get them transferred to DVD.  With the iMac, and the Camcorder to do the digital conversion, he had them done in no time.

Some of those movies on VHS are very rare, and those tapes can be worth over $1000 today.

[Hjalti Magnússon _Sharecurely_]

I can feel the nostalgia in your story, and those VHS tapes are like precious time capsules. I had two VHS tapes converted to digital format a few years ago. It's pricey (in Iceland) but well worth it to keep the memories alive!

[Carlos]

This brings me back to being a kid and I love it. I know I still have some VHS movies but I don't have a way of watching them anymore. This is making me want to go and find a player though! 

[kay bickell]

I just found two of the mini tapes, having only thrown away the adaptor VHS last year on the assumption that I no longer had any mini tapes and also not owning a VCR any more. Or a TV.

I am rather curious to know what, if anything is on those mini tapes now though, it's infuriating!

[Jimmy Seddon]

Sorry I'm a week late.  I am old enough (just) to remember BETA tapes.  I don't specifically have them.  But my parents still have the copy of E.T. on BETA they bought for me when I was much younger.

I do however still have my VHS copy of the original Star Wars trilogy.

[Shawn Doyle - ReleaseTEAM]

I have boxes of Disney VHS tapes for no reason other than I hate to toss them.

[Brant Schroeder]

We had several until we moved and got rid of all of them.  It was too bad because some of the movies we have never replaced.  

[Edward Quinito]

I still have a new VHS tape on the attic, not sure if still working or not though.

[ABR]

Hi, @Kristján Geir Mathiesen ,

Yes! I still have the VHS tapes of Born Free and Bruce Lee movies our father showed us when we were kiddies! I also have my videotapes of my daughter's growing up years from babyhood to toddler! We are trying to digitize them quickly to preserve them forever!

Regards,

ABR

[Josh Shepherd]

We never got into Beta tapes, but VHS, we have lots in the basement. Although to be totally honest, I am not 100% sure why. We don't have a way to play them! LOL