I have Escape From New York on DVD and also an old VHS and there is something about that movie that makes it better when you watch it on a low-quality VHS. It fits the atmosphere of the movie.
I once bought a crappy old VCR in Reno to watch it die.
My old VCR skipped. Only a couple of times though. (Then it finally sank into the pond.)
You know, I never thought about it, but that movie IS better to watch on a low quality copy. I don’t want Escape From New York on BluRay in HD. I want the grainy drive in movie with a drunk projectionist feel. That sounds like a joke, but I’m with you on that one, PSXer
Crap! I have They Live on VHS! What am I going to do now?!
We recently purchased a cassette/DVD recorder combo to replace one that had been broken by a visiting teenager. One day we’ll get around to transferring all our old videos to disc.
Along those lines, I used to say In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida was best heard on a scratchy LP.
Maybe you could use some processing software to dirty up a DVD version for future viewing. You know, add scratches, dust, hairs and such, make it like an overplayed cheap cinema reel.
I bought a VCR/DVD combo a number of years ago. Unfortunately, one part of it died recently - the DVD player. The door won’t open any more.
So now I have a VCR/DVD combo where the DVD half doesn’t work and, on top of it, a working DVD player. Isn’t that a Jeff Foxworthy joke?
I’ve still got an expensive Sony VCR hooked into my receiver. It still works but I haven’t used it in years. I keep it where it is because of the the convenient, always on, clock display. (Which is still an hour off, only a few more months until we are back in DST.)
I kept my VCR to watch the hundreds and hundreds of movies I had on tape. Except I never, ever watched any of those tapes. So a couple of years ago, I threw away the VCR. Then I threw away the tapes. Now I have something much more valuable: shelf space.
I’ve got an old (probably almost 15 years now) VCR in the closet, still works perfect. It’s sitting right next to an old TV (that also still works perfect, even have the remote) that wasn’t worth buying a converter box for.
I can never bring myself to throw them away, even though I haven’t used either one in over 5 years and I don’t believe I even own a single tape anymore.
I’m such a packrat.
You’ve made me consider my VHS collection. Two drawers full of tapes that I will probably never watch and the secret stash of pr0n in another place.
Time to make plans to transfer tape to disc, methinks. Get it done before my VCR dies and makes the tapes I do want to keep too hard to watch.
I still have a VCR hooked up to cable in my bedroom. I have a VCR/DVD combo player hooked up in the loft, but it’s just connected to the TV – I haven’t even bothered to set the time on it. In the Room of Unused Electronics, I have a very small TV/VCR combo that still works, as well as two VCRs (both play tapes, but only one records properly – unfortunately, they’re the same model, so I’ll need to hook them up in order to tell the difference).
I still use my $40 Walmart VCR, bought in the 21st Century, several times per week.
My kids are teens and know what a VeeCie Arr is, but only because their family on the mom’s side are all inbred rednecks and barely know what DVDs are.
I still have a Betamax machine in storage somewhere along with a bunch of old home movies. (along with Betamax camcorder!) It’s one of those things I’m adamant about keeping, as I know some day I’ll sell the whole thing on eBay in about 20 years or more.
You can still buy them in discount stores, though the selection is sparse. Wal-Mart has three-packs of Memorex T-120s (or something), but no single cassettes, no alternate lengths, etc. IIRC, larger drug stores-- CVS, Walgreens-- me still carry some VHS cassettes as well.
I have 3 VHS VCRs in my collection: an ancient beast from 1979 or so (complete with analogue dial tuner) that plays SLP/EP tapes that nothing else will track (as well as a few slow speeds that nothing else can pick up), a once high-end Zenith from 1983 or so that can track onto really degraded tapes and outputs a very clean NTSC signal with stereo, and a once-expensive D-VHS multi-player from the early 2000s that converts PAL/SECAM to NTSC, plays S-VHS and D-VHS/D-Theater, records S-VHS quality on standard VHS, and records full HD on D-VHS if I’m willing to pony up the cash for a cassette. All useful to transfer friends’ cassettes, do captures to digital, playback cassettes unavailable on DVD, etc. About the only thing I can’t reliably playback are those slow-mo security-cam VHS tapes that held 24 hours per cassette, but I could pick up a player for those for cheap if needed. I also have U-Matic, Beta, and Video8 machines in storage.
I see you’ve never had a kid make confetti ribbons out of a videotape. Dad was pretty upset, but the look on his face was enough to make Littlebro realize he’d done a Very, Very, Very Bad Thing and no punishment was issued.
It’s threads like this that make me feel old.
For those of us who recall the dawn of the VCR era, do you remember what a leap in technology it was? “What?!? You mean I can watch that show when I want to, not when the network broadcasts it?” As a teen in the early '80’s I recall asking a co-worker at the mall movie theater to trade shifts with me one weekend. She couldn’t do it because “American Gigolo” was on TV the night I wanted her to work. 
I recall our first local video rental place ($5 each, pretty steep for the '80’s) and also being *delighted *at stumbling upon a Suncoast Video store at the mall. A whole store that sold movies! Wheee! And then “Raiders of the Lost Ark” came out on VHS, priced for sale. IIRC, it was something like $20 at the time. Truly amazing. “You mean I can **own **it? And watch it whenever I want?!?” I think I got it as a gift for my (18th? 19th?) birthday. I still have it.
This fantastic technology has now become an old timer’s joke. I feel so old.
p.s. I’m 47.
Ok, you just made my day!!! Thanks
You could pull that off by recording the VHS onto a DVD. I did it with something I had only a VHS copy of, and it looked even worse than when I normally watched it on the VCR.
Kids these days have never had to adjust tracking, horizontal or vertical hold. They don’t know how good they have it. Get off my lawn.
I’m 47 too.