Somehow at a dinner conversation tonight, the topic of VHS tapes came about, and I was forced to retrieve the tape of “The Sound of Music” to prove my point. I opened up the secluded cabinet where the VHS tapes have always been in my house and was absolutely stunned to see the volume of tapes we still own.
Technology is very temporal, and I understand that. There was the LaserDisc and the BetaMax before the VHS, and you don’t see those being sold at your local Best Buy any more. As the times have changed, people have adapted. They might still have their library of LaserDiscs, but chances are they have bought into VHS tapes … and then DVDs … and perhaps now Blu-Ray discs (although my money is on a digital library). Eventually, novelty becomes necessity, and we look back and see all the money we spent on the technology that has gone the way of the dinosaur.
I looked into that cabinet tonight and saw upwards of 30 VHS tapes that haven’t been watched in well over half a decade. My family hasn’t owned a VHS player in at least three years, so we haven’t been able to watch them. But I looked into that cabinet and saw the movies that defined my childhood because VHS was the technology that made moviewatching possible when I was younger. It’s kind of sad to see all those movies sitting there that simply can’t be watched. I feel like Andy in “Toy Story 3” right now; I can’t just throw them away, can I?
Does anyone else still have their VHS tapes? If yes, do you still have a VHS player to watch them with?
P.S. – If the “Random Factoid” series wasn’t so rigidly set in terms of titles, I would have called this post “Requiem for a VCR.”
Marshall and the Movies 
Yes and Yes. I have probably close to 100 VHS and I do still have a VHS player so I can (and do) watch them. I’ve been gradually getting DVD replacements for a lot of them, but like you, all my childhood disney favourites are still on good old video.
I remember when DVD first came out and everyone was goin on about superior picture quality I thought it was just marketing as I really couldn’t see any difference at all. But go back to VHS after a few years of DVD and suddenly you get what they’re on about.
At the moment I have the same feelings towards the picture quality of Blu-Ray. So I’m guessing that will turn out to be better than I think too. The thought of having to re buy all my favourite movies again though….depressing.
The upgrade to Blu-Ray only matters if you have a TV bigger than 32″. On anything smaller than that the differences are fairly hard to tell. DVD is great quality still and for most people I don’t think it makes sense to go Blu.
My VHS player died a couple years ago and I do still have a lot of my old tapes. There is definitely a nostalgia attached to those tapes and they are hard to part with.
I still buy VHS at garage sales and shit. We have, like, three players lying around, and sometimes VHS is the only way we can watch a certain movie. I get nostalgic.
I haven’t watched VHS in ages, but I’ve got a DVD/VHS combo in which if I wanted to watch one, I can. The last time I used it for a lenghty time was for football, both as a player and preparation for the NFL Draft.