BigBadMick Posted June 20, 2014 Report Share Posted June 20, 2014 Just wondering about this the other day. I haven't converted tapes to DVD, but still find myself reluctant to hook up the old videorecorder to play them. It's a shame, I've contented myself with dvds I've acquired since 2001/2002 instead. I'm not talking about bootlegging here, just wondering if anyone still watches wrestling videos? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted June 20, 2014 Report Share Posted June 20, 2014 My wrestling videos had one last hurrah about 7 years ago as I knew I was going to be moving soon and decided to see if it was worth bringing the tapes and VCR with me. They didn't make the cut. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBadMick Posted June 20, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2014 Tough break, goc. It's a pity they're so bulky huh? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mookeighana Posted June 20, 2014 Report Share Posted June 20, 2014 I've got some local indy wrestling tapes from the early 2000s which I will pop-in from time to time. However, between youtube, WWE Network and DVDs, my wrestling VHS collection has been shrinking and that's okay with me. I am anxious for the day where all that Jakked & Velocity is up so I can toss those tapes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigelow34 Posted June 20, 2014 Report Share Posted June 20, 2014 Yes I still do, although the Network has curbed it. I own more VCRs than I would like to admit... I started converting stuff last year and need to get back at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dylan Waco Posted June 20, 2014 Report Share Posted June 20, 2014 I own four fully functioning VCR's, and two others that are semi-functional. I also still have a whole lot of tapes. I've definitely lost, misplaced or trashed some over the years, but I still have a large amount of it. A lot of it is stuff I have on disc or is easily available on youtube, and I could easily junk (and probably should). A decent amount of it is mixes/customs that have a few matches that I don't know if they are up online anywhere (stuff like random APW stuff for example) that I would like to keep. I haven't watched any of this stuff in years mind you. Then there is a little bit of stuff that might be online, but I haven't really checked to see so I keep it just to be safe. That would be stuff like the full run of Michaels TWA. I actually did watch some of this in the last two years, though not much of it. The big problem I have is that a ton of this stuff is labeled wrong or not labeled at all Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smack2k Posted June 20, 2014 Report Share Posted June 20, 2014 I still watch some stuff on VCR...I too have 4 functioning, hooked up in different rooms VCR's, but also 3 perfectly good in storage, as well as Worldwide VCR and on old Betamax player stored away in their boxes as you NEVER know what may pop-up when hunting around for things or run into someone who's sons or grandkids had all these videos that they kept. Not much chance of it happening, sure...but if it does, I am ready and can convert them if needed.... Watchin a lot of the older WWF stuff unedited musically and otherwise is a big advantage of VHS, plus all the Colliseum stuff I haven't converted, as well as smaller promotions TV that I collected over the years. Even though a TON of my VHS stuff is on DVD or on my HDD's at home, I wont get rid of them as I colleted them and put a ton of time into getting them, so they stay in the man cave with my other collection (old computer hardware / software) What do you guys convert with? I have a Professional VCR hooked into a DataVideo TimeBase Corrector, then into my PC for capture / editing / cleanup / authoring... Havent gotten to do much the last 3 years due to my son and work taking time, but those days will return..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
El-P Posted June 21, 2014 Report Share Posted June 21, 2014 Not since 2003. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cheapshot Posted June 21, 2014 Report Share Posted June 21, 2014 I sold my tapes back in 2001 to a friend knowing they'd be pretty much redundant in the years to come. If I still had them I very much doubt I'd bother trying to watch them due to the sheer amount, the lack of labelling on some and the quality of some of the ones that I got through trading over the years. So much easier now to watch some on HDD's, YouTube, The Network and DVD. We're spoilt nowadays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goc Posted June 21, 2014 Report Share Posted June 21, 2014 Video quality was probably the biggest reason I did decide to scrap my tapes. I knew with the amount of DVDs that I had unwatched there was just no realistic expectation that I'd go back to VHS just to watch some old WWF PPVs. I junked a lot of DVDs when the Network came out for the same reason, I just don't see the need to store large amounts of physical DVDs for PPVs that I can just watch on The Network. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
