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Archivists Are Uploading Hundreds of Random VHS Tapes To the Internet (vice.com) 51

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
stikves writes: An organization called Vista Group recently uploaded dozens of VHS and cassette tapes from the 90s and early 2000s to the Internet Archive, and the content within is worth a retro-nostalgia trip back to a simpler, weirder, more wavy time. Vista Group uploaded nearly 200 in the last two months, most of which were uploaded on January 5 -- a rate noticeably higher than their usual 50-70 per month. They're being added to the VHS Vault, an Internet Archive collection of more than 17,500 VHS scans. Most of the videos are instructional or documentary films, like workout or yoga videos or tutorials on installing vinyl flooring or training a dog. There are also a few audio only cassettes in this most recent batch, like "Is It Worth Dying For?," based on Dr. Robert S. Eliot's breakthrough book on stress management.
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Archivists Are Uploading Hundreds of Random VHS Tapes To the Internet More

Archivists Are Uploading Hundreds of Random VHS Tapes To the Internet

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  • We should back all these up (Score:4, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @02:56PM (#59788512) Homepage Journal

    Then vote on which ones should be erased from history.

  • Wut.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by lobiusmoop ( 305328 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @02:56PM (#59788518) Homepage

    In TFA, an example video is given - an interview with Bjork from 1997... . looked interesting, I went to download....

    Turns out they've encoded an 18 minute faded VHS, 333x480 interlaced video as a 1.4gigabyte mpeg4 file... WTF guys! Was expecting it to be maybe 100 megs at most..

    • My capture card makes huge files, too. I convert them to DVD quality before I use them for anything else.
    • Perhaps the archivists wanted a lossless (or nearly so) encoding that could accurately represent all of the various artifacts present in a VHS recording. It wouldn't be the same if the tracking weren't subtly off or there wasn't some old visual data bleeding through due to repeated tape use.

      Or maybe they just didn't bother with adjusting the settings so they automatically upscaled it to 1080p at 60 FPS or something like that.

      • I figure they were just trying to preserve as much information as possible. VHS will have lost a lot already.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bjb ( 3050 )

          I figure they were just trying to preserve as much information as possible. VHS will have lost a lot already.

          This is what I do, at least. I haven't uploaded anything to archive.org, but when I've ripped my VHS tapes I've left them in whatever maximal format so that if some day there is a tool to algorithmically enhance them I wouldn't have lost any additional information. These are the archive copies of home made videos; I wouldn't bother with store bought stuff.

          Now that being said, when I've published

      • I imagine the encoder probably wastes a lot of bits trying to faithfully reproduce all the VHS artifacts. I also imagine if they're doing lots of these, they didn't do two pass, or any fancy encode options to decrease file sizes but that might increase processing time.

        The good news is, someone can do that if they want to :)

  • Most people saved the shows or movies... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by probnot ( 6656470 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @03:00PM (#59788536)
    ...that are now available in HD streaming. Meanwhile the commercials (and local TV spots) are what is sought after (and often hard to find).

  • Amiga Source Code Preservation (Score:3)

    by lazarus ( 2879 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @03:01PM (#59788542) Journal

    Speaking of the '90s, it made me think of this project [gitlab.com] which is trying to preserve old Amiga source code (some never released before), books, and images.

  • OLD weather channel tapes can have data in them to get the old Weather Star back to life with old data.

    Same thing for preview guide

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )
      Are you talking about vertical retrace interval data? The problem is that most video capture hardware will not digitize those lines, and VHS is too low resolution for some data like teletext. I did a quick check of Wikipedia and couldn't find any details about the data format.

  • Bring back VCRs (Score:3)

    by xack ( 5304745 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @03:07PM (#59788570)
    Videotapes were easier to use for recording than pvrs and last for decades. Plus you can take them to friend’s houses or watch them at school. We have had an audio cassette revival and now we need 4K resolution VHS tapes. I still have a Working VCR and CRT tv, waiting for the hipsters to put up a kickstarter for a “streaming VCR”.

