Early 80s TOS VHS Tapes

[ChristopherPike]

Mum got rid of my 90s VHS tapes, sent them to a charity shop. A shame, the spines read out a message from Spock "We are the first to reach this far". The ridiculously shaped DVD boxes pale in comparison.

I still got those. They had 3 episodes each on them and each video had an introduction from George Takei, Walter koenig or James Doohan. Those were 30th Anniversary videos sets.
Don't want to think how much I spent on them but I sure did love the introductions and episode notes.

I uploaded all those intros to You Tube some time ago. So you can still enjoy them!

http://www.youtube.com/user/ENTERPRISENX01#grid/user/B2246EE90736AB16

An old photograph of my collection at its height in the early 2000s. Eventually I parted with a lot of the titles before tapes died out completely and became unsellable on eBay. I couldn't bring myself to part with the TOS trios though... with their spines making up the phrase "We Are The First To Reach This Far".

TNG was also repackaced into three and four on a tape, but didn't go beyond the fifth season when VHS folded. ENT made it up to the end of the first season, together with Nemesis when CIC stopped and switched to DVD.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Note the sagging of the shelves under all that weight...

 

[milo bloom]

You could sell TOS VHS tapes in a yard sale for $.50...if you are lucky. Why anyone would want to play horrible quality tapes that are not even NEW is beyond me.
RAMA

Because I prefer the old sound mix for one, which really hasn't been restored to most of the Blu-Ray episodes. I also enjoy the nostalgic feeling of watching "unremastered" episodes on the tube set in the den, the way the looked when I first saw them. I like recreating the experience of the old days every so often. I also collect old Star Trek stuff from my youth, videos included.

Sometimes, and I know this will probably seem weird to you, I actually watch a lower quality video of something because I don't feel like seeing all of the tricks and cheats HD-TV exposes. Strings on models and props, make up seams, shots where you can now see Shatner's toupee attachment and so on. I love HD for anything modern or old without special effects. However, the super resolution just exposes to much and pulls me out of the illusion. I have no problem watching a lesser quality image if it sustains the illusion. Yes, I know how they make the effects, I just don't want to SEE it. I just finished getting Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea on DVD. The prints are amazing, pristine, clear as glass. But now I see the wires on the models. That, to me, sucks. This is, by the way, why they created the CGI effects, because of how the old effects don't hold up under HD. But I don't always want to watch the CGI shots.

So, yes, they're worthless to YOU. They also wouldn't fetch big bucks, but they are valuable to me. You've heard of sentimental value, yes?

Oh, BTW, head over to eBay and do a search for Star Trek VHS tapes. There are hundreds of listings and most of them are for sale for more than fifty cents. So, yes, they have value.

What I don't get is this DVD collection which I believe only had one or two episodes per disc. Sounds like they were trying to rip-off the fans big-time. How many episodes per VHS tape?

Columbia House sold them at two per tape in stardate order. Retail shops sold single episode VHS tapes.

You forget, these came out starting in 1999, and nobody was releasing TV shows in season sets yet. That started while these were in release (I think The X-Files kicked it off), but it was not something being done at the time. When these started coming out, I thought nothing of it and was happy they were including 2 episodes per and in production order.

Somebody either here or on another one of my forums used to have a sig that said, basically, "the problem isn't that you're still seeing the wires; the problem is you're still looking for them."

We've just been getting into classic Who in the last few years, and we've been watching the DVDs on our 46" LCD widescreen TV. Wires a plenty, cardboard sets and that robot dog is plenty dodgy looking. Still fantastic stories

 

[ChristopherPike]

Note the sagging of the shelves under all that weight...

Heh-heh, yeah. Funny thing is, I flipped those groaning shelves so they bow upwards since and the combined space full of DVDs still hasn't corrected it.

These days the entire 40 years of Prime Trek only occupies the top shelf!

In years to come, they'll probably all be on a hard drive... just waiting for the outbreak of WWIII, and an electromagnetic pulse high over the Western world, that erases everything.

Trekkie survivors will huddle around the campfire, with the odd fan who bought edited highlights of Star Trek The Motion Picture from eBay, on three reels of Super 8mm. Or that loser with Standard 8 and no sound, if they're really unlucky!

I'd sooner be drinking myself into oblivion at the bar, while listening to Roy Orbison.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Ooby dooby
Ooby dooby..

 

[Therin of Andor]

Columbia House did them in stardate order!?!

No. The only place that showed "stardate order" in those days was a page in the Concordance that attempted to list TOS and TAS in order of stardates. Most people knew only "airdate order" (from TV viewings) until the "ST Compendium" came out, and had "production order" (which many syndication packages then started to follow).

 

[Captain Robert April]

Most stations followed production order because of the simple fact that it's how the episodes are numbered when the tapes arrived at the station. So it was either production order or completely random; very rarely did they do the homework required to show them in airdate order.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Columbia House did them in stardate order!?!

No. The only place that showed "stardate order" in those days was a page in the Concordance that attempted to list TOS and TAS in order of stardates.

Sorry, Therin, I gotta correct you on this. Columbia House Video in the US released the episodes in stardate order, two episodes per tape. Episodes without stardates were left to the end (the final tape had 3 episodes). Trust me, I still have the set. Episodes from other seasons were sometimes mixed together because of the inconsistent star dates. There were a couple of mix ups, and one or two assumed stardates (like The Doomsday Machine), but for the most part, it was in stardate order.

