Well, that's just depressing.
What to do with collection of VHS Trek tapes??
- Thread starter Kevin G. Chapman
- Start date
I’m still holding on to my VCR at least until Napoleon, L’atalante, La Belle Noisseuse and Beau Travail have real DVD releases.
I still have the VHS tapes i made as a kid in the 80s full of morning cartoons i would record when i was in school. I have avis/mpgs of most any of the episodes, but the station marks, dated and local commercials, jingles and ads are a slice of the past that will never exist elsewhere.... I probably have parts of the Star Trek TV Marathon they did for the 25th. Thinking back, its honestly so crazy that they ever did that.....
I seen a lot recently on eBay for all the TOS episodes on vhs 1-79 in a huge lot, starting bid at $100...wonder how that ended? Someone here said some people collect because of the cover art, so I understand that even though the actual video quality by today's standards is atrocious. I can't judge because I still like DVD and those under 30 think that is an archaic media as well. 
Oh no, this pains me to read 
A large number of people views those tapes as historical time capsules. Not valuable money-wise, but interesting pieces of history. Especially folks over at archive.org and various forums and torrent trackers that share original broadcast episodes with commercials intact. While it may seem boring to some today, we like to think that folks 30, 40, 50+ years from now will find them informative and interesting.
I have worked on a number of preservations of this sort in the past and am currently collecting original tv tapes of Star Trek episodes. I already have every episode of the TOS recorded off of syndication in the 80's, with all the commercials and bumpers. Also have about half of TNG episodes with original commercials and all that fun stuff. But always looking for more.
If anyone has any tapes laying around that were recorded off of television during the original run of stuff like TNG, DS9 and Voyager please let me know. I will be happy to either work with you get them copied and shared or will gladly take the tapes and convert them to digital.
A large number of people views those tapes as historical time capsules. Not valuable money-wise, but interesting pieces of history. Especially folks over at archive.org and various forums and torrent trackers that share original broadcast episodes with commercials intact. While it may seem boring to some today, we like to think that folks 30, 40, 50+ years from now will find them informative and interesting.
I have worked on a number of preservations of this sort in the past and am currently collecting original tv tapes of Star Trek episodes. I already have every episode of the TOS recorded off of syndication in the 80's, with all the commercials and bumpers. Also have about half of TNG episodes with original commercials and all that fun stuff. But always looking for more.
If anyone has any tapes laying around that were recorded off of television during the original run of stuff like TNG, DS9 and Voyager please let me know. I will be happy to either work with you get them copied and shared or will gladly take the tapes and convert them to digital.
I have the last couple of seasons of DS9, the last half of VOY, and all of ENT (I think). That special with Jason Alexander as Captain Kirk is in there somewhere too.
However, I also went back and filled in all the earlier seasons of those shows with reruns — and it's possible I overwrote some originals where the antenna reception was too crappy. (I tried not to do that because I recognized that some scenes would be cut, but ....) Or it was replaced with a rerun when the original was pre-empted for sports, or, in one notable case, where I felt I had to record news footage of 9/11 events all day. That morning, I was in the middle of programming the VCR for VOY and instead, a few minutes later caught (basically live) footage of the second Tower coming down.
If you can deal with all these limitations, and if you cared to rip these to digital, and could get me the files, maybe we should talk.
However, I also went back and filled in all the earlier seasons of those shows with reruns — and it's possible I overwrote some originals where the antenna reception was too crappy. (I tried not to do that because I recognized that some scenes would be cut, but ....) Or it was replaced with a rerun when the original was pre-empted for sports, or, in one notable case, where I felt I had to record news footage of 9/11 events all day. That morning, I was in the middle of programming the VCR for VOY and instead, a few minutes later caught (basically live) footage of the second Tower coming down.
- Also, I tended to go back and edit tape-to-tape to get rid of commercials. They're not ALL gone (I did keep the ones that I felt were gems), but .... I did try hard to keep the bumpers and the credits, though.
- Also, I opted for more episodes per tape rather than recording quality in general. Making recordings of recordings will do that.
- Also, some of the recordings may be mixed up with episodes of BSG, Stargate and Andromeda. These are more likely to have unedited commercials, but they're also more likely to be from reruns. I'd have to do some sorting if you didn't want those.
If you can deal with all these limitations, and if you cared to rip these to digital, and could get me the files, maybe we should talk.
I home recorded key and favorite episodes of TOS, TNG, DS9 on VHS (my hometown didn't have a stable UPN affiliate for me to record VOY and ENT in its entirety). Even on EP and with all the commercials edited out live, I still racked up an impressive number of tapes. Once I started getting Trek on DVD, however, I began repurposing my old VHS tapes for other programs. With VHS tapes no longer in production, I've got a nice supply of "blank" tapes that I can recycle indefinitely as long as I don't play them every day.
If you have any episodes with the commercials still intact I can definitely rip them.
As far as recording quality, it is still possible to get decent quality from even an EP tape. Usually easiest if it is still the original tape used to make the recording, have a nice SVHS vcr and use a Time Base Corrector of some sort in the chain. If it is a copy/dub of the original tape then you are left with the playback errors/quality of the deck you were recording from. In those cases there is often not much one could do to clean it up.
PM me if you would like me to check out some of the tapes!
If anyone reading this is interested in what it takes to get quality captures of your old VHS tapes then some of the guides over at digitalfaq.com are a pretty good start. http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm
As far as recording quality, it is still possible to get decent quality from even an EP tape. Usually easiest if it is still the original tape used to make the recording, have a nice SVHS vcr and use a Time Base Corrector of some sort in the chain. If it is a copy/dub of the original tape then you are left with the playback errors/quality of the deck you were recording from. In those cases there is often not much one could do to clean it up.
PM me if you would like me to check out some of the tapes!
If anyone reading this is interested in what it takes to get quality captures of your old VHS tapes then some of the guides over at digitalfaq.com are a pretty good start. http://www.digitalfaq.com/guides/video.htm
Commercials might be good now.
But taking out the commercials meant four episodes and a sitcom, rather than just three episodes.
Tape is money.
But taking out the commercials meant four episodes and a sitcom, rather than just three episodes.
Tape is money.
I think I fit 7 episodes w no commercials on a tape?
I think I could fit five TNG eps on an L750 at Beta III speed.
I could routinely get 7 on a T120 with SLP. If my mom recorded them for me, i had to settle for 6, because she didn't know how to edit out the commercials.
Well, unless you have a working VCR, and keep it in good repair, those tapes are about as useful as Legos for viewing Trek
The internet was designed as a distributed network for government/military use. Substantial chunks of it could literally be bombed out of existence and the network would still be in operation. So I think it would take a lot more than one good virus to disable the whole architecture.
Kor
Kor
It's the emp that's the problem.
If one side is targeting server farms rather than maternity hospitals, they are just going to ruin every thing.
If one side is targeting server farms rather than maternity hospitals, they are just going to ruin every thing.
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