UNLOADING THE VHS (Part 1)

I was going to take the day off and clean the ol' office. I then noticed a pile of VHS (pre-record) tapes sitting on the floor beside my computer desk. The question I had to ask myself is whether I want to clean around the VHS tapes, which would be the typical male thing to do, or, write about the tapes, pick them up, then clean. After deliberation over five cups of strong coffee, I decided on the latter course.

The pile in question consists of tapes that I transferred to DVD-R at my place of employment. (I patched the signal through our time-base-corrector, or TBC, which makes for an improved image; instead of going into a technical mini-essay here, I will write about the TBC issue in a future blog entry.) Needless to say, a bit of space has been freed up. Except these VHS tapes are now on my floor. And there are still more to do. Someday.

You might ask why I have not gotten rid of them now that they each have a nice space-saving DVD-R copy. My answer would be that I like the pretty little boxes the tapes came in. The variety of artwork is interesting and the only connection to my original purchase -- the uttery souless DVD disk inside a clinical jewel case just don't cut it. The real reason is -- besides, I can always take a picture of the boxes -- I want to make sure they go to a good cause.

There is a terrific bookstore in here in Toronto that deals in new and used books, tapes, discs, etc. (They are BMV Books, 471 Bloor Street West.) I spoke with the manager and he said that they prefer rare stuff. I said, "some of the tapes are not too common".

Suspect Video, Toronto's premiere video store, in my humble opinion, has accepted tapes from me in the past but last time I went in to donate, they gave me the impression they are being more selective as to what they accept. So they are getting picky, are they? I will have to have a nice little talk with owner Luis.

I could always 'lawn sale' the tapes.

My friend, Greg, might want to rummage through them first.

Options there are.


My quest to find a new home for these Video Home System tapes will continue in "Unloading the VHS (Part 2)"