anarchistxx Posted June 21, 2014 Report Share Posted June 21, 2014 Can't say I feel much nostalgia for the VHS format. It was functional at the time, but between the poor VQ, having to FF instead of jumping between stuff, and the bulky nature of the tapes themselves, it is worthless having any now. Always wish I'd sold my official tapes sooner, by the time they were listed nobody was watching VHS anymore and they fetched next to nothing. The only tapes still in my collection are custom ones I made myself as a kid, that might be nice to reminisce on and watch in a few years time. Never mind VHS, I barely even watch wrestling on DVD anymore. Sold all my official releases, and all my burned discs are in boxes. Got about a five hundred discs on spindles and haven't even watched a lot of them. Only really watch live wrestling, and whenever I have the urge to seek out something else it can usually be sourced online and watched within minutes. My TV goes on YouTube and the internet, and I can plug a hard drive into it and play stuff off there, so no real reason to ever buy any DVDs again unless there is a particular comp or rare match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artDDP Posted June 21, 2014 Report Share Posted June 21, 2014 I haven't watched or owned a VHS tape in over thirteen years. I lost all my wrestling tapes when my parents stopped paying for their storage locker ten years ago. At the time I thought I'd never see those old NWA/WCW PPV cards again and was pretty upset. The only tapes I wish I still had are the 1998 WWF Home Video issue of WrestleMania III and my live PPV copy of WrestleMania XVII, both because they had the original music. Watching these cards with the original music edited out just loses a lot of the nostaglia appeal for me. Come to think of it, now that I have the Network I'm glad I never bought any of those anthology sets, either. EDIT: I just checked the Network and they have the full PPV version of WM XVII up, complete with Snickers Cruncher plugs and "My Way". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pantherwagner Posted June 22, 2014 Report Share Posted June 22, 2014 I threw away about 350 tapes (mostly bootlegs) at one point about more than 10 years ago. I still lived with my parents and we needed the space. I held onto them for too long out of perceived nostalgia value when I should have been selling them slowly. Instead I was stuck with a huge collection that was unsellable as I was liviing in Spain where there was no interest in those tapes and and postage anywhere in Europe would have killed any deal. I still keep a couple of boxes with mostly lucha libre, my own compilations and some originals. Funny enough, most of the ultra-rare stuff I have found or received in the last 10 years came out of VHS's that had never been converted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Dog Posted June 22, 2014 Report Share Posted June 22, 2014 I converted a lot to DVD in 2005 when I got a DVD recorder. And in all honesty, buying stuff on DVD from other people has gotten so cheap that I just threw all my VHS away and started buying it over again on DVD. I might have a VCR buried in the basement somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sidebottom Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 I still have around 30 VHS tapes. Hundreds got sold around 2006. The last time I put on a VHS was last year as I was looking for something specific from Mexico. YouTube is where I go to now for wrestling, truth be told. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smack2k Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 For me, anyway, I keep them as I searched flea markets / internet / traded with people to accumulate them when it was much harder to get things built up and acquired and much more costly due to VHS tapes being expensive to ship and the footage not being readily available (things like AWA TV and WCCW TV)...so that is why I keep them....plus I like the cases to be honest... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigelow34 Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 I just have so many VHS that I recorded live, so there is sentimental value (knowing what each tape and case looks like, what is on each tape) of a defunct era and also because I have a bunch of stuff that is unedited and as originally aired, which is cool. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smack2k Posted June 23, 2014 Report Share Posted June 23, 2014 I just have so many VHS that I recorded live, so there is sentimental value (knowing what each tape and case looks like, what is on each tape) of a defunct era and also because I have a bunch of stuff that is unedited and as originally aired, which is cool. YES! Good call on that to.... The uneditied, unscratched, un music changed I mentioned as well and is also huge? A show with Slick and WITHOUT Jive Soul Bro? Fuck that noise... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lee Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 Last tape I watched on VHS was either The Year in Review 1993 or Best of RAW 3, two UK-exclusive tapes I had to cover for The Complete WWF Video Guide, neither of which I could find online and nobody seemed to have converted to DVD. Writing those books I've mainly looked for anything I needed to cover online or on my DVDs as it's just more convenient. I remember when I first got a DVD player and thinking it wasn't anything special like it was cracked up to be, then a couple of years later, watching something on VHS and THEN being blown away by DVD. You tend sometimes not to notice how bad some things are until something comes along that improves it, and I never noticed just how bad VHS looked after multiple plays with tracking lines and fading colour/audio until I'd watched a bunch of the same DVDs over and over. It's kind of like how some video games look amazing when there's been nothing to better them (I'm thinking certain PS1/N64 era-titles) but when you go back to them they look awful comparative to modern textures. I do have a certain nostalgia for VHS, though I guess it's more of an era thing, being young and it being the first format to come along. I used to get blank VHS tapes as birthday and Christmas presents, which seems bizarre now. My family never understood why I was into it (or music for the matter, me being the black sheep and all) but when I look back I was clearly drawn to production. The good old mix-tape days. Yeah, I'm glad we've got Spotify to make