Hacker News Reader

> "Papa, papa, it gave the movie back to me! Do I say thank you? Is it all done now?"

That's beautiful!

Indeed. Made me smile. I saw a video of a toddler that was trying to “swipe” a framed picture because they had been using a tablet.

I saw a toddler trying to swipe an advertising screen at a mall.

Months later the video screen had been replaced with an interactive touch screen.

I grinned. That is what makes doing this right now OK. Kids are great!

In the touchscreen era it's interesting to see physical interfaces as an interesting thing and not a chore.

As a kid I'd marvel for hours on players front panels. Tablets have the benefit of making you interact with just about everything in an absolute generic fashion that objects probably can't replicate but they still have wonder and complexity to enjoy I believe.

> Hearing all the little noises and watching it take the tape

Last time I used a backup tape drive, I had the same feeling. The slick mechanism and motor sound was even more beautiful to me 20 years after we got it.

I recently bought an old Denon 3-head cassette player for my HiFi, as I still have cassettes but have had nothing to play them on for several years. The machine would have cost about £600 in 1983 (~£2k in 2020) when it was first introduced to the market, but cost me about £160 on eBay.

When it's operating the whole machine just screams precision, with its clicks and whirs and still bright VFD info screen and vu-meters. It's truly a beautiful thing, and very satisfying to use.

In electronic music I've also noticed a trend back away from DAWs, and everything being virtual or emulated, to real physical devices. I think there's really something in many of us that loves a properly tactile interface with dedicated controls.

Also analog devices, I mean even light bulbs, have a very particular flavour of colours. The blue, the yellow.. they're somehow more .. i don't know .. interesting than the most precise IPS or OLED panel.

This is also why people still enjoy CRT displays and paintings, other real colors. Wider color spaces are more interesting.

Oh yeah! I love listening to music on cassette and vinyl. Using good gear is all part of the experience.

Edit: And tactile has mental connotations. "A little bit" on a physical dial is a target one can feel and compare in ways that are immediate, thought is action ways.

Do the tapes still look okay? I remember when I was a child near the end of the VHS era, my parents tried to show us a copy of Back to the Future they'd bought when that movie had come out. The color had noticeably faded, to the point where I remember it almost looked black-and-white at first.

Overall, yeah. And it may be changes in the settings too.

More and better content driving chroma harder = lower setting.

On a reasonable VCR, and a good display, noise tends to come up more than color loss accumulates.

Also, people would back off on the color some anyway. The resolution was not all that great. Driving it hard, like we are used to now may well wash away some detail.

This all improves on a CRT with good analog circuits.

I have a large collection of commercial tapes from the 1980s and have not noticed any degradation. I have picked up degraded tapes from the thrift store, though. I suspect it depends on storage conditions.

Another thing to mention is that the VHS tapes generally give a much nicer image than DVD. Tapes have better tonal range and lack other compression artifacts.

> Do the tapes still look okay?

In the last couple months I've just been digitizing my old VHS tapes from late 80s to early 90s. (As well as my 8mm tapes from late 90s.)

Happily, all of them have been in great condition.

How are you digitizing the 8mm tapes?

I've digitized my family video VHS tapes using an old computer and a tv-card, but apparently there are some 8mm tapes from before my time that could use digitizing as well but I don't know how I would go about doing it.

I haven't done it, but I generally trust Alec in those things: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZC5Zr3NC2PY

There is a review of VHS, Laserdisc and Blu-Ray on this very movie. So I think this is of relevance here :) I think it also talks about screens the different media is made for as a factor in how it looks.

https://youtu.be/hUQvnxxTuM4

Exactly - we’re going to setup a VCR for the kids - tapes are plentiful, cheap, and if they get destroyed there’s no big loss.

Yeah. Should work out. Has for us.

Optical was not forgiving enough. I setup to rip and burn kid editions. They damaged them frequently.

Lovely story. Sorry about your kid.

Thanks! Me too :(

This is why the work being done at the Victorville Film Archives is so important

Be kind and rewind ... remember all those PSA before the movies started :).

remember the locking cassettes? think it was to lock the dust cover rather than an anti piracy mechanism

I have one tape with that sticker! Someone did not return a tape way back when.

I never understood the big deal. The rental stores all had super fast rewinding machines, it couldn't have taken the teenager staff more than 30 seconds to do it themselves.

It was all about distributing that work.

The rewind machines ranged from less than a minute to a couple, depending on where the tape was. Many rental places had multiple machines too.

That adds up real quick. Rental place moves a few hundred movies an evening. Not rewinding made life hell for the staff.

Most VCRs will do it at the end of tape. So the "was not kind, did not rewind" case was largely people stopping the movie part way through, or right at end credits, and just not pressing rewind.

I made sure my fam rewinded. And my little one has already made her stand on this clear. "Always rewind papa." I had explained the bright green sticker we have on one tape.

She short cut her own self!

Wants to watch a full movie, bot have to manage the tape at the start of the experience, lol!

On that note, stickers work! Little ones notice them big. They seem to get that they matter some how and want to know why.

Anyway, from our point of view, being the renter, it is someone else's problem.

As soon as people get a collection, the tables turn. It is who ever enjoyed the tape denying the next person their sweet experience.

I'm fucking jelly right now, you rock at fatherhood man!

Lol. When it's your turn to parent, just give a shit. That counts the most.

What happens when she sticks peanut butter into the VCR?

I take it all apart and show her the carnage.

Then deploy my backup one I have at my work bench. (It is connected to a great CRT. Reasons.) Edit: Honestly, when I am in flow, I sometimes put a classic from my youth on. Raiders of the lost ark, or Wrath of Kahn. It is just nice to glance over at the CRT and muse. Brings back good vibes.

Then, probably just clean and fix the contaminated one.