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Like most people of a certain age I have a box of old video tapes that have (in my case) followed me through two moves and an impending third on the horizon. Borrowed a VHS machine today and am spending the afternoon going through the tapes. This may take some time......currently whizzing through a tape from 2002, funny how my viewing habits have changed and the **** I used to record. What is surprising (viewing these through a modern OLED TV) is the picture quality - it's great, especially bearing in mind that these haven't been taken out of their boxes in at least 18 years..
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I think you should probably expand on the content before BBD gets too excited...
;-)
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Just found a security tape from a Garage...! :-)
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A reminder for me, now it is getting dark earlier, to dig out my VHS tapes and burn them to DVDs
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>> A reminder for me, now it is getting dark earlier, to dig out my VHS
>> tapes and burn them to DVDs
Wouldn't it be better burning them to a USB stick, or hard drive? I know all types of storage media can fail at any time, but would have thought DVD-R would be quickest to fail a few years down the line.
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Better still chuck out the tapes And DVDs and subscribe to a streaming service or two. The same goes fo those music CDs gathering dust. Then review all those old photo albums and scan the ones that mean anything to you ( do you really want that out of focus picture of the Eiffel Tower?). Upload the photos to a cloud service.
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All our CDs (around a trillion in all) have been burned to a Brennan - they now sit in neat boxes in the attic...do they have to go...!
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>> WTF is a Brennan?? :)
An Irish Highwayman who has seemingly moved across to piracy.
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>> Wouldn't it be better burning them to a USB stick, or hard drive?
>> I know all types of storage media can fail at any time, but would have thought DVD-R
>> would be quickest to fail a few years down the line.
>>
At present it is the easiest option. I just plug the VHS into my old recorder and let it transfer to its HD. 5p an hour, reasonable definition and I am familiar with it.
Burning the DVDs is a secondary simplel process.
Transfering bought DVDs from our travels will reduce storage.
Yes I know time failures are a risk but a lot less than tape.
I need to transfer DV tapes from our travels too.
Now the weather has changed maybe I can find time to action things.
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>> Just found a security tape from a Garage...! :-)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoarding:_Buried_Alive
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It's not that bad yet. Loads of biking gear been flogged on e-bay. SABLE is the new hoarding. (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) - these tapes will be chucked unless there's somthing of value on them.
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I did the same thing during early lockdown. Every rally I'd competed in came with a video after the event, the first part being snapshots of your own car. This was from the early to mid 90s.
Earlier discussion revealed I'd actuall forgotten about competing in a major local event. The video stirred the grey matter.
However it did require soeme technical work on the VCR I also found in the loft as it was chewing tapes..
Overall a massive nostalgia hit.
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For years I accumulated old media - LP's, cassette tapes, CD's. Videos, DVDs.
Two/three years ago I realised they had been sitting there unwatched and unlistened for up to 40 years. No rarities of any value. Some memories but few personal items. Every time we moved house they were packed at one end then sat in boxes at the other for years.
Music and films all availabe on Youtube, Netflix, internet. Gave the whole lot to a charity shop - if they can get some cash - great. The upmarket (30 years ago) hi-fi went with the software.
A wonderful way to declutter - bluntly they had not been missed in decades and I prefer to look forward than back. But that's just me!
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For many years I travelled a lot and rarely lived in anything I'd call a permanent home and changed cities / countries / continents often - every 6 months or so, sometimes a year. Consequently I have very little in the way of life clutter.
If one discounts those things which are both current and which one could simply replace by buying another (clothes, furniture, tech etc.), then I could move my whole world with a single suitcase. And often have done.
I am surrounded by things I own, but not much that I actually care about or that have any particular significance. I used to think it an advantage, these days I'm not quite so convinced.
Last edited by: No FM2R on Wed 30 Sep 20 at 21:04
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I need alcohol NOW!!!
Wired my Panasonic vcr up yesterday, tried a couple of tapes = snow :(
Sound was okay, although a tad muffled from my 9 year-old Panasonic plasma telly.
Bruv (TV eng.) would have serviced it for me - but he's long gone now.
Cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol here we come. If that don't sort it, in the bin it goes.
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>> Cotton swabs and isopropyl alcohol here we come. If that don't sort it, in the bin it goes.
Sometimes the best way. That's where our Dyson ended up.
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Coincidentally, we have recorded a couple of things on the Virgin Tivo box I wanted to extract.
I remembered I used to do it with a dvd recorder. Then I remembered it broke.
So we went to the local charity shop where they always have loads of them for a tenner each. They had none. They had also never heard of gathering contact details for track and trace, though masks were required, but that's beside the point.
So I looked on Amazon, thinking it's such archaic tech they'd be £20. They still exist but more like £200 new.
Ebay has used ones at about £30, but unlike the charity shop, no guarantee.
So I'm a bit stuck.
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>> They had also never heard of gathering contact
>> details for track and trace, though masks were required, but that's beside the point.
Are retail premises required to retain details for track/trace?
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>> Are retail premises required to retain details for track/trace?
