Trek on VHS

[Botany Bay]

I remember new VHS TOS movies here in Australia costing well over $90US - this lasted into the early 90's.

There were a handful of individual episodes of TOS (that looked like 10th generation copies) available for about $35US each

Renting was the only way to go, obviously!

By the time DS9 came out you could buy double episode tapes for about $18US, and I bought the whole lot. Sadly they all had to be thrown out a few years ago when I ran out of space, I literally could not give them away!

 

[Nardpuncher]

Even the full retail price per season on DVD is like a third what they amounted to back when VHS was around. I imagine it was worse in the US with in some cases, just a single episode on each cassette.

And that's not including inflation - a $99 VHS tape in 1987 = $187 in 2008 dollars.

A lot of stuff was more expensive in the '80s, anyway. Anyone remember how expensive Pizza was? Even for crappy pizza, the prices were outrageous. By today's prices, that would be like, 45 bucks for a large pepperoni from Pizza Hut. Add five bucks for each additional topping. And what about Swatches? Those were the chintziest pieces of crap, but people forked over a hundred bucks for not just one, but several. I knew kids in my elementary school that owned like, 8 of them.

Yeah I forgot about Pizza Hut pizza! I remember thinking even then that it was pretty silly.
Don't forget calculators too! They were probably close to $100 back in the late 70s.

 

[seigezunt]

bump.

I thought I'd ask what people are doing with their old VHSs.

I have an almost complete set of the Columbia tapes, and I'm thinking of putting them on Freecycle. I know I can't really get money for them, and need to clean out the basement.

Any ideas how I could best get them in the hands of a Trek fan at minimal cost?

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

I put them on Gumtree, got some fan responses. But then I had to take them from my parents to where I live, so I plumped for leaving them in a charity shop.

You might also put them on EBay for a low or zero bid, local pickup only.

 

[TowerPower]

I think this may have been addressed before, and if anyone remembers please direct me to the correct thread, but does anyone know if there is any dialog from the VHS tapes that did not make it to the DVD season sets released in the red, blue, and gold custom cases? I remember reading a thread here once that said one of Mccoy's lines from one ep was removed in the conversion to DVD. Can anyone confirm this? I have all the individual eps one per tape and if there is any ep not complete in the DVD set I want to transfer the tape to my own DVD backup.

Any help?

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Are you sure it was done for the transfer to the digitally cleaned discs and you're not thinking of the all new CGI enhanced discs?

 

[ChristopherPike]

I recall an opposite situation. "The Changeling" was shorter on the 1996-8 UK re-release editions. Despite the fact they got Walter Koenig film an intro in which he said they were uncut and unedited! Some kind of mix up, where all the full prints were used, except for that one syndicated version. It's been a while, but there seemed to be a jump, ommiting bridge discussion to beam Nomad aboard, going straight to its arrival in the transporter room.

 

[Neutral Zone]

I remember buying some tapes back in the 90's, I got them through a Star Trek fan club I belonged to. There were two or three episodes (Can't remember now, got rid of them years ago) and I'm sure that they cost over £10.00 or more per tape back then. I never did get that many, we were moving to another island at the time, and VHS took up so much room. thank goodness for DVD's!

 

[The Castellan]

I have 47 episode on VHS 2 and a half years ago. I got them for $30.00, many of them still were wrapped in the original plastic seals, even after 20+ years. They work fine, and yes, I still use my VHS stuff.

 

[Ssosmcin]

What am I doing with all my VHS and Laserdisc Trek episodes? Keeping them. I always have the need to watch a lower quality print. :-) Besides, it's become something of a museum in my house, along with my Mego Trek toys.

Back when the first DVDs came out, some episodes were missing things; The Doomsday Machine omitted the music when Kirk says "I'm gonna ram 'er right down that thing's throat."; The Tholian Web was missing a chunk when McCoy discharges Uhura. There are music and sound effect mistakes and substitutions galore throughout the 40 original DVDs.

The season sets featured corrected prints of The Doomsday Machine and Tholian Web omissions, but the rest of the sound issues remained, and do so to this day on the Blu-Ray releases, even though the first season has a nearly correct original mono sound mix to choose to hear the proper music and effects.

However, the Columbia House and Paramount individual tapes and lasers had their own problems. We're all familiar with the City on the Edge of Forever music substitution, which was thankfully rectified for DVD. However at least two episodes (one from each set) was missing lines of dialog, but are complete on DVD and Blu-Ray.

