My mom called me the other day and asked if I wanted some movies - five plastic tubs worth. They no longer have a functioning VHS player, and it seemed like all those bargain bin tapes have piled up.
Sorry, I told her. Our last two VHS players have died, too. We have two large tubs full of VHS tapes as well, and I don't know what to do with them.
I searched Walmart.ca to see if they still carry VHS players. There's one Toshiba VHS/DVD combo unit listed, but it's out of stock, and not sold in stores. Besides, its ratings only gave it one out of five stars. That one rating noted it stopped working after four months.
Costco.ca's search for VHS returned this: "No results were found for 'vhs'.Did you mean 'vacs'?"
That's kinda funny, when you think of it.
Let's try Audio Video Unlimited - avu.ca. "No results were found for your search'vhs,'" it said, meaning that it's not "unlimited" after all.
Ditto for Audiowarehouse.ca.
We had a winner at Visions.ca. One model, another Toshiba, is in "limited quantities," and on sale for $88.
The last movie I bought on VHS was Enemy at the Gates. I eventually bought it on DVD. Several VHS movies probably won't be replaced, however, even if I do find them in the $5 bin at Walmart. So which do I upgrade? The Alien movies box set with the first four movies? Aren't they up to eight or so now, including Predator crossovers? I can't keep track. What about Twister? How can you have a movie collection without Twister? Wait, Michelle says we have that on DVD now.
Saving Private Ryan was on TV the other day, so I PVRed it. But I can't keep it on the PVR hard drive forever. And I can't play the tape, either. Too bad you can't PVR recordings to thumb drives. I'm sure it's possible, they just won't let you do it.
This adventure in spring cleaning resulted in me dragging my wife to my office to go through these tubs to cull some of it. Tape recordings of Star Trek Voyager episodes got pitched, but documentaries on 9/11 stayed.
My sister gave our kids her extensive collection of Disney movies on tape. What does one do with that? These are classics, in the real, and marketing sense. How do you throw out Snow White or Bambi? But what do you do if you can't play them, either?
All of these movies could be stored on one three terabyte hard drive, in DVD quality. Instead, they're taking space that I could use for something else.
I just realized I have a collection of Hi-8 home videos I took over a decade ago. I didn't even know where the camcorder was until my wife dug it out of a closet. I haven't used it in years. Ironically, I now find myself in need of a high-quality camcorder for video projects, and my old Hi-8 won't cut it. It was standard definition, and the last generation of camcorders before the flip-out screen. Plus I don't have a way of transferring standard definition video to a digital format. I'm going to have to buy something that will allow me to do that before I can pitch the tapes.
I have the original Star Wars trilogy in several formats. That includes VHS, before the "special edition," where Han shot first in his confrontation with Greedo. But I also have Episode I The Phantom Menace in both widescreen and standard format VHS. That's the one that featured Jar Jar Binks.
Maybe those can end up in the dump, after all.
- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected].