Dunno. They have an open coffee shop. All the local garden centres with coffee shops gather your details, though now I think about it, only in the coffee shop bit itself. Maybe that's the difference, we didn't use the coffee bit.
But I recounted here last week a greengrocer in Cornwall refusing entry unless you scanned with the NHS app. (Obviously you could pretend to or something). So that was just retail premises.
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>>They had none. They had also never heard of gathering contact
>> details for track and trace, though masks were required, but that's beside the point.
shops dont do track and trace, only eating and drinking establishments.
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>> Ebay has used ones at about £30, but unlike the charity shop, no guarantee.
>
>> So I'm a bit stuck.
>>
I'm not sure why, why not buy one from ebay?
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Unlike the charity shop, no guarantee.
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>> Unlike the charity shop, no guarantee.
>>
For 20/30 quid does it matter?
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>> Ebay has used ones at about £30, but unlike the charity shop, no guarantee.
>>
>> So I'm a bit stuck.
Obviously no idea what it's like in your area but round here re-usable stuff left at the council's waste sites is retailed through a number of outlets around the county (Northants). I last used the service several years ago whilst getting a 'Uni bike' for my son. Something that, if Liverpool's yoof lived up to their reputation and nicked, wouldn't matter. One of the places at least had racks of TV and audio kit.
Need to go back and look for a spares/repair Dyson to cannibalise as I can no longer get parts for a DC-03.
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>>Need to go back and look for a spares/repair Dyson to cannibalise as I can no longer get parts for a DC-03
Not even here?
www.espares.co.uk/search/mo420613/vacuum-cleaners/dyson/dc03-standard
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>> Obviously no idea what it's like in your area but round here re-usable stuff left
>> at the council's waste sites
Goodness me, the waste sites aren't open here.
I think it was a few weeks ago I posted here about it, and everyone else said theirs were open with free champagne and a jacuzzi for all comers.
Ours are still firmly closed for normal use, so the council's web site says.
Even when they were open they certainly don't sell you bits. The men take anything faintly lucrative off to their private shed, cackling, but the public never see it again.
Council tax band D, £2000 a year if you're interested. Mind you, the man next door is about band Z.
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Goodness me, the waste sites aren't open here.
>>
Still shut, seems a bit daft not opening by now.
Council tax band D, £2000 a year if you're interested. Mind you, the man next
>> door is about band Z.
For that sort of Council tax I'd be poking my local councillor with a stick. Frequently.
No reason they can't open up.
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>>Sometimes the best way. That's where our Dyson ended up.
Well, I read a tip on an AV forum to bung a new tape in and select play.
So I stuck a new Maxell 180 'mega power' tape in, and went orf to have my jalopy MOT'd.
3 hours (THREE HOURS!) later, the machine had rewound the tape to the beginning so,
I put my BBC Fawtly Towers vid in and ... it jammed!!
(Hahaha) ... Dusty Bin here I come.
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I seem to remember somebod on here did something to the beginning of every Faulty Towers episode, but not sure if it was anything as clever as thinking up the anagrams of the hotel sign (e.g Flowery T***s was one that sticks in the mind)! - I may be mistaken of course tho' !
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>> I seem to remember somebod on here did something to the beginning of every Faulty
>> Towers episode, but not sure if it was anything as clever as thinking up the
>> anagrams of the hotel sign (e.g Flowery T***s was one that sticks in the mind)!
>> - I may be mistaken of course tho' !
That was the titles to every episode, an anagram of 'fawlty towers'.
'Farty owls' was one
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IIRC in one episode it was a boy delivering papers re-arranging the letters.
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>> (Hahaha) ... Dusty Bin here I come.
You horror. I'll be getting a ghastly image of a gesticulating and gurneying Ted Rogers in 3...2...1...
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>>Ted Rogers in 3...2...1...
We always watched that back-in-the-day.
I actually got the ole video to function okay in the end, just watched my 1952 A Year To Remember video, bought by the ole woman for one of my birthdays some years ago.
So 'the trick' of playing a new blank video to clean the heads etc. worked, just remember to bin the new tape afterwards.
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Today's delight was a 1991 episode of Top Gear. Test between an Audi Avant Quattro and a Citroen XM both in £27k land ! JC with a head full of hair and a waistline. A 1994 advert for Ford Fiesta for £7k
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>> Today's delight was a 1991 episode of Top Gear. Test between an Audi Avant Quattro
>> and a Citroen XM both in £27k land ! JC with a head full of
>> hair and a waistline. A 1994 advert for Ford Fiesta for £7k
>>
Bargain...while the Merc was being serviced I wandered into town, and past a VW dealer. A red 5 door R-Line Polo (unsure on engine) had a price tag in the windscreen of just under £24k from memory...
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In 1994, I bought a then three year old, 35,000 mile, one owner, FSH, Granada Ghia 2.9 4x4 for £7500.
Immaculate condition, and it did me very well. Trying to think what a modern equivalent might be and how much you'd have to pay now.
Three year old low mileage top spec Mondeo maybe? Not sure you'd get one of those for £7500.
