Longest videotape you can buy

.

John Duncan Yoyo...

Easy peasy. Just play them out of DVR onto the video tape. Now if
you like your mum you can even edit out the commercials. I'd go for a
DVR with a DVD-recorder and send mom a DVD player if need be. You'll

Troy.Heagy...

I may have to look into this "exotic" new DVR technology. ;-) As long
as it does not cost too much, I might throw away the videotapes and use
that for my tv time-shifting. (Ugh... throwing away perfectly-good
tapes; such a waste.)

According to wikipedia, there are such things as "DF-480" digital
tapes. They would hold 12.5 hours on a regular vhs or s-vhs vcr.

save tons on the postage.

I was going on a two-week vacation, and so I needed an extra-long tape
to record my favorite shows. My 8-hour tape was not going to cut it,
so I decided to try this new digital-vhs tape which I had heard was
equivalent to a T-210 for old vcrs.

Barry Margolin...

Ah, yes, I remember the old days of trying to figure out what to record
on my two VCRs that would fit onto two T-160's.

For anyone who considers this a serious issue, I think it's time to get
yourself a DVR.

videonovels...

How much do they cost? Do they work with over-the-air tv (non-cable)?

Alison Hopkins...

In England, under fifty quid. :) You're even better advised to have a HDD
one.

Alison Hopkins...

Yes - it's just another input signal.

videonovels...

Do DVRs work for people who don't have cable?

Barry Margolin...

Yes, they connect exactly the same way as VCRs.

What if I want to take the 12 hours of twenty-four I just taped, drive
it 700 miles, and show it to my parents or brother or friends? Do I
have to lug the whole DVR machine with me?

glassman...

Time to throw out your tape system and join the 21st century with either

Arthur Engh...

I concur completely. We have to stick together against those digital
futurists with all their different systems.

DVD's or hard drives. Prices are now under $100 bucks, and the quality is so
superior it's amazing.

Arthur Engh...

I still use VHS tapes. The quality of store-bought discs are superior
but I still don't trust home-made stuff. I have VHS tapes recorded in
the beginning of the eighties still perfectly good. I have bought and
taken some home-made dvd's in exchange but either the picture had been
worse than my tapes, some stopped in the middle of a show and just

JK...

Like you most of us had extensive collections on VHS or Beta. I also had
tons of music on reel to reel tape at one time. I moved to cassettes then
CD's. I know folks that still don't own a microwave oven either. DVD's are
superior in everyway possible, that's why no one uses VCR's anymore. With

JK...

Neither. My statement was obviously an exaggeration of the fact that
DVD's dominate the marketplace. It's like saying that nobody heats their
home with coal anymore.... of course some do. Why be so nasty & defensive.
I have plenty of old VHS tapes, but would never consider using that medium
for anything new. If you use both that's fine with me. Some folks
unfortunately are reluctant to even try DVD's and DVR's as a better solution
for all their new stuff. I use a stand alone to record DVD's of TV stuff.
The quality is perfect, it costs about .20 cents a disc, storage space is a
fraction of VHS, and I can instantly flip to any scene I want. My post was
intended as a way to convince the poster to not be afraid of new technology,
and that change is good.

Arthur Engh...

"One thing we've found in compatibility testing [of DVD-R and +R media] is that it's a relationship between a specific brand of media and the manufacturer of the hardware," observes Byers. "There was no one drive that played every single type of compatible media, and there was no one media brand that played perfectly in every drive."

Come again with that "change is good." If you record something wouldn't you at least want to be sure that it can be played in your next player or your friends player? And that it can be played a little while from now?

JK Sinrod
www.MyConeyIslandMemories

proper care disks last forever, tape wears out a little everytime you run it
through the heads. Your position is indefensible. All your questions and
objections can be easily addressed. Here's a suggestion. Get yourself a $29
player at Walmart, and watch a few .99 DVD's or Blockbuster rentals. Fast
forward, reverse, select scenes, slow mo, change languages, see extra
content, hear directors comments, pause for a few hours, etc. It's time to
move on.

Robert...

I don't think it is up to you to tell anyone "it's time to move on." He is
happy with his tapes and who are you to talk him out of it? Why does he have

Barry Margolin...

But he's clearly running into the limitations of the technology. What's

videonovels...

You mean like only having 10.7 hours on a single tape?
How would a DVD player solve my problem?

Barry Margolin...

It wouldn't. All my responses in this thread have been recommending a
DVR, not a DVD player.

Ted...

I recall someone bringing up the DVD recorders you can use to record
from your TV (completely inappropriate in terms of wanting to record a
large amount of material without being there to mind the store). The
comment may not have been directed at you specifically.

(I've got one & I don't see a record button.)

wrong with pointing out how easily his problem would be solved by
updating?

to defend his position? I still use tapes, records, CDs and DVDs.

