How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures)
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Bonus WTF: I don't know what these "related articles" say about VHS usage.
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@Lorne-Kates Some day people will love VHS tapes rather than DVD's because DVD's will get scratched or damaged, or dirty or something. VHS tapes are much better.
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You can stop a VHS tape, remove it from the machine and years later, it's still right at the same place where you stopped watching.
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From the "How to create an adult movie" WikiHow:
All wires should be dressed so that they are not visible on camera, and also so they will not trip anybody. Your actors face planting on the edge of the shower isn't in the script this time.
The hell it isn't. I am filming a combo necro/snuff film
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The hipsters of the 2030s will bring back VHS the same way today's brought back vinyl and mustaches. They will insist they are higher quality and when you point out the "tracking" issues they'll just say your don't appreciate the greatness of it all and shoo you away.
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@Polygeekery said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
The hell it isn't. I am filming a combo necro/snuff film
Damn, did they hire you, too?
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@asdf Yep. Told him he was directing it (snigger).
I may have said too much
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@The_Quiet_One said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
The hipsters of the 2030s will bring back VHS the same way today's brought back vinyl and mustaches.
I thought Betamax already won the hipster format war? Or maybe Laserdisc...
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@The_Quiet_One said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
The hipsters of the 2030s will bring back VHS the same way today's brought back vinyl and mustaches. They will insist they are higher quality and when you point out the "tracking" issues they'll just say your don't appreciate the greatness of it all and shoo you away.
Where are the audio cassette hipsters? And the 8-track ones?
(I do know some bands that offer cassette tapes on bandcamp though)
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HOW TO REWIRE A DOOR SO IT OPENS WITHOUT THE PASSCODE (with Pictures)
http://cloud-3.steamusercontent.com/ugc/102854656292176973/2EB3621C95976D8F07FA13E80DBD2F187251D24B/
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@Maciejasjmj said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
I thought Betamax already won the hipster format war? Or maybe Laserdisc...
Well, Laserdisc has almost no compression, so there is a single thing you can say about them: frame-by-frame is actually proper frame-by-frame. You know, if you care about that kind of shit.
Besides, real hipsters use CEDs.
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VHS tapes are much different than a DVD, because VHS is a video tape, while a DVD is a compact disc. Betamax is also between a DVD and a Video Home System tape.
Well, that was enlightening.
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@Maciejasjmj said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
I thought Betamax already won the hipster format war? Or maybe Laserdisc...
CD-I man ... that's interactive!
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@RaceProUK said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
This was one of the suggested videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mh5LY4Mz15o
Knock, knock. It's the United States.
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Before reading the article, I thought it would probably have some merit, given that a while ago I was watching this show and the kids on it had real trouble getting an audio cassette to play and record without their parents’ help. However, then I read things like:
1 Buy or borrow a VHS tape.
2 […] if there is a cover on the VHS tape, you must get the tape out of the coverand thought, “This really is written for dumb people, isn’t it?”
8 Always read the FBI Warning.
Um … what? Why would I want to read the same warning every time, and anyway, what does this have to do with “How to Use a Vhs Tape”? Never mind that where I live, there were no “FBI warnings” on video tapes.
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@Zecc History of Japan was kind of a big thing in some parts of the internet a few months or so ago.
Filed under: How about Sunrise Land
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8 Always read the FBI Warning.
Sounds like something straight out of Illuminati! Is the FBI warning by any chance peppered with fnords that you can't see?
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I was teaching IELTS last summer and when we were doing the mock exams the listening section was played on my phone, streamed to a Bluetooth speaker in the middle of the room.
The test was full of things like, 'The teacher will now stop the tape and turn it over for part two...'
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Hello, CD listeners. We’ve come to the point in this album where those listening on cassette or record will have to stand up (or sit down) and turn over the record (or tape). In fairness to those listeners, we’ll now take a few seconds before we begin side two… thank you. Here is side two
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@coldandtired said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
'The teacher will now stop the tape and turn it over for part two..."
