An open letter to the doom-sayers

Gary Nattrass · August 22nd, 2010, 04:34 AM

I still have my Betamax machine and 200 three hour tapes full of the UK TV of the 80's :)

Charles Papert · August 22nd, 2010, 10:29 PM

When I put a home theater in a few years back, the installer I hired looked at me sideways when I included an SVHS player in the stack. I told him I had a bunch of tapes from "back in the day" and while I have always intended to dub them to a more sturdy medium, not all of them will get archived. Occasionally I'll pop in an old off-air tape of a show I love that hasn't gotten the complete DVD treatment. Just last night I had a friend visit from back east and we watched a tape of hijinks centered around one of my bands from 20 years ago. The tape is holding up remarkably well...!

(my backup medium for the "keepers" i.e. home movies and archive of work projects shot analog, BTW, is likely to be the large DVCAM cassettes, as I still have two decks in that format. Hopefully I will ingest onto drives as well).

Marcus Marchesseault · August 23rd, 2010, 12:22 AM

"Print is dead."

Brian Drysdale · August 25th, 2010, 01:27 AM

Whatever happened to the paperless office?

Antti Kangas · August 25th, 2010, 03:32 PM

It'll come right after the paperless toilet.

--AOK--

Vito DeFilippo · August 25th, 2010, 07:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Charles Papert

When I put a home theater in a few years back, the installer I hired looked at me sideways when I included an SVHS player in the stack.

We still regularly use our VHS player at home, and we've been looking at the same movies for years. They get de-mothballed everytime we have another kid! We have a 11 month old now, so I'll be hanging on to that machine for at least another 5 years. Unbelievable.

Brian Drysdale · August 26th, 2010, 03:12 AM

I still have my VHS plugged in. I have films on VHS that I only occasionally watch, so there's little point in buying the DVDs, plus old off air recordings of docs and films.

The quality isn't as good as DVD, but it's watch-able (some cable channels can be worse) and most tapes are holding up well over time.

August 22nd, 2010, 04:34 AM	#16
Gary Nattrass Trustee Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Cornsay Durham UK Posts: 1,992	I still have my Betamax machine and 200 three hour tapes full of the UK TV of the 80's :) __________________ Over 15 minutes in Broadcast Film and TV production: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1044352/

August 22nd, 2010, 10:29 PM	#17
Charles Papert Wrangler Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Los Angeles, CA Posts: 6,810	When I put a home theater in a few years back, the installer I hired looked at me sideways when I included an SVHS player in the stack. I told him I had a bunch of tapes from "back in the day" and while I have always intended to dub them to a more sturdy medium, not all of them will get archived. Occasionally I'll pop in an old off-air tape of a show I love that hasn't gotten the complete DVD treatment. Just last night I had a friend visit from back east and we watched a tape of hijinks centered around one of my bands from 20 years ago. The tape is holding up remarkably well...! (my backup medium for the "keepers" i.e. home movies and archive of work projects shot analog, BTW, is likely to be the large DVCAM cassettes, as I still have two decks in that format. Hopefully I will ingest onto drives as well). __________________ Charles Papert www.charlespapert.com

August 23rd, 2010, 12:22 AM	#18
Marcus Marchesseault Trustee Join Date: Nov 2005 Location: Honolulu, HI Posts: 1,961	"Print is dead."

August 25th, 2010, 01:27 AM	#19
Brian Drysdale Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Belfast, UK Posts: 6,143	Whatever happened to the paperless office?

August 25th, 2010, 03:32 PM	#20
Antti Kangas New Boot Join Date: Apr 2010 Location: Helsinki, Finland Posts: 18	It'll come right after the paperless toilet. --AOK--

August 26th, 2010, 03:12 AM	#22
Brian Drysdale Inner Circle Join Date: Feb 2006 Location: Belfast, UK Posts: 6,143	I still have my VHS plugged in. I have films on VHS that I only occasionally watch, so there's little point in buying the DVDs, plus old off air recordings of docs and films. The quality isn't as good as DVD, but it's watch-able (some cable channels can be worse) and most tapes are holding up well over time.