VHS as part of the home video library archives

Posted by user510 on January 1, 2009 at 18:55:12

I'm curious about how many folks might still have some commercial vhs movies within their library? Apologies in advance to those who prioritize the home theater as No. 1 in their media playback system. I'm a 2-channel guy that likes to play Lps.

I've yet to go-over to Blue-Ray as yet. 'waiting for prices on players to come down....and for blue-ray recorders to appear. This is still beyond the horizon as yet, I suspect. So my personal collection of commercial movies contain both DVD and VHS commercial titles. Also, I have amassed a serious quantity of DVD-R's recorded off satellite ppv from my dvr. These recordings show signs of mpeg compression but are still quite watchable, mostly.

Enough about me and back to the post topic. VHS as a viable medium for watching commercial movies. I've found many of the VHS movies in my collection to be very watchable and, while not usually in the same picture quality league as many DVDs, are nonetheless very good. In that regard, I'm not of a mind to cast out my collection of movies on tape. Besides, I've got some cash wrapped up on those.

So, if VHS movies are not to be automatically thrown into the trash, there comes the inevitable problem of vhs player/recorder hardware maintenance. At some point, manufacturers stopped making good quality vhs machines; only making models of semi-disposable quality and obviously these are not worth repairing. Now it seems, these are the only ones that can be found new, if found at all.

I'm currently using a Mitsubishi U70 S-vhs recorder/player. circa ~1990. I acquired this as a family hand-me-down. I think it's pretty good. So far I've replaced one re-wind belt on it. Otherwise, the player remains untouched and still fully functional. Personally, I don't mind diving in and doing maintenance on these. However I don't have much experience with the hardware. I was wondering if anyone, who still plays around with vhs, has a preference to some of the better built vhs machines? I recall that there was a Sony model that received very good reviews back in the day. Anyone remember that one? Any recommendations of other vhs machines that are worth fixing diy style?

-Steve

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