    • 64Gbyte uSD cards are running about $12 a piece right now on amazon, I would have thought you could fit a 4k movie on one and in a few years they'll likely be much cheaper.

      Just don't forget to rewind them

      • Gotta post this - I was one of the first "kids" on the block with a DVD player and was showing it off to another friend. Note this friend has a masters degree and was a National Honors Society member in High School making straight As.
        Showed him it was just like a CD and how the picture quality and sound quality were better and then hit pause for a perfect freeze frame then stopped playback. His first response?
        "Does it have fast rewind?"

        • ...in High School making straight As.

          There you go; the ones with the straight A's are rarely the smartest, just the most docile.

        • I fucking hate rewind and fast forward on all digital content after having grown up with VHS (Oh and BETAMAX). Rewinds look so cool from tape, transitions are generally smooth and NO BUFFERING! I am in the boat with your str8 A friend, I think your friend got it str8 away. And here you are mocking his smarts like a jealous school kid.

    • Ugh, no. VCRs were horrible. First, you needed to make sure you had a tape with enough space to record. Then, you needed to punch in the correct time and channel. (IIRC, TV Guide tried to come up with a better system where you'd enter a special code but that wasn't universal.) If you were recording, you couldn't watch what was on the VCR.

      Then, when you wanted to watch your show, you needed to first rewind the tape. However, you might have multiple shows on the tape and couldn't just say "Give me this episod

      • I got better, though. Circa 1989 I had a Mitsubishi U52 that would write some kind of index mark it could find when starting a recording, which made it pretty painless to get to a certain spot on the tape.

        Programming the schedule wasn't bad, either, with on-screen programming. At least around here, there were only about 30 total channels on cable, so there really wasn't that much content to bother with recording on an ad-hoc basis. I mostly kept a tape in the VCR and had a schedule of recurring recording

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Ichijo ( 607641 )

        You needed to keep fast forwarding/rewinding until you got to the right spot.

        We used to mark the timestamp or counter value for each program on the label to make it easy to find the right spot.

    • Videotapes were easier to use for recording than pvrs and last for decades.

      Not really but it is not just PVRs and VCRs that are obsolete the whole idea of recording is obsolete. In a world where everything is streamed on-demand you don't record anything - you just download or stream the file whenever you are ready to watch it.

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by k6mfw ( 1182893 )

      Can you set the clock? or just put a piece of tape to block that annoying "12:00" blinking? sorry I just had ask that one. Whatever, with VHS you can fastforward through the commercials.

      Yes, I still have a VCR, two of them. And lot of tapes I have yet to digitize (several from the 1980s and still viewable). My original Zenith VCR bought in 1990 (before I would rent) crapped out couple years ago. I have a Panasonic DMR-75 (vhs, dvd, harddrive) and a used JVC S-VHS machine bought used some years ago (about

    • The problem with VCRs these days is that there's not much you can record. Pretty much all media except for over-the-air TV is locked down with DRM. Even with the analog hole there's stuff like Macrovision.

      There are some nice, cheap TV tuners that will let you record on a USB drive. But that's about it for legal options, anyway.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Megane ( 129182 )
        I set up a MythTV back in 2013, and it's got 10TB of MPEG2-TS video on it right now. I had previously used an OTA PVR for a couple of years, but it didn't use any kind of recognizable disk format.

  • I went through a digitized some old VHS tapes I had recorded back in the 90s/early 00's. Some of the episodes I had painstakingly recorded, sitting in front of the TV and dutifully pausing recording when they went to commercial. Others were just scheduled recordings (my VCR could handle up to 8 -EIGHT!!!- programs at once!
    When I was going through the collection and tossing out tapes which ones did I digitize? The stuff that I couldn't get more recent copies of and anything WITH the commercials! All the

    • Re:Heh (Score:5, Insightful)

      by theJavaMan ( 539177 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @03:26PM (#59788626)

      You know what, I think the commercials from the 90s/2000s are just as interesting as the TV shows themselves. I mean, they used to pitch satellite TV, among other things. That is a walk down memory lane.