The restored print of The Cage on DVD and BD is missing the line from Pike re: Vina "you were like a wild little animal."

The BD's ain't perfect either. The alternate mono sound mix is great, but the main credits music for WNMHGB has an edit. The original first season theme (the Alexander Courage arrangement with the electric violin thingy) is not on the first few episodes, as on the DVDs, and none of the episodes aside from WNMHGB includes that version of the end titles. No home video version ever did. At least one episode has the new redone opening sequence on both the "remastered" and "original" effects prints, but I think there's more. The mono sound mix in the second season still has the exterior engine rumble, which was discontinued mid-first season. I haven't checked the third season episodes yet.

As it stands, there is no "absolutely correct" version of the series out there. All of them have changes and differences which remove them from the network versions. The laser discs come pretty close, but they standardized the opening theme in the first season, plus the episode previews from the first two years were changed from a superimposed NEXT WEEK graphic over the scene, to the "Next Voyage" clip with second season Enterprise shot.

Of course, you only care about this stuff if you're as anal as I.

 

[seigezunt]

The missing parts is a concern, but not enough for me to hold onto a big box of things in a format which I never watch anymore.

 

[Ssosmcin]

The missing parts is a concern, but not enough for me to hold onto a big box of things in a format which I never watch anymore.

Could just hold onto the episodes missing stuff. You'd have a much smaller box then. Of course, I don't think anything's actually "missing" anymore.

 

[TowerPower]

The missing parts is a concern, but not enough for me to hold onto a big box of things in a format which I never watch anymore.

Could just hold onto the episodes missing stuff. You'd have a much smaller box then. Of course, I don't think anything's actually "missing" anymore.

So which episodes on VHS are worth holding onto? The City on the Edge of Forever qualifies for the distinct music. The Restored Cage qualifies for the missing line. What else?

 

[seigezunt]

The missing parts is a concern, but not enough for me to hold onto a big box of things in a format which I never watch anymore.

Could just hold onto the episodes missing stuff. You'd have a much smaller box then. Of course, I don't think anything's actually "missing" anymore.

True, but I'd rather just be done with them. I found a buyer on craigslist (he's getting them for a steal), and I tried watching one on the HDTV, and it just looks like mud. Better to have someone with lo-def enjoy them, I say. And I feel good about making a trekkie happy. Or at least someone who's going to make a mint selling them on Ebay.

 

[Penhall99]

I had every episode on VHS, from the Columbia House 2-per-VHS-tape collection. Got a lot of use out of them and enjoyed them for many years, but sold them at my garage sale this past summer. Every episode for 25 bucks, I believe.

I had also gotten all the episodes on the original single DVD releases (with 2 per DVD), then I bought the DVD Season sets.

Now I'm gonna sell them off to buy the blu-ray sets. So yeah, Paramount has gotten a TON of money out of me....And I'm sure they'll get a ton more

 

[seigezunt]

Well, I sold my almost complete TOS VHS collection for $25. Out of my trunk in a grocery store parking lot. The buyer said it was for his kid. Made me feel kinda nice, if he was truthful.

 

[Hober Mallow]

We're all familiar with the City on the Edge of Forever music substitution...

I'm not. What was this about?

 

[I am not Spock]

So did anyone record any Trek and keep it on VHS during the TNG, DS9, and Voyager years; I think by Enterprise people were expecting the DVD release, but in the 90's those newer Trek shows were a little inconsistent in their release to VHS. I remember recording the first two seasons of DS9 religiously until they started screwing with the time slot for the show and it got harder to keep track of when it would be on with a new episode. Ahh, those were the days.

I still have some TNG, DS9, VOY, and ENT episodes taped from the TV broadcasts, on VHS. But I have most of Trek on DVD now.

Did they ever finish releasing ENT on VHS? I think they stopped after season one.

 

[Forbin]

The first video rental store in my town opened in 1983. They had probably 30 movies to choose from; the price to rent was, I believe, $12.00...with a $75.00 deposit, refunded when the movie was returned.

I think I only did that (have to leave a deposit) once. And I remember buying Altered States in Beta for $79.95. Then I mostly just taped movies off HBO until prices became more sensible. Also because the only video store at the time was about 15 miles away on the highway.

 

[Forbin]

Well, I sold my almost complete TOS VHS collection for $25. Out of my trunk in a grocery store parking lot. The buyer said it was for his kid. Made me feel kinda nice, if he was truthful.

I donated mine to a friend one tape at a time as the first DVDs came out. He's never had a decent job where he could afford to spend money on anything but necessities.