VHS 82 was a Philips clone with plastic gears inside. It made a horrible grinding noise when loading the tape and the plastic gearbox didn't last long........ VHS 90/91 were unmatched in buildquality but they came from the Far East!

Where do you live? - I may well have a spare B&O VCR you may have. I'll make sure it works first though!

Peter-Thanks for the kind offer i'm in Sheffield.The tapes are playing fine at the moment though....your tip seems to have worked....Nick

bucko wrote:

Peter-Thanks for the kind offer i'm in Sheffield.The tapes are playing fine at the moment though....your tip seems to have worked....Nick

Another Sheffielder! There are not many of us here :(

Hi John,

Might be even less soon as i'm thinking of moving to maybe Leeds,Manchester or York.Lived here all my life and could do with a different environment...this place is a little too quiet at times!

Nick

One way of getting old VHS tapes to digital format would be to copy them over to a DVD recorder. After the analogue TV is out (since three years here already!) people often want to get rid of those machines for little money, since they are very awkward for time-shifting purposes once the built-in tuner becomes useless.

After that, it's a good idea to rip the DVDs to a computer anyway for backup since the DVD-R's may not be very long life (I suspect VHS tapes will outlive them, if stored properly).

I have some VHS recordings from 1985 that are still just fine - but it depends on the quality of the tape and how they have been stored. But in the coming years, it will be a problem to find a working VHS deck to play them! I have a working VX5000 paired with my MX6000, but mostly it sits there unplugged, just for the looks.

A bit of-topic but anyway: I have some videotape recordings at work that date as far as 1978. They are recorded on Sony U-Matic tapes. The tapes are still playable. The recorder (Sony VO-5630, not the original recorder) is still working and needed only one little repair: new belt in the tape threading mechanism. Of course the quality is not very high, the camera is black-and-white, it has extremely low contrast and everything brighter leaves a long ghosting/trace if the camera is moved. Some later colour recordings are better. Only tape-related problem is that the joint between the transparent lead-in tape and the magnetic tape is easily broken during winding. Nothing that couldn't be fixed, though! The material in the tapes (around 50-75 pcs.) is highly valuable as pieces of our school's (where I work as an IT/AV-support) near history that is otherwise largely lost or un-documented. Some of the teachers seen in the recordings are still working or just retired. Great example of the high value of the recording equipment when new (and to my great assist) is that all of the tapes include very detailed description of the recording, dates, sometimes even complete name list of the persons seen in the recording. 

Keeping high-quality VCR decks is getting more and more important. All new VCRs (or combo-devices with DVD-VHS) are very plastic and cheaply made and can cause damage to the tapes (or to the recorder!) if (and when) the tapes don't wind as easily as modern tapes. In most cases new VCRs don't even play older tapes eventhough they would be Ok if played with a bit better decks. The tapes seem to survive if they are properly stored. At school we have a lot of old VHS-recordings that have been played back again and again for several years but still work. I my personal belief everything magnetically taped will last very long and with the help of the internet the equipment needed to play/transfer them (or to repair the decks) can be found relatively easily. I really don't believe any modern digital format to outlive a good magnetic recording.

P.S: I have two non-working Beocord VX5000 in storage and hopefully one day a working one... 🤒

The recording density on 3/4" U-Matic is immensely less than on even SP VHS, so they will last decades if the tape holds together physically. Old magnetic tapes can have problems with the oxide layer separating from the backing tape, needing baking beforehand, or cooling during playback to prevent them from clogging up the playback heads immediately - and sometimes you can only play them once and they are gone after that.

I have some 1" open reel video tapes somewhere - perhaps even a 2" quadruplex reel, can't remember 😁 Those were real VTRs...

I have found this especially fascinating: an Ampex 1963 link. Great website! The Sony AVC-3200TE seen  is about the same model the U-Matic tapes have been shot and which I have!

lausvi wrote:

Now as we are in the topic; does anyone around here have one of link?

Just remembered... somebody does, and it's even for sale!