[Soundbox]

I have been given a box of used once videos in good order to use or dispose of. Quite a few are Boots and are made in Engand. What is on them is from the end of 1987 so they are from that year.

I was going to use them myself but don't know what their reputation is. Were they any good or wear out quickly?

[Nigel Goodwin]

I would imagine they came from various different sources, where ever they could buy them cheap.

[Soundbox]

By chance I have found in the same box of tapes a Maxell EX tape in the green slip box and it is exactly the same as the Boots ones so in this instance it was Maxell.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Soundbox

By chance I have found in the same box of tapes a Maxell EX tape in the green slip box and it is exactly the same as the Boots ones so in this instance it was Maxell.

Assuming Maxell made their own!

I've seen various different tapes with all kinds of names on them, often big names - the one you don't want is probably Scotch.

[BMR]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Assuming Maxell made their own!

I've seen various different tapes with all kinds of names on them, often big names - the one you don't want is probably Scotch.

I thought you could watch Scotch forever

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by BMR

I thought you could watch Scotch forever

They were the crappest tapes you could get, hence their massive advertising campaign to increase sales - the campaign they were forced to change partway through as it was untrue (they changed it to 're-record not fade away').

[alan1302]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

the campaign they were forced to change partway through as it was untrue (they changed it to 're-record not fade away').

What was it before that? I don't remember them having another slogan.

[Kodaz]

Originally Posted by Soundbox

I have been given a box of used once videos in good order to use or dispose of. Quite a few are Boots and are made in Engand. What is on them is from the end of 1987 so they are from that year.

I was going to use them myself but don't know what their reputation is. Were they any good or wear out quickly?

Bear in mind that 1987 is now over 25 years ago.

To put that in perspective, this would be like someone in 1987 using magnetic tape manufactured around the time the Beatles' first single came out (i.e. 1962!) I assume that even if they were still unused sealed in their original boxes (and kept in ideal conditions), the tapes would *have* to have deteriorated to some extent in a quarter of a century.

Granted, a lot of the issues that worsened age-related degradation of magnetic tape manufactured during the 60s and 70s had probably been ironed out by the late 80s, so the 80s tapes would probably last better for a given age, but even so...

Another issue to consider... while one can still buy blank VHS tapes, one interesting question is how they might compare in quality to ones produced in the late 80s/early 90s (at the time). With floppy disks, the quality- and reliability- apparently went down quite a lot latterly, as the cost was driven down along with peoples' desire to spend anything more than the bare minimum on- what was by then- the dated and relatively low capacity media.

But then, it's not (and can't be) today's best versus yesterday's best in a fair fight... it's today's best versus 25 year old cassettes.

Anyway, I don't know your motives for wanting to use these old tapes, but I find this an interesting question anyway.

[in_focus]

My first E180 which was branded "Thorn" cost me £19.99 in 1978. It still plays back ok and the recordings on it were made the same year. I also have a Scotch E180 which was bought and recorded on in 1979, it also plays ok but later Scotch and other makes tapes suffered badly from mould on the tape surface.

Strangely none of my 100+ tapes have suffered from this and for the last 10 years they have been kept in the loft which is possibly the worst place for them.

[c4rv]

I thought there used to be an issue with scotch that they would wear out the player heads

[jjne]

Originally Posted by c4rv

I thought there used to be an issue with scotch that they would wear out the player heads

Yes, that was a problem with the Scotch tapes. BASF were similar in this regard.

Later Scotch tapes were manufactured by SKC in Korea (the most common manufacturer of Memorex tapes), and these were fine, if a little thin.

[Soundbox]

As to why I may want to use the tapes I quite often share recordings I make or sometimes just to take from downstairs to upstairs. I do have a DVD recorder but all that finalising and burning discs got me down in the end.

Modern tapes are poor in that they crease easily. Even stopping the tape and ejecting results in picture noise at that point. Older tapes don't get this so I use those. As to the Boots tapes they record fine with good sound and picture albeit perhaps a wee bit grainier than 2000 era ones. It had some BBC2 drama production on it that looked a bit stilted to me.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Nigel Goodwin

Assuming Maxell made their own!

Yes, back in those days Hitachi-Maxell made its own tapes in the UK at its factory in Telford. This factory has since shut and what remains is focused on third party plastic mouldings see http://www.maxellmms.com/
These days, the list of non-OEM manufacturers of DVDs/CDs/videotapes is short with many leaving the market and with Imation, the successor to 3M-Scotch, acquiring TDK and Memorex.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by alan1302

What was it before that? I don't remember them having another slogan.

Something about 'record and watch for ever'.

[jjne]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Imation, the successor to 3M-Scotch, acquiring TDK and Memorex.

Why bother buying Memorex, except as a brand? They haven't made their own media in a very long time.

TDK are still a manufacturer, so I'm assuming they've just licenced their name out?

[Kodaz]

Originally Posted by jjne

TDK are still a manufacturer, so I'm assuming they've just licenced their name out?