Somebody either here or on another one of my forums used to have a sig that said, basically, "the problem isn't that you're still seeing the wires; the problem is you're still looking for them."

I wish that were the case, but sometimes they just jump out at me because I'm not used to seeing them.

 

[milo bloom]

Columbia House did them in stardate order!?!

No. The only place that showed "stardate order" in those days was a page in the Concordance that attempted to list TOS and TAS in order of stardates.

Sorry, Therin, I gotta correct you on this. Columbia House Video in the US released the episodes in stardate order, two episodes per tape. Episodes without stardates were left to the end (the final tape had 3 episodes). Trust me, I still have the set. Episodes from other seasons were sometimes mixed together because of the inconsistent star dates. There were a couple of mix ups, and one or two assumed stardates (like The Doomsday Machine), but for the most part, it was in stardate order.

I've always wanted to rip all my Trek DVDs to a media server so I could put stuff in stardate order, but for the case of eps without a date I would just leave it in it's production# order. Seems odd to have put eps on a separate tape like that.

Somebody either here or on another one of my forums used to have a sig that said, basically, "the problem isn't that you're still seeing the wires; the problem is you're still looking for them."

I wish that were the case, but sometimes they just jump out at me because I'm not used to seeing them.

You need to watch more stuff with wires then
You'll get used to it or go crazy.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Are you gonna include TAS in that stardate order scenario?

 

[milo bloom]

Are you gonna include TAS in that stardate order scenario?

It would generally work if not for The Magicks of Megas-Tu which somehow wound up with a stardate before Where No Man Has Gone Before.

For simplicity's sake I would probably just do all of TOS, then all of TAS, each one in stardate order within each show.

 

[Therin of Andor]

TAS, each one in stardate order within each show.

When writing the adaptations for the "ST Logs", Alan Dean Foster re-ordered the episodes, made the 22 stories interlink (adding several of his own) and gave them all new stardates, all set after TOS.

 

[Ninjacore]

I like video tapes, they feel retro.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I've always wanted to rip all my Trek DVDs to a media server so I could put stuff in stardate order, but for the case of eps without a date I would just leave it in it's production# order. Seems odd to have put eps on a separate tape like that.

Well, the episodes were so tossed around, there wasn't much of a production # order left to work with. And since there was no episodic flow (Amok Time and Space Seed being on the same tape for example), it really didn't make much difference to have a few "dateless" episodes at the end.

You need to watch more stuff with wires then
You'll get used to it or go crazy.

Yeah, I should watch more puppet shows.

 

[Captain Robert April]

THUNDERBIRDS ARE GO!!

 

[Ninjacore]

Mum got rid of my 90s VHS tapes, sent them to a charity shop. A shame, the spines read out a message from Spock "We are the first to reach this far". The ridiculously shaped DVD boxes pale in comparison.

I still got those. They had 3 episodes each on them and each video had an introduction from George Takei, Walter koenig or James Doohan. Those were 30th Anniversary videos sets.
Don't want to think how much I spent on them but I sure did love the introductions and episode notes.

I uploaded all those intros to You Tube some time ago. So you can still enjoy them!

http://www.youtube.com/user/ENTERPRISENX01#grid/user/B2246EE90736AB16

An old photograph of my collection at its height in the early 2000s. Eventually I parted with a lot of the titles before tapes died out completely and became unsellable on eBay. I couldn't bring myself to part with the TOS trios though... with their spines making up the phrase "We Are The First To Reach This Far".

TNG was also repackaced into three and four on a tape, but didn't go beyond the fifth season when VHS folded. ENT made it up to the end of the first season, together with Nemesis when CIC stopped and switched to DVD.

How much did all of that cost?

 

[milo bloom]

TAS, each one in stardate order within each show.

When writing the adaptations for the "ST Logs", Alan Dean Foster re-ordered the episodes, made the 22 stories interlink (adding several of his own) and gave them all new stardates, all set after TOS.

I'm usually an absolute sucker for novelizations of anything[i/], and I usually like ADF's work, but.... I hated the TAS adaptations. I thought they were absolutely awful and a complete betrayal of the original stories.

And ChristopherPike, what is that red boxset on the upper right shelf?

 

[ChristopherPike]

How much did all of that cost?

I dread to think. Each tape used to cost about a tenner each. £10. Thousands of pounds? Over a decade or more... if that makes a difference! The attraction was seeing brand new episodes of Star Trek. British TV was often a couple years behind the US, unless you had satellite or cable.

I should've taken up a cheaper hobby, like cocaine addiction. I hear the withdrawal symptoms are easier to treat...

 

[ChristopherPike]

And ChristopherPike, what is that red boxset on the upper right shelf?

The first seven movies in a VHS box-set, with a booklet featuring the poster art.

http://trekbbs.com/picture.php?albumid=70&pictureid=713

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/8097/30thdpq4.jpg

 

[milo bloom]

And ChristopherPike, what is that red boxset on the upper right shelf?

The first seven movies in a VHS box-set, with a booklet featuring the poster art.

http://trekbbs.com/picture.php?albumid=70&pictureid=713

http://img183.imageshack.us/img183/8097/30thdpq4.jpg

That is gorgeous! Heck, even though I have them all on DVD, I would still hesitate to get rid of a VHS set that nice looking.

What's the gold writing on the cover of each movie say? Looks too long to be the titles.