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The Bank of England Inflation calculator says £7,500 in 1994 was £15,030 at the end of 2019. That’ll easily get you a decent spec. 3 year old mondo you’d have thought, though the Germans have taken over where Ford. Vauxhall and Rover used to be. The modern day equivalent is probably a 530d M Sport x-drive. Which will cost you more I imagine! Performance wise a 520d would trounce the Granada I think, but even that’d probably be out of budget
Veering vaguely back on track, I’m pondering dumping all of our CDs now, as they haven’t been played for well over 15 years... there is still on CD player in the house though :)
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>> Three year old low mileage top spec Mondeo maybe? Not sure you'd get one of
>> those for £7500.
>>
Not far off.
tinyurl.com/y58mr46x
It isn't my home address.
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>> In 1994, I bought a then three year old, 35,000 mile, one owner, FSH, Granada
>> Ghia 2.9 4x4 for £7500.
>>
>> Immaculate condition, and it did me very well. Trying to think what a modern equivalent
>> might be and how much you'd have to pay now.
>>
>> Three year old low mileage top spec Mondeo maybe? Not sure you'd get one of
>> those for £7500.
>>
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/223965044041
A bit newer, minus the 4x4 as far as I can see, but an estate with the cosworth engine ;)
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Oh gawd no, its the ugliest thing in the history of wheels.
Now this -
www.desperateseller.co.uk/cars-for-sale/advert/21789630/105911?utm_sou
rce=newsnow
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 3 Oct 20 at 20:54
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>> www.desperateseller.co.uk/cars-for-sale/advert/21789630/105911?utm_sou
rce=newsnow
That link leads to some very dodgy looking sites.
Last edited by: VxFan on Sat 3 Oct 20 at 20:52
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>> That link leads to some very dodgy looking sites.
It triggered the Trojan alert on my Malwarebytes.
Now made it non clickable. Access it at your own peril.
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>> >> That link leads to some very dodgy looking sites.
>>
>> It triggered the Trojan alert on my Malwarebytes.
>>
>> Now made it non clickable. Access it at your own peril.
>>
It just took me to a harmless looking recruitment site, although I didn't stay for more than a few seconds.
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>>It triggered the Trojan alert on my Malwarebytes.
I run the premium version of everything MWB do as well as the usual Microsoft tools and ad blockers. And the site triggered nothing.
I turned off the ad blockers and still nothing of any particular note.
Have you picked up some cookies from dodgy websites again Dave??
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>> I run the premium version of everything MWB do as well as the usual Microsoft
>> tools and ad blockers. And the site triggered nothing.
Mine is the premium version too.
>> Have you picked up some cookies from dodgy websites again Dave??
If I have, then it must have been from the ones you've sent me ;)
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>> That link leads to some very dodgy looking sites.
Yes, I saw the link to the BBC as well.
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Probably before then a pal of mine had similar...I’d forgotten they were 4x4. Chatting with him last week over beer we reminisced about our previous cars. His Granada was excellent until the engine went bang on the M6. The most reliable car he owned, apart from his recently departed X5 3.0d with 230k trouble free miles, was an Audi 80 Sport, which I bought from him third hand. Reg B626 VCX. Golf Gti engine...a great car I ran faultlessly for a number of years, sold for a more practical estate.
Apologies. Thread drift.
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Is that the one about the A-bomb? - Fancy droppin' that on us! I remember watchin that as a kid!
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>>Is that the one about the A-bomb?
Yessiree, dat's the one guvnor.
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>> You horror. I'll be getting a ghastly image of a gesticulating and gurneying Ted Rogers
>> in 3...2...1...
Pedant alert......
Gurney is US English for a hospital trolley - a word heard in accounts of execution by lethal injection.
Ted Rogers was gurning - the art of pulling faces.
/Pedant
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I've got loads of old tapes including quite a few pre recorded, plus a VCR in the loft.
And countless cassette tapes and a player/recorder too. The last time I tried one the sound quality was dreadful compared to digital recordings and at the start of the second track the tape managed to wrap itself round the heads.
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I did some curating work on my cassettes a couple of years ago. I have to say the sound reproduction isn't as good as high bit rate digital media, but some are remarkably good - I've binned an awful lot of pre-recorded stuff - my own made up tapes of radio programmes etc I've hung onto and there are some real gems there, not least amongst the spoken word. I'll keep these.
I found 70 VHS tapes, mainly TV programmes I've hoarded, including one about my mother talking about her (fatal as it turned out) MS illness. I have 16 tapes left, some are ones I recorded with a massive, but highly impressive in many ways, Panasonic full size VHS camera. The picture quality was superb. One tape was of the 1991 BTCC Championship recorded at Oulton Park circuit....awesome cars. I'm pretty amazed at the quality of the technology of the era...still giving a reliably (mechanically) and picture reproduction - awesome when you think how this actually worked.
As a respite from this watched the Long Way Up on Apple TV earlier. Who would have thought we'd be watching online TV by plugging a HDMI cable into a TV from a laptop to "stream" all episodes of a series in one shot.
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Old Video Tapes - Runfer D'Hills
