No Time Left For VCRs?

My experience says magnetic tape has rather a longer life than home burned DVDs, etc. I reckon you're lucky if they last 10 years without developing errors.

Quite a problem, archiving. So far properly stored film seems to have the longest life.

My thoughts exactly on the DVD vs VHS debate. Sure the qulaity isn't there, but it is passable for watching. Its definately better than youtube.

Magnetic tape, stored in a good environment, does have good lifespan. Even so, a lot of tapes are probably several years old at this point so the remaining alternative is duping back to tape again, or another method. We can't really know if today's DVDs will last 10 years or not, since they've not been around 10 years and accelerated testing tends to use perfect samples and suggests far longer. I would tend to trust data on a slow burnt DVD more than a CDR since they are encased on both sides, providing they're not set in strong sunlight a long time. Either way, a good strategy would be to make two copies, each on different lot, different brand of media.

Another option these days might be flash storage. Considering the low resolution of VHS, videos with typical compression shouldn't be very large, so $1/GB flash prices we're starting to see these days could allow for reliable storage at reasonable cost (if it's worth backing up at all, anything that can't be had on a retail DVD). In 10 years when the flash storage retention rating has expired, flash memory will be that much cheaper per GB.

snipped-for-privacy@davenoise.co.uk...

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Are you comparing Apples:Apples? Watching VHS on a high-res computer monitor or on a low-res. CRT TV? What I've seen of VHS input on a computer monitor looked terrible, while computer output to a TV looked pretty good even if it's utube. VHS is passable, but barely once you get used to better.

Depends on what you consider a good lifetime. My earliest VHS tapes became unusable some time ago due to oxide shedding. At I suppose about 20 years old. Same sort of thing applies to early pro formats - assuming you can find a working machine to play them on.

Not my experience with home burned CDs. Have some giving problems at less than 10 years old which was a guess figure. Commercial ones use different media.

Trouble is you'll not know which make is best until after the problems start.

Maybe. But anything which requires such frequent backing up isn't really much use for archiving.

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Apparently too late for this advice but, don't be an ass.

If I bought the movie I'm intending to watch it more than once (and=20 have most likely already seen it). If you could read you'd have=20 already understood that I BOUGHT THE VCR BECAUSE WE HAVE MOVIES=20 THAT WE DO WATCH, MANY TIMES, AND THEY CANNOT BE COPIED TO DVD WITH=20 OUR DVD RECORDER. Understand now?

Apparently too late for this advice but, don't be an ass.

If I bought the movie I'm intending to watch it more than once (and have most likely already seen it). If you could read you'd have already understood that I BOUGHT THE VCR BECAUSE WE HAVE MOVIES THAT WE DO WATCH, MANY TIMES, AND THEY CANNOT BE COPIED TO DVD WITH OUR DVD RECORDER. Understand now?

Its usenet.. Someone is always going to complain about what you say. Just don't worry about it.

In article , snipped-for-privacy@crap.comcast.net says...>

Not worried at all, though true 'nuff. ...and they tend to be as illiterate as "email".

On Feb 24, 2:00=A0am, "Dave Plowman (News)" wrote: > In article > , > =A0 =A0 wrote: >

The oldest 2" quad broadcast we've played in the last 3 years was from

I have some 10 year old CD recordables that played fine last month - I was a little surprised.

My 10 year old CDs were burned at 2X as that was all I had at the time.

I trust flash storage least of all but I have no hard data to support my bias.

Archiving digital is NOT a trivial problem.

G=B2

They archieved the first moon walk in digital format, but erased the tape. That does not hold up well at all.. Actually somebody found an analog real time recording of that, but I have not heard if they were able to play the tape back.

I know many of the old floppies do not work any more. I have tons I need to throw away. I still get request to archieve the real big floppies and Beta tapes.

greg

Never happened with my DirecTV Tivo units!

Hows that horse and buggy working out fur ya????

If nothing else a VCR can be used as an automatic volume control for audio. Great for TV. Feed it in, and take it out while in rec mode,. I remember the first HI FI VCR I had with a 100 buttons, sliders. You could even take off the compression. I had started recording just audio on it. I still have a bunch of early 80's HBO concerts on tape. Including the Who's last performance. That was the early 80's i said.

greg

How is that dormant organ rotting between your ears working "fur" you?

krw

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I understood fine, you have an illogical stance that rewatching the same movies is more important than it really is, and that because you bought one device that won't dupe, that is some kind of argument against using a different device that can. Name-calling at that point was irony.

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Then the only possible conclusion is that you're stupid.

You really are illiterate. I said no such thing.

No, it's called "honesty". Not only are you illiterate, you really=20

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It's called honesty if anyone asked for your opinion. I'm doubting that happens often.

A nasty rumor only. I can get tapes easily in 8 hour three packs and single six hour tapes for $1.99 apiece at Walgreens as well as other stores like Safeway and Target; there never seems to be any shortage. I suppose that IF there does come a day that VHS tapes become as extinct as the dinosaurs and the dodo bird, *then* I'll switch to something else, but not until that day comes. :-)

Ron

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What a dumb s*it you are. This is a public forum. By the way,=20

Your mother must be embarrassed.