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Comment by clsec | Hacker News Reader

If they tried they'd probably be unwatchable. VHS tapes degrade over time by just existing, you don't have to watch them for them to degrade. In the late 90's I was a part of a group on Usenet that digitized old VHS tapes. Though the tech at the time didn't allow for very good digitization.

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I watched some 90's videotapes from the early days of movies being sold at affordable prices at my parents house last year. VHS quality has always been poor compared to DVD, but they didn't seem particularly degraded.

They have been sitting in a climate controlled room all that time.

You probably haven’t watched a VHS tape recently. I’ve not come across one that’s degraded by simply sitting on a shelf (or in a garage that got up to 120ºF each summer for the past nearly 20 years.

Hang on, “unwatchable” or “degraded”? Maybe you don’t remember what a brand new VHS tape should look like, but they definitely do degrade steadily over time even when properly stored. Not to say they’re guaranteed “unwatchable”, but definitely degraded.

Yeah, I probably worded that wrong. And that degradation is why we were digitizing them. We wanted the best quality we could get with what we had. The movies we were working on were out of print and would never be released again in any form.

Is that depredation measurable in any way? Not DVD or LaserDisc quality, but much better than I remembered. I’ve put on some tapes that I was actually surprised they looked as good as they did (on a much nicer Trinitron CRT than I ever had when the tapes were new).

>Is that depredation measurable in any way?

Not that I know of. It's just an observation that our group of about 15 people agreed on. These were movies that were used a lot (pr0n) and were visibly getting worse (banding, tracking, wear, etc.), not just sitting on a shelf. We would also share them with each other through the mail and use the GoVideo dubbing decks that we all had to make copies. This was for alt.binaries.movies.erotica and associated newsgroups. Probably TMI :)

Agreed. I recently popped in Star Trek V for kicks and it worked flawlessly. However, I must say, while the physical tape may have aged well, the content surely did not - yeesh, what a stinker.

Anyway, it all depends on the storage - the best advice I ever heard was "store your things where you live" (in other words most of us don't live in the attic or the basement).

Of all the Star Treks to watch for kicks, you picked V? I'd have no complaints if it and Start Trek I ceased to exist.

Oh, I know it. I came upon it rummaging and popped it in later that evening.

Honestly, I think in a single act I nearly destroyed my youngest son's interest in the series by having him watch the first one with me. I haven't seen those movies in years, but it really reminded me how big Star Trek was back then to be able make such bold assumptions of the audience on so many levels.

You know though, all this talk - I think I'm going to dig up another and watch it tonight. There's actually a couple I still haven't seen.

The first film has a lot more going for it than V. It's not great if you go in expecting a Star Trek movie, though. Scratches a very different itch.

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