My parents have memories of using the 8-Track tapes in the 1960’s. My fond memories of recorded media were VHS video tapes and Laserdiscs. I watched the first Star Wars movie from a fuzzy video tape version back in the late 70’s. When Laserdiscs were popular in the early 80’s, my family started buying movies on the format.
Now, those formats are officially dead. No one makes VHS tapes anymore. Pioneer stopped manufacturing Laserdisc players (to my surprise it took them this long!). I still have my Pioneer Laserdisc player, and boxes of VHS tapes stashed in my garage.
One day, my daughter will see them and she’ll laugh at the absurd technology. How could I use gigantic discs that I have to get up and flip halfway through the movie? What’s a “rewinder“? There’s no chapter selection in VHS?
It’s like the time when I laughed at my parent’s 8-track tapes and the absurdity of having a player attached to a furniture, such as a coffee table, nightstand, or bed frame.
I have another two memorable media: cassette tapes and vinyl. Thankfully, they’re not obsolete, yet. They still distribute on those two formats! Amazon has a vinyl section, I guess still supporting the die-hard collectors. Heck, even cassettes are popular in prison!
My collections of the above formats are still with me, with the exception of vinyls. My vinyl music collection is with my good friend in Canada. It’s probably still sitting in his basement, somewhere.
What is it with me and my obsession to collect these things? Is it easy access to music and movies at my finger tips? Is it bragging right? Or is it a gamble this stuff will become “valuable” one day and be worth thousands of dollars?
What I’m actually collecting is dust.
My collecting days are over with my DVDs (and HD-DVDs). I rather remember the music, the image, or the motion picture – not the format it was stored in.
Photo Credit: fensterbme
Tags: 8-track, collection, dvd, laserdisc, vhs
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Dang that sucks. I don’t have too many DVD’s to replace, but I’m still going to have to replace them with their Blu Ray counterparts sooner or later. I just hope another format doesn’t come into play anytime soon. I think alot of companies are pushing for digital distribution.
Hey Farzan,
Well,I wouldn’t advocate collecting Blu-ray because of the digital distribution push. Download is the way to go, if you ask me. Less packaging (no waste) and it’s very convenient.
It’s the future.
Some material is even being distributed on compact media like SD cards now. Times sure are a-changing.
Periapex´s last blog post..Office Trip 2008: Punta Cana.
Yes, you have Toshiba to thank for that latest technology. Be the first early adopter! 😉
hi Rudy,
My friend when I was a teenager had an 8-track in his car, and swore it sounded better than cassettes (I could never tell). Ah, the memories…
Actually, this post reminds me that our wedding video (that we had professionally done) is on a VHS tape, which is why I still have a VHS player in a box in the garage. I think I even got some cables to hook it up to my computer to burn a DVD, but never got around to it. I’m not sure if that was even for my current computer. I just hope my wife doesn’t get the urge to watch it. Let’s not remind her… 🙂 ~ Steve, the trade show guru
PS. I’ve heard of Laserdiscs but don’t think I ever knew someone with them… now I do. 🙂
PPS. I’ve got a couple of boxes of zip disks, and a zip drive that I pulled out of a computer I was getting rid of. I’m not even sure what’s on the disks…
trade show guru´s last blog post..Trade Show Zombies
I also have my wedding video on VHS, but it was recorded in PAL (not NTSC) mode. So it makes it even more difficult if I want to play it back. I’ll need to convert it to DVD soon, too.
Instead we have to settle for the crappy VCD (Video CD) version. For some reason or another, I don’t why anyone would want to watch VCDs. The quality is so bad.
I think its cute to keep one of each type of old media especially if its an album or movie that you love or has some sort of sentimental meaning to you. Just to kind of keep as a reminder of where we’ve come from.
But that could be the illness talking… lol
fragileheart´s last blog post..Absence makes the heart
Nah, it’s normal to be a little sentimental.
However, having thousands of this stuff, just for the sake of collecting, is kinda mentally challenged. 😉
lol good thing I don’t do that then ;P
fragileheart´s last blog post..These days
Yeah I can’t also believe how far technology has come in such a short time. And what is even more interesting is how much further it will go in the coming years.
Wow i remember listening to music on my 8 track player. Technology has come so far.