That's correct- TDK still exists in its own right, but Imation acquired their recording business and rights to the name on blank media for at least 25 years.

Imation started as a spin-off of 3M's data storage business, but last time I checked they'd sold off most of that for the usual short-term gains and become a cheesey, hollowed-out marketing-driven brand operation. Wouldn't place any value on TDK discs or any of their other brands- probably just relabelled CMC or Moser Baer mediocrities.

Shame, as TDK once had a well-deserved reputation for the quality of their cassettes, but even latterly they apparently didn't make their own disc media.

[Mike_1101]

The oldest VHS tape if I have is an E180 made by Hitachi, it still has some recordings from 1982/3 and some commercials.

I also have a Sony VCC360 V2000 tape. I didn't use V2000 for long and I wonder why Sony bothered. The format didn't last long and Sony never made V2000 recorders.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Kodaz

That's correct- TDK still exists in its own right, but Imation acquired their recording business and rights to the name on blank media for at least 25 years.

Imation started as a spin-off of 3M's data storage business, but last time I checked they'd sold off most of that for the usual short-term gains and become a cheesey, hollowed-out marketing-driven brand operation. Wouldn't place any value on TDK discs or any of their other brands- probably just relabelled CMC or Moser Baer mediocrities.

Shame, as TDK once had a well-deserved reputation for the quality of their cassettes, but even latterly they apparently didn't make their own disc media.

And the only things to add:
- TDK acquired a 17% stake in Imation too when it sold them its recording media in 2007.
- Imation's magnetic tapes are made by TDK following an agreement in 2011.

[Nigel Goodwin]

Originally Posted by Mike_1101

I also have a Sony VCC360 V2000 tape. I didn't use V2000 for long and I wonder why Sony bothered. The format didn't last long and Sony never made V2000 recorders.

Interesting, I didn't know Sony sold V2000 tapes, as you say they never sold the machines - the only two were Grundig and Philips, with the Grundig machines far out performing VHS, with perfect freeze frame, perfect slow/fast motion and perfect searching. I was disappointed to find out that only some of the Philips V2000 machines had DTF (Dynamic Track Following), where all the Grundig ones did.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by alan1302

What was it before that? I don't remember them having another slogan.

Me neither. Apparently they still send out replacement tapes to customers!

[Kodaz]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Imation's magnetic tapes are made by TDK following an agreement in 2011.

That's interesting, but bear in mind that it only covers magnetic tape- and if you think about it, nowadays that's a relatively small (and headed for extinction) part of the consumer market.

In fact, I'd guess that the tape manufacturing and tech development discussed there relates to professional data storage formats.

(There's probably still a declining market for VHS and consumer camcorder tapes, but it's implausible that TDK would want to get back into manufacturing a near-dead format; I assume they partly got out of the low margin consumer media field in the first place to concentrate on more profitable professional products. Who knows who actually makes "TDK" VHS tapes these days? Probably some no-name Chinese or Indian OEM.)

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Kodaz

That's interesting, but bear in mind that it only covers magnetic tape- and if you think about it, nowadays that's a relatively small (and headed for extinction) part of the consumer market.

In fact, I'd guess that the tape manufacturing and tech development discussed there relates to professional data storage formats.

Yes, for non-consumer archiving. According to the CEO of Imation (June 2011).

"Because of its superior archival capabilities, low cost per gigabyte, and robust future roadmaps that include rapidly increasing capacities matched with high performance, advanced magnetic tape remains the storage media of choice for archival applications. In fact, most of the world’s critical data, whether government, enterprise, or cloud applications, is stored on magnetic tape."

[Kodaz]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Yes, for non-consumer archiving. According to the CEO of Imation (June 2011).

Yep, that's why I assumed they were focused on the professional market- that was the only bit they mentioned.... and the only one that would make sense these days anyway!

I didn't really notice until this discussion, but magnetic tape in *general* has declined massively in the past 5 or 6 years, hasn't it?

Audio cassettes have been near dead for years now (except for niche diehard and hipster use), but with DVRs mostly having replaced VHS and even digital camcorder tapes (*) having been superseded for most people, those are mostly gone too. Are there any major uses left for tape apart from enterprise data backup?

(Even there it's apparently being threatened by other forms of data storage).

(*) I notice there's an auto-inserted link on this phrase for Sony Digital 8 tapes at Amazon.co.uk. Seems strange that it's using the same text style as user-created links, as it's not mine... Edit; now it's linking to *this* text instead!

[webbie]

With hard disks being so cheap NAS storage in RAID arrays seems to be the way to go. Until we can uplink fast enough and have anough capacity to make the cloud usable.

[webbie]

Personally, I haven't bought magnetic media since I changed from miniDV camcorder to SD card version nearly 5 years ago.
VCR hasn't been switched on for a couple of years and that was to transfer a friend's tape (home video) to dvd.