Week 33: Why VHS?

Decades ago I had some of my long lost relatives take some home movies documenting family, things they did, and places they may have gone.  They did this on a very, very old type of camera.  I’m not even sure what the camera looked like, or where it is now.  They would have to mail the film off to have it developed and they would get back 8 millimeter film. 

I don’t even think they had sound for these home movies.  If I remember correctly, it was just video and nothing else.  I found a bunch of these movies as a teenager and also found the video projector that would show the 8 MM film.  I set it all up in my basement room and was watching the videos, fascinated by what I was seeing.  And then it all came to a crashing halt.

My mother walked into my room and saw what I was doing.  She went into hysterics yelling and screaming at me that I was ruining the home movies!  She took everything away and mailed it off somewhere so I couldn’t watch them anymore. 

Decades later I now find a bag of these home movies sitting on my living room floor.  I don’t know what to do with them.  Even if I could manage to watch them now, I would have absolutely no idea who any of the people in the movies were.  They would all be just strangers to me. 

I’m sure I could take these somewhere and have them put onto a DVD or something, but again I wouldn’t know who any of the people were, and it would be like watching strangers to me.  Moving on, I grew up in era when the VCR was invented.  It was a luxury item and everyone wanted one!  Eventually my family did get one and I absolutely loved it!  I could now record things on television and watch them whenever I wanted!  Eventually we ended up with cameras that could record onto VHS tapes!  This was wonderful and we could now have home movies with sound!  And we could watch them on our VCRs! 

That era seems like just yesterday to me.  We never seemed to have enough blank VCR tapes for what we wanted to record.  And we did plenty of recording, too!  Again, I have quite a few VCR tapes in my living room.  We no longer live in that era anymore, though.  I no longer have a VCR, or a camera that records onto VCR tapes.  So for a while I was looking at these things like I was looking at the 8MM reels, no knowing what to do with them.

The VHS tape I’m holding there isn’t labeled.  I have no idea what’s on it.  The only way to find out is to put the tape in a VCR and see.  I don’t have a VCR.  Thinking about it though, last Christmas I had spent about $120 on a gift for my brother.  It was a small thing that converts VHS tapes into digital media!  He tried using it once and the VCR he was using at the tape.  He was angry and hadn’t used it since.  I could go over and see if there was another VCR and maybe see what was on the tape!

So I did find a VCR that worked and did figure out how to convert the VHS tapes into digital files.  I can now play or edit them on a computer!  This was fantastic!  I had only taken 3 VCR tapes with me to check (who knew how well the conversion thing would work?), but after looking at what was on the VCR tapes, it wasn’t really anything that interested me.

And so another family member asked if I could maybe convert some VCR tapes for her.  No problem.  It became fun to plug in a tape and then start the conversion process ending with the video being moved to a computer and also one of my jump drives so I could take the videos home, too!  We converted some old VHS tapes that were purchased at Walt Disney World and Disneyland from way back when the VCR was king!  The earliest video I converted was from 1989 and was taken just after I had gotten out of the military.  My Dad and I drove around and did a video tour of Bullhead City, Arizona and Laughlin, Nevada.  In the video the cars now look so old!  You can see signs for a Steak and Lobster dinner for $6.99 and one for a steak and egg breakfast for $0.79!  That brought back such memories!

We converted a Walt Disney World trip planning video from 1993, a video about the Disney Hollywood Studios park from 1995, and a Disneyland vacation video from I’m not even sure when!  The Disneyland video still shows the Sky ride, so I’m sure it’s pretty old!  *chuckle*

I stayed up much later than I wanted to converting video and I plan to do more next week.  This is like a trip into the past for me, now being able to watch these old videos on my computer.  So why VHS?  Because the videos we made hold so many memories!  I may not know the people on the 8MM stuff, but I do remember the VHS folks!  Until next week, find an old VHS tape and show it some love!  And keep asking why!