Yuck.
Using a cassette deck that can't change direction by itself is just ... primitive.
Filed under: I think I still have that KX-W592 in the basement
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@aliceif said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
Using a cassette deck that can't change direction by itself is just ... primitive.
TIL there were cassette decks that had auto-reverse.
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@RaceProUK said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@aliceif said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
Using a cassette deck that can't change direction by itself is just ... primitive.
TIL there were cassette decks that had auto-reverse.
indeed. i remember the tapedeck i had in middleschool. 4 tape slots, autoreverse, and autoadvance.
load up all the tapes in the right order, fiddle with the settings for but a moment (remember to push the control buttons so 1,2 and 5 were depressed and 3, 4 were not) then press play. the thing would play for 12 hours continuous, great for audiobooks
it even had a mono mode where it would play those audiocassettes that had been recorded such that there were four tracks on them (side 1A, 2A, then 1B, and 2B), but it only supported that on slot 1 so when those tapes finally ran out you had to swap them yourself.
the only real downside to that thing was it weighted as much as a small horse, and she was prone to mechanical hiccups. getting replacement drive belts for her was a real bitch, but i eventually figured out that #12 rubber bands were the perfect size to replace the drive belts, cost one tenth the price, and only lasted half as long as the official belts that were almost impossible to find anyway.
I miss that thing. It apparently had an after market mod that let it play 8 tracks too, but i missed the 8 track craze, and anyway it was hard enough keeping the thing working as it was.
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@RaceProUK said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@aliceif said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
Using a cassette deck that can't change direction by itself is just ... primitive.
TIL there were cassette decks that had auto-reverse.
Yeah, I had one that was less fiddly than @accalia 's, although it only had space for one tape. It was a JVC mini boombox with a reversing head and dual capstans. I did see on one occasion an autoreverser with a single fixed non-reversible not-2-heads-in-1 head. It actually physically reversed the tape so that it always played from the left spool to the right spool.
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@Onyx said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
Besides, real hipsters use CEDs.
TIL that my parents were hipsters in the 1980s. (Hint: they weren't.) We actually had one of those players. As a concept, CED was ... flawed. It would skip in much the same way (and for exactly the same reasons) as a vinyl LP would skip, except that the narrower groove meant it was far easier to produce fatal damage (except that if you were smart, you never took the disc out of the protective caddy except to play it, except that if you were really smart, you bought something else).
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@Gurth said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
the kids on it had real trouble getting an audio cassette to play and record without their parents’ help
To be fair, "record" was deliberately hard to do, so that you wouldn't erase your tapes by mistake. The requirement of pressing "play" and "record" simultaneously to record isn't particularly discoverable, unless you have someone to tell you.
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@Steve_The_Cynic said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
TIL that my parents were hipsters in the 1980s.
We were talking about hipsters using obsolete tech these days. CED wasn't completely obsolete in the 80s yet.
Your reasoning is flawed, sir!
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@anotherusername said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
To be fair, "record" was deliberately hard to do, so that you wouldn't erase your tapes by mistake. The requirement of pressing "play" and "record" simultaneously to record isn't particularly discoverable, unless you have someone to tell you.
But there were tabs at the upper corners that if removed would not allow recording to happen. So to accidentally record over one of your tapes you would have to accidentally cut a small piece of tape and accidentally place it on the upper corner of the tape then accidentally put it in the tape player and accidentally hit record.
The real reason they were like that was to save money. Some higher end cassette decks had single button record.
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@Polygeekery given that the designers of some of the tape players I remember also went to the extra effort of making it so you couldn't press the Record button without simultaneously pressing Play, I kind of doubt that cost was the real reason.
I'll grant that it might have been slightly cheaper to build the electronics if they didn't make the Record button also operate the motor, but building a mechanical interlock so that the Record button doesn't press unless the Play button is also pressed seems like it'd just add unnecessary complexity in that case.