      • What really surprised me is how little the commercials changed from the 90s to today. Sure, the product emphasis changed (less sugar cereal for instance) but the styles and techniques are virtually identical compared to the changes you see from the 60s through the 80s on YouTube

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

        I can't tell if this is a burn on 90's TV or praise for 90's commercials.

      • You know what, I think the commercials from the 90s/2000s are just as interesting as the TV shows themselves.

        "Many respectable physicists said that they weren't going to stand for this -- partly because it was a debasement of science, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of parties."

        Douglas Adams

      • A commercial I remember from the 60s or 70s showed a guy who was apparently shipwrecked, coming out of the water onto a beach in ragged clothes. He goes into a restaurant. He has no money but he puts down his credit card and gets a nice meal. Then he goes to a barber and clothing store and finally he's all dapper and smiling, just because of his credit card. Besides selling people on that particular credit card (which I don't remember), I think the purpose was to educate the public that there were such

      • You know what, I think the commercials from the 90s/2000s are just as interesting as the TV shows themselves. I mean, they used to pitch satellite TV, among other things. That is a walk down memory lane.

        The "As Seen On TV" products used to all be phone orders through 800-numbers, because there were no websites or social media tags for them to add to that final title card. The wife-as-homemaker trope wasn't as socially unacceptable as it is today. "Low fat" was synonymous with 'healthy', fast cuts weren't as common, and while retailers still do some TV commercials during the holiday season, they are far less common during other times of the year than they used to be.

        Really, I submit that TV commercials are

  • So... (Score:2)

    by ktakki ( 64573 )

    ...basically they're shitposting.

    k.

  • Documentary about VHS video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

  • I have two of the rarer S-VHS tape decks that do MiniDV on one side, and S-VHS/VHS on the other with an IEEE-1394 4-pin connector on front. These tape decks can by-pass the macrovision signal (no need for a breaker in the middle to remove it) and captures inside the tape deck at higher than a Component/S-Video/Composite signal can. Something along the lines of 640x480 for resolution. It uses the DV Codec when capturing VHS. An hour import is around the 12-13GB Range as it captures at the highest rate pos

  • Please don't use the term "random" (completely up to chance) when you mean "arbitrary" (unexpected; seemingly random) or "obscure" (generally unknown; topically arbitrary). These other uses are as valid as saying "literally" when you mean "figuratively" or saying "peruse" when you mean "skim" and it drives some of us mad. See also this Q&A post on the use of "random" to mean "arbitrary", "unidentified", "unknown", etc [stackexchange.com].

    "Random" as "arbitrary" is worse than abusing "literally" or "peruse" in my opinion b

  • 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

  • These guys need to get a hold of RedLetterMedia to try and get some of the more obscure garbage out there.

  • Can I get "Song of the South"? (Score:3)

    by mmell ( 832646 ) on Monday March 02, 2020 @07:06PM (#59789594)
    8^O

    • That's one I recorded onto VHS in the 1990s off TV and later had to send over to US friends who'd never seen it.

      Later, the UK's BBC even broadcast this digitally film in 2006
      (BBC Two England, 27 August 2006)
      https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/80... [bbc.co.uk]
      giving anybody in the Western half of Europe who cared about it a legal (!) DVD quality recording. (Due to the nice local laws that permit recording and keeping unencrypted free to air TV broadcasts...)

      That one's still floating around the on the internet...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Megane ( 129182 )

      You're about 20 years too late for that, there was an un-redacted laserdisc version back in the late '90s, and talk about it was a thing on alt.video.laserdisc. I think it was released in Hong Kong or somewhere out there in Asia.

      And I have yet to watch the bootleg Star Wars tape my family had back in the '80s to see if it was from before it got renamed to "A New Hope". I remember it flagged over like crazy at the top of the picture. I've got a couple of video digitizers, but still gotta make some space for

    • This is the FIRST thing I looked for on Disney+ when we gave it a week's trial. Didn't have it, didn't subscribe.
  • Hopefully we will find the long lost public access television tapes of Sondra Prill!

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