playlists with and a Network to pull our favourite matches up on, but there's a charm to watching three episodes of Nitro back to back with Craftmatic 2 auto-adjustable bed adverts, seeing a promo for a crunch football game with two teams no longer in the Premier Leauge, then discovering an episode of Bottom tacked on to the end along with a Crystal Maze you don't recall taping, a Top of the Pops from six years earlier and the first 15 minutes of Panorama, a program which absolutely nobody in your family would ever watch, let alone have cause to record.As someone who also finds amusement in doing things the hard way, I've been known to once in a while put together comps on cassette, or dig out long play VHS with unrelated sci-fi movies on them that we have hidden away in the house (Godzilla vs. Mothra/The Swarm/Sometimes They Come Back... Again!), and though I don't really watch or listen to them, it tickles me just to have them on the shelf. I do miss the rental place we had, although given the choice I'd choose the modern world over the 80s/90s one, if not for the culture then certainly for the convenience. I do actually have a couple of wrestling comps I made lying around somewhere. One is Benoit's entire World Title run from 2004 which after I made it, I never actually got round to watching and now have no stomach for. The other came about partially out of a conversation about the good old days of trading, coupled with my insomnia and desire to sit up all night and sleep all day. Being an indecisive guy who frequently wasted more hours trying to find something to watch than actually watching anything, I figured if I made a comp of all my favourite matches, I could just throw the tape in, hit play, and see something I was into. Plus, I made it eight hours long and always figured I'd have that one glorious night of hitting play at midnight and watching shit till the sun came up. I put a ton of work into it, timing everything, making sure no wrestler appeared twice in a row, no promotion appeared twice in a row, different matches types back to back and mixing up the years (usually I'm devoutly chronological but I figured what's the point of a mix if I didn't mix anything?) Proud as punch I was when I finally finished it. Never watched. Not even once. And in true videotape fashion, I didn't bother to label it either, so I've absolutely no idea where it is, and could probably lose days fast forwarding through tapes of old sitcoms, football and cartoons before I found it. VIVA VHS! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smack2k Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 A GREAT Point is the old commercials...being in the US, our are obviously different, but damn, there were some great ones... Old NES Games commercials Dianetics by L Ron Hubbard - This was on ALL THE TIME Craftmatic adjustable bed What TBS Shows were on after Wrestling and the following Sunday... Who the Braves were playing (when they SUCKED) What was showing before and after on WPGH (Pittsburgh) before it was FOX (Worldwide was on there) THe old 80's ESPN Promos of games / events that week when ESPN showed a TON of diferent stuff you'd NEVER see today.. SOO many others, I cant get rid of VHS due to that.......and I know they could be converted but I don't have the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
artDDP Posted June 27, 2014 Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 Christ, I'd forgotten that "Dianetics" commercial. That and commercials for Troy Aikman's QB game seemed to run non-stop on WCW Saturday Night. "They stole Aikman's brain!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBadMick Posted June 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 'but there's a charm to watching three episodes of Nitro back to back with Craftmatic 2 auto-adjustable bed adverts, seeing a promo for a crunch football game with two teams no longer in the Premier Leauge, then discovering an episode of Bottom tacked on to the end ' RIP Rik Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BigBadMick Posted June 27, 2014 Author Report Share Posted June 27, 2014 A GREAT Point is the old commercials...being in the US, our are obviously different, but damn, there were some great ones... Old NES Games commercials Dianetics by L Ron Hubbard - This was on ALL THE TIME Craftmatic adjustable bed What TBS Shows were on after Wrestling and the following Sunday... Who the Braves were playing (when they SUCKED) What was showing before and after on WPGH (Pittsburgh) before it was FOX (Worldwide was on there) THe old 80's ESPN Promos of games / events that week when ESPN showed a TON of diferent stuff you'd NEVER see today.. SOO many others, I cant get rid of VHS due to that.......and I know they could be converted but I don't have the time. We wrestling fans really are cultural archeologists at heart. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blazer Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 I'm sure only us 40+ guys remember this one, but it just popped into my head....do you remember the commercial (believe it was a MILK commercial), may have been the "Milk, it does a body good", where there'd be a little shrimp who was talking about being picked on, and then he'd grow a bit taller and bigger, and talk about drinking milk, and then by the end of the commercial the dude was like 6'1", 185, taller than the guy who was picking on him, and then a hot chick walks onto the screen and he leaves with her. Milk....it does a body good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loss Posted June 28, 2014 Report Share Posted June 28, 2014 I'm 34 but I remember that quite well. That and "You, all right! I learned it by watching you!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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