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@anotherusername said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
making it so you couldn't press the Record button without simultaneously pressing Play
That sounds to me more like a choice that's cheaper than hooking Record up to the motor controls.
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If the actual goal was simply to make it cheaper, they'd either just have Record do nothing without the Play button also being pressed (and yeah, I've seen tape decks that were designed like that), or they'd just add an extra little notch on edge of the Record button, so pressing it caught the edge of the Play button and pressed it down also; the marginal cost of that would basically be zero if the buttons were right next to each other.
But most of the tape decks that I remember had an actual physical interlock -- you physically couldn't press Record without also pressing Play. If the Play button wasn't partially depressed, the Record button was locked in the up position. That added complexity is completely unnecessary in the "reducing cost is number one priority" scenario.
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@Polygeekery said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
But there were tabs at the upper corners that if removed would not allow recording to happen. So to accidentally record over one of your tapes you would have to accidentally cut a small piece of tape and accidentally place it on the upper corner of the tape then accidentally put it in the tape player and accidentally hit record.
Unless of course there was a possibility that anyone might ever want to record something that they didn't want to keep forever but did want to keep until they'd finished with it. Then it would be helpful if it was hard to accidentally record over it.
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@anotherusername said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
To be fair, "record" was deliberately hard to do, so that you wouldn't erase your tapes by mistake. The requirement of pressing "play" and "record" simultaneously to record isn't particularly discoverable
True, but the kids on that programme had more trouble than I would have expected to even get the tape to play, wind, etc. That recording stumped them isn’t too big a surprise.
unless you have someone to tell you.
@Polygeekery said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
But there were tabs at the upper corners that if removed would not allow recording to happen.
Only if you had actually removed those tabs. My mother once taped over some of my music, for example, because I hadn’t and she just hit Record+Play without checking which tape was in the machine.
@anotherusername said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
I'll grant that it might have been slightly cheaper to build the electronics if they didn't make the Record button also operate the motor, but building a mechanical interlock so that the Record button doesn't press unless the Play button is also pressed seems like it'd just add unnecessary complexity in that case.
A few years ago, when I was put into forced labour disassembling things for recycling, I took apart a cassette deck and spent probably the better part of half an hour playing with the mechanical buttons and their associated levers to figure out exactly how all of them worked and interacted. The mechanism would certainly have been simpler without that interlock for the Record button, so the only conclusion I can reach is that it’s deliberate.
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@Gurth said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
Um … what? Why would I want to read the same warning every time, and anyway, what does this have to do with “How to Use a Vhs Tape”? Never mind that where I live, there were no “FBI warnings” on video tapes.
I just watched a DVD. It was from-- umm-- 2002. After the credits, the FBI warning played.
But it looked like it had been pulled of a seventh-generation copy of a 1980s VHS. The single-screen FBI warning was faded like it had been in the sun, plus it had ghosting, and it was very obvious it was VHS quality and not rendered for a DVD.
Then the FBI crawl came up. The white-text on blue-screen bullshit about INTERPOL and the Stockholm agreement. It had the VHS hiss, the screen wavered slightly, and all the lettering had ghosting.
This isn't the first time I've seen the same shitty quality FBI warning on a DVD. The only thing I can think of is that there's a legal requirement to put the warning on DVDs. And some DVD producers hate that law. So they intentionally take the shittiest possible quality version of the warning-- probably literally the same VHS copy the FBI gave them back in 1978-- and use that. It TECHNICALLY fulfills the law, while giving a 480i-quality middle finger at the same time.
Just my theory, don't know if there's any credence to it.
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@Lorne-Kates said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
After the credits
You watched that far?!
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@loopback0 said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@Lorne-Kates said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
After the credits
You watched that far?!
I always let the credits play.
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@loopback0 said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@Lorne-Kates said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
After the credits
You watched that far?!
