VHS coming back? - Page 2 - Videokarma.org TV - Video

redk9258 · #16 01-12-2025, 07:48 PM

I highly doubt new machines will be made. Nobody knows how to anymore. The machines that made the heads, etc. have probably been scrapped long ago. To design and tool up to make a VCR only to sell a small amount would not be cost effective.

DVtyro · #17 01-12-2025, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by init4fun

There are still enough people willing to buy records to make them commercially viable. The reasons being nostalgia, some see a "cool factor" in them, and some believe "they just sound better". All subjective opinion based reasons for sure, but there is enough of "the juice being worth the squeeze" there to give the vinyl record enough popularity to attract manufacturers to produce them. VHS on the other hand is very niche market at best, as I myself well recall people hated the fragility of both the tapes and the machines that play them when they were the only game in town, and I've not yet seen any great nostalgia trip regarding videotape machines.

Vinyl records and turntables can be produced in a third-world country. The Soviets made very decent turntables, but no domestic CD players, and the only VCR they made they copied from a 1977 Panasonic model and produced into the early 1990s. Video is much more high-tech than vinyl. No way it returns.

Quote:

Originally Posted by init4fun

Who knows, maybe Taylor Swift will release her next concert video on VHS, but anything short of that and I honestly believe VHS is only gonna live on till the last of us old TV collectors die off.

The guy I like is so into retro that he even taped parts of his show on a Panasonic VHS camcorder.

Neal Francis - Francis Comes Alive: The Movie

But I don't think this gimmick will last long. His last video is overdone. My VHS has never looked that bad

Neal Francis - What's Left Of Me

DVtyro · #18 01-12-2025, 10:41 PM

Oh, and this is my medical VCR: SVHS, Hi-Fi (selectable Hi-Fi or linear), built-in TBC and DNR. Too bad it cannot play LP nor EP. Feel free to click the image for an YT video

ChrisW6ATV · #19 01-14-2025, 01:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by init4fun

how many vintage TV collectors do we have here, and how many of us collect VHS?

In case this was a true question and not "rhetorical":

I have "collected" a number of old and newer VHS and Beta VCRs, without trying too hard. RCA VBT200 and VCT400, a mid-1980s Panasonic, and some late higher-end JVCs (HR-S9900U, HR-S10000U, HM-DH30000U). The Betas go from Sony SL-6200/LV-1901, to SL-8200, and a couple of early/mid-1980s basic models to an SL-HF750, and my restored but bought-new EDV-9500.

Pre-recorded tapes were never my thing (that is what Laser Discs are for), but I do have one of the original fifty Magnetic Video titles from 1977 (The Towering Inferno).

init4fun · #20 01-14-2025, 01:27 PM

Wow great answers everyone! I really appreciate hearing the perspective of my fellow people who collect vintage TVs

I have exactly three videotape machines, and none are VHS or Beta. one is an AKAI VTS -110 Monochrome camcorder, another is a Sony AV 5000A color videorecorder, and lastly a Hitachi SV-512 Time Lapse Recorder that I believe is monochrome and possibly was part of a video security system? (Not sure what other use there would be for time lapse video?) All three are open reel systems ("reel to reel" as it were) and I've saved them due to the relative rarity of such vintage equipment.

init4fun · #21 01-14-2025, 01:58 PM

Oh cool, it did post up the Sony pic, I guess I'll try the Hitachi........

init4fun · #22 01-14-2025, 02:20 PM

And the AKAI....

ChrisW6ATV · #23 01-14-2025, 11:30 PM

Very cool equipment. Your Hitachi might have been the machine that recorded the Patty Hearst video! (The famous time-lapse tape in which the former kidnapping victim is now a bank robber with a machine gun.)

ARC Tech-109 · #24 01-15-2025, 10:09 AM

Very nice to see some EIAJ still in circulation, remember them well.

Electronic M · #25 01-16-2025, 12:01 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by init4fun

Wow great answers everyone! I really appreciate hearing the perspective of my fellow people who collect vintage TVs

I have exactly three videotape machines, and none are VHS or Beta. one is an AKAI VTS -110 Monochrome camcorder, another is a Sony AV 5000A color videorecorder, and lastly a Hitachi SV-512 Time Lapse Recorder that I believe is monochrome and possibly was part of a video security system? (Not sure what other use there would be for time lapse video?) All three are open reel systems ("reel to reel" as it were) and I've saved them due to the relative rarity of such vintage equipment.

Cool to know of another AV-5000A owner! I've got one sans lid. It actually recorded and played back the last time I powered it up....
I've got a fairly decent video tape recorder collection myself.
I've got ~15 2" quadruplex tapes (no deck)
Type A and C 1" decks and what I believe are 3 boxes of recorded type C tapes...I haven't gotten to trying to make the decks work yet.
A 60'S 1" Sony (NV?) deck (no tapes)
I've got Shibaden and Panasonic 1/2" decks that predate EIAJ (if I could find a Sony CV deck I'd have the 3 major pre-eiaj formats...I think I have a couple of CV tapes)
3-4 EIAJ decks, one monochrome, the AV5000A non-standard color, a EIAJ standard color deck and I think either another standard color or monochrome portable...And a LOT of tapes.
I've got a cartrivision deck and tape (need to play with it...life has been busy since I got it).
4 Umatic decks including both first year Sony models and several boxes of tapes with a variety of material.
A quasar great time machine and tapes (another one I need to play with).
I have the first 3 models of betamax (granted the third is the Zenith rebadge) including the LV-1901 and the Zenith Betamax/Chromacolor II combo console, Zeniths version of the first Sony front loader, some more pedestrian mono front loaders, a BetaHiFi deck, a superbetaHiFI deck, an ED Betamax I imported from Japan, a couple of camcorders and a decent amount of tapes.
I've got a bunch of VHS decks... Especially S-VHS decks (I bought every one that the thrifts here got) and recently finally got some knob tuned top loaders and D-VHS decks and tapes. A decent collection of released tapes and a bigger collection of stuff I recorded off cable.

Mostly I'm content with my collection but I would like a betamax changer, and a W-VHS deck....Once I have those and fix what I have I'll probably not be really looking for more...

I'm not sure VHS collecting will die with us...There are folks that pay big money for most decks and many movies on the format how many of them will specialize in maintaining their decks remains to be seen though.

init4fun · #26 01-22-2025, 02:39 PM

Tom, if I had an easy & cheap way of getting the Sony & Hitachi to ya, they'd already be yours (The AKAI is my keeper). Just know that I'd put great odds on them not working as they sit, I got them with the rest of the contents of a defunct Radio/TV repair shop....

Electronic M · #27 01-22-2025, 04:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by init4fun

Tom, if I had an easy & cheap way of getting the Sony & Hitachi to ya, they'd already be yours (The AKAI is my keeper). Just know that I'd put great odds on them not working as they sit, I got them with the rest of the contents of a defunct Radio/TV repair shop....

If you know anyone in your area that attends the spring ETF I've been to that meet every year since I graduated college a decade ago.

I sometimes take long trips to get things...My CTC-4 came from Birmingham Al, memorial day I drove to Wyoming to get that Zenith Chromacolor betamax combo, and for the fall ETF I overshot into Pennsylvania to meet another collector to get a CTC-7 I really wanted, and some cool tube color table top sets.