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.