He was hoping Samuel L Jackson would narrate the FBI warning
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@Gurth said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
unless you have someone to tell you.
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@hungrier said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
He was hoping Samuel L Jackson would narrate the FBI warning
"I have had it with this motherfucking piracy in this motherfucking industry!"
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@RaceProUK said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@hungrier said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
He was hoping Samuel L Jackson would narrate the FBI warning
"I have had it with this motherfucking piracy in this motherfucking industry!"
"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to copy and distribute my intellectual property."
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@Lorne-Kates said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
I just watched a DVD. It was from-- umm-- 2002. After the credits, the FBI warning played.
But it looked like it had been pulled of a seventh-generation copy of a 1980s VHS. The single-screen FBI warning was faded like it had been in the sun, plus it had ghosting, and it was very obvious it was VHS quality and not rendered for a DVD.
Then the FBI crawl came up. The white-text on blue-screen bullshit about INTERPOL and the Stockholm agreement. It had the VHS hiss, the screen wavered slightly, and all the lettering had ghosting.
This isn't the first time I've seen the same shitty quality FBI warning on a DVD. The only thing I can think of is that there's a legal requirement to put the warning on DVDs. And some DVD producers hate that law. So they intentionally take the shittiest possible quality version of the warning-- probably literally the same VHS copy the FBI gave them back in 1978-- and use that. It TECHNICALLY fulfills the law, while giving a 480i-quality middle finger at the same time.
Just my theory, don't know if there's any credence to it.
That's always confused me too. A PowerPoint slide printed, faxed, photographed on a wooden table, and then digitized would be less shitty-looking. It's like they intentionally got the most worn-out VHS tape at a BlockBuster going-out-of-business sale and digitized the FBI warnings off it so they'd look as awful as possible.
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@loopback0 said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@Lorne-Kates said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
After the credits
You watched that far?!
well.... for me they play.... it's not like i'm paying them any attention at that point. but i let them play just encase there's an easter egg vignette hidden in the credits. some producers love to hide those little easter eggs for people who stick around for all the credits.
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@accalia said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
well.... for me they play.... it's not like i'm paying them any attention at that point. but i let them play just encase there's an easter egg vignette hidden in the credits. some producers love to hide those little easter eggs for people who stick around for all the credits.
Plus I do like looking at the credits and just seeing all the different roles and jobs that go into making a movie. I mean, it's someone's job just to keep track of everyone's job in order to make the credits.
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@loopback0 Is that the guy who makes sure everyone is using VHSes correctly?
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@hungrier It's @Lorne-Kates's boss
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@hungrier said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@RaceProUK said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@hungrier said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
He was hoping Samuel L Jackson would narrate the FBI warning
"I have had it with this motherfucking piracy in this motherfucking industry!"
"And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to copy and distribute my intellectual property."
@RaceProUK said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
@hungrier said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
He was hoping Samuel L Jackson would narrate the FBI warning
"I have had it with this motherfucking piracy in this motherfucking industry!"
"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men, just as federal law provides severe criminal penalties for the unauthorized reproduction, distribution or exhibition of copyrighted motion pictires. Blessed is this recording, which in the name of charity and good will, is licensed for home exhibition only, for the FBI is truly its brother's keeper and the finder of lost children, adopted at INTERPOL general assembly, Stockholm, Sweden, September 8, 1997. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to publicly perform, copy or engage in any other use. And you will know my name is the Lord and all other rights are reserved when I lay my vengeance upon thee."
("All rights are reserved, Callahan!")
("Oh yeah? What about the rights of that little girl?")
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@Lorne-Kates said in How to Use a Vhs Tape: 10 Steps (with Pictures):
Plus I do like looking at the credits and just seeing all the different roles and jobs that go into making a movie. I mean, it's someone's job just to keep track of everyone's job in order to make the credits.
If they used plain English instead of filmspeak it'd be more interesting. I don't know what the fuck a "Best Boy" is, but I imagine that it involves pederasty somehow.