A few corrections. You said no one uses VCRs. Walk into Wal-Mart or Best-Buy
or Fry's. You will see people carrying them out.

The proper spelling is disc, not disk.

Live and let live.

refused to play any longer whatever I did, there are compatibility

glassman...

The real point is that new technology is at some point proven. Will you
ever accept it is the question. Even your VHS was deemed an improvement and
totally accepted by you at some point, if you're old enough to remember it's
inception. VCD was a great step forward, and what was wrong with using it?
No one said to throw out your source tapes. I'm sure that DVD and DVR will
also be improved, but there's no reason for me or you to suffer with VHS
limitations here in 2006. You'd be hard pressed to find much content that's
not available today on DVD anyway. The quality and convenience is so
terrific that I can't imagine ever suffering through those 10 minute
rewinds, or back and forth searching, ever again. If we live long enough
we'll see holgraphic imaging flicks and maybe even the entire recorded
history of cimema on a pill sized button you swallow to use. I'll be the
first on line to get one, you'll be rewinding Star Wars yet again.

problems between certain brands and certain players, there's this
question about dvd+r and dvd-r and dvd-ram, good dvd recorders cost a
bundle but vcr's are dirt cheap here, there's a question of the
longevity of discs, and they get easily scratched. And do you buy
stand-alone recorders or PC-ones? And if PC's which burner and software
is best and what the heck are different frame rates and resolutions and
divx and unsynchronized sound etc etc... And now there's Blueray and HD
and whatever. Please! I just go and buy some tapes wherever there's an
offer, pop them in, record on them and view them later.

Turns out, it holds 10 hours; 40 minutes. By cutting off the credits I
was able to record *11* hour-long shows on a single tape. Perfect and

glassman...

Artie I have 5 computers with 8 different DVD drives, a stand alone DVD
recorder plus 2 players as well. All vary in age and speed and brand name.
I have used at least a dozen different media brands and have authored
probably 1000 discs. In all this time I have had only a handful of fussy
discs that would only play on their original source. If a problem arises
with compatibility, I just make another perfect copy in 4 minutes. How long
to copy a VHS without quality loss? I'd say rare compatability is a very
small price to pay for the speed, quality, convenience, and space saving
over VHS. Surely you don't think that DVD & DVR are so popular for no

Heynony...

You have been brainwashed. The new media are poor substitutes for
traditional VHS if you are a discriminating viewer.

The wonderful softness, the rich grain, the joys of mistracking, faces
without all that annoying detail like cheekbones and skin texture. The
moving quality of a picture so pleasingly dynamic that no pixel is ever
in the same place for more than an instant. There are nuances of
artistic expression that creep in only in the second generation VHS
dupe, that modern digital viewers will never experience.

reason?

just what I needed.

bev.vincent...

The disadvantage of these tapes is that they don't last very long in my
experience. The tape is soooo thin that after a few uses it gets
stretched and starts distorting on record or playback. I've found this
to be true of 8 hour tapes, and it's likely more the case with longer
tapes, unless the tape material technology has improved lately.

akjack...

The tape handling mechanism in the VCR has a lot to do with
how long extended length tapes last. All VCRs are not the
same with respect to tape handling.

Anim8rFSK...

the 8 hour tapes came in 2 flavors. some of them were just thinner tape
and fell apart and clogged your machine. The BASF T-180s were actually
a different formulation and were great and nobody bought them because
they cost more.

Matt Barry...

I always found BASF tapes to be the best quality as far as VHS went,
especially in the longer format. Does anyone remember those tapes Target
stores used to sell, the T-170s, that would hold 2 hours and 50 minutes in
SP? I'm not sure who the manufacturer was (they had the Target logo on the
front, though). These offered very poor playback quality, even in SP format,
because the tape was so thin.

Anim8rFSK...

Ack, no, but a friend of mine used to get the cheap T160s to have her
Mom tape stuff for her, and her Mom was constantly having to take her
machine in for service, and I could never convince them of the
corellation :-)

Arthur Engh...

I'm in Norway still using analog VHS. Here five hour (10 hour LP) BASF
tapes were available. Don't know if they are available somewhere now
haven't looked after them for a while. Point is, the image quality
wasn't that good but I've never had one stick in the machine or ruin the
heads.

And the picture quality was beautiful. Even though I recorded in Super
Long Play (slow), the Super VHS picture looked just as good as if I was
watching live tv. None of my other recordings looked that
crystal-clear.

I liked the tape so much, I've decided to buy two more. :-)

Anyway, just wanted to make those who still use VCRs for time-shifting
/ recording about this super-super-long 10.7 hour tape.

Greg Bryant...

Might be time to get a Tivo or DVR.