MetaChat - Speaking of being bad at throwing things away...

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12 September 2007

Speaking of being bad at throwing things away... what do I do with the dozens of old VHS tapes I just discovered I've been lugging around? Do I literally just throw them out? →[More:]I'm starting to pack, and just found a cache of old tapes -- some are music videos and movies I intend to keep, but plenty are shows I just taped off TV (a couple of seasons worth of The Sopranos, random episodes of Survivor, The Amazing Race, America's Next Top Model, Manor House, etc.). It can't possibly be environmentally sound to just throw them in the trash, is it? Should I donate them somewhere to be erased and recycled? God, obsolescent technology is a pain. (I don't know what to do with my perfectly functioning laser printer/fax machine either, which I can't use because its software doesn't work with my current computer and it won't hook up to a USB port anyway. I couldn't even sell it on Craigslist for 50 bucks, and it's the best printer I've ever had. Guh, the WASTE!)

post by: scody at: 00:43 | 23 comments

About a month ago I put about 30 videos in a box outside with a sign marked "free." They were gone in minutes.

posted by miss lynnster 12 September | 00:59

" I put about 30 videos in a box outside with a sign marked "free." They were gone in minutes"

Homemade videos?

posted by arse_hat 12 September | 01:13

That reminds me of a story i am not going to tell.

posted by ethylene 12 September | 01:17

No fair, eth. Don't leave us hanging like that.

posted by bmarkey 12 September | 01:19

Hmmm, someone told me her family would go to thrift shops to buy up videos people were replacing with DVD's. Would one take the printer?

posted by brujita 12 September | 01:47

Nooo. Classic movie videos, smarty pants. I don't have a vcr anymore though.

posted by miss lynnster 12 September | 02:10

Brujita: yep, I think my local thrift store probably will take the printer. I'll take it (and my old keyboard and speakers) this weekend, I guess.

posted by scody 12 September | 02:26

Damn, that reminds me. Where did I put my homemade ASCII porn?

posted by stilicho 12 September | 02:29

I have a DVD player and also a VHS machine which I know in this day and age is hopelessly outmoded. But the other day I bought a copy of Mean Streets for £1 on VHS.

posted by essexjan 12 September | 03:24

When we moved to the UK, we didn't bother bringing any videotapes with us (they won't play), so we didn't bother buying a British VCR. I hacked my DVD player so it's region free... but that's it. No tape.

posted by chuckdarwin 12 September | 05:07

SEND THEM TO MEEEEEE! seriously, I'll send you money for the postage.

posted by dabitch 12 September | 05:41

yes, I'm weird - but it's the best way to reverse-engineer finding of old ads if there are any old ads on it. Get the ad off the tape, hunt down credits and permission. Creatives usually give us permission without batting an eye, but copies of their old ads, they don't usually have.

posted by dabitch 12 September | 05:43

christ, I have a box of old tapes from throughout the 90s of old simpsons, x-files, star trek, etc. kind of fun to watch for an hour or so once a year, but i should get rid of them. I still have my first vcr (GE, 1985) and it still works fine.

posted by DarkForest 12 September | 07:18

I've been wondering about this myself, scody...

Old VHS tapes won't even sell on ebay, I've found. Anybody want the director's cut of Natural Born Killers and/or all 17 episodes of The Prisoner on VHS? The tapes are in good shape- you pay for postage and they're yours. (They're bought tapes, not home-recorded.)

posted by BoringPostcards 12 September | 08:23

I tried getting rid of mine on FreeCycle, with no luck. I'm thinking the box-on-the-street idea is a good one.

posted by mrmoonpie 12 September | 08:42

Dabitch, I think you'll have the same situation chuckdarwin describes (PAL/NTSC discrepancy).

posted by brujita 12 September | 08:49

You know, MuddDude and I are paying like, $120 bucks for a video capture card so that we can set up his laptop to be a DVR and play nicely with our cable box. My idea was to plug our cable box into our VCR and use the cable box software to set VCR record times! That seems so much easier than all the loops we're jumping through.

When I suggested that to MuddDude, he rolled his eyes at me and called me a dinosaur!

posted by muddgirl 12 September | 09:03

I did the box on the street thing too and it worked like a charm.

posted by mygothlaundry 12 September | 10:22

http://www.freecycle.org/

posted by mischief 12 September | 11:08

"The tapes are in good shape"

BP's tapes are in great shape! Hell, they don't even have a layer of dust on top of the box.

posted by mischief 12 September | 11:10

Oh man, I want "The Prisoner". I'm so hopeless...

posted by DarkForest 12 September | 13:02

We've let our friends pick through our old tapes as we replace them with DVD's. That's taken care of some of them. I don't know what we're going to do with the rest of them.

posted by youngergirl44 12 September | 21:25

Lots of public libraries, especially the ones that operate used-book stores, will take literally anything. Not a week goes by without somebody dropping off a bunch of computer books from ten years ago. I send 'em downtown, and they sell 'em for fifty cents or a buck or something, then use the money to buy new materials for the library.

posted by box 12 September | 21:32

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