Totally agree. I know a lot of people who switched from video recorders to PVRs who retained their video collections and recorders but have never watched them for five years. I wonder if they will work again if switched on! The most damning thing I saw recently was a charity shop throwing out black bin bags full of unsold films on VHS.

Many haven't even been accepting them for a good few years now - VCR is long dead and gone.

I have a VCR plumbed into my system ( one of the last proper Panasonic machines ) and I now realise its ages probably into years since I watched anything on it . I have modified it so that the clock is not illuminated -- but tonight's job is to remove it from my setup as its just sat there consuming power !

I disconnected mine years ago - but kept it 'safe' in case I ever needed it (I haven't yet!).

I am suprised by the throwing away of films. Many people don't have much spare money and even used DVD's are over £1 each yet tapes are 5 (or 10) for £1 in our local shops so I can watch top films like Lord Of The Rings and Star Wars for a week and still not spend a pound. People grumble about paying too much yet there it is almost free.

I am watching Mary Poppins later on and that VHS was free and tomorrow I have Who's Harry Crumb with John Candy - that was free too. Let 'em laugh I say.

our local charity shop is selling VHS tapes for 10p so in the last few weeks i've been buying a good few films i dont have on dvd and a lot of the time the tapes havent even been played . got most of the carry ons ,james bonds,indiana jones and loads of others for next to nothing and they still look excellent on my 32 inch LCD Telly

I didn't go out and buy a 40" HDTV and Blu-Ray player to then go watch a movie collection on VHS.
The films maybe alot cheaper on the ancient VHS format or there may even be some in a box in the attic, but the PQ is shocking for today's standards and you also don't get 5.1 surround sound either.

If you have the money to get that nice setup then of course buying films is part of the purchace and is needed. I would do the same in your place.

Quite a few people don't have much money left after the bills and food costs though. Tapes at 10p each is almost entertainment for free so no need to feel bad about watching some films and having a relax after work. Also its a good way of trying unseen films out - don't like it? Just give it back to charity.

You missed the point- the OP said that it was the charity shops themselves throwing out tapes. And the fact that you can "watch several top films [..] and still not spend a pound" is likely why they don't want them.

They have to sort them out when they come in. Then, they have to stick some on the shelves and store the others they don't have shelf space for somewhere else. (*) The ones on display each take up a midsize paperback's worth of space for 10p profit. And it's possible some of the less popular ones (**) will be sitting there, wasting space for a long time.

Charity shops' primary aim is raising money for charity- while they also benefit the community in many ways, that shouldn't be at the expense of the former. Videotapes being worth virtually nothing might be good for the buyers, but it's the exact same reason that it's pointless for charity shops to bother selling them.

Even returning them isn't much benefit if there's already such a glut- it's effectively a 10p rental service that still takes up time and space. And since they probably have more tapes than they can display and/or sell, they probably don't need the damn things back...

I suspect that even if they gave them away, the amount of people who want video tapes still wouldn't soak up the glut of them out there. And that's why they're being binned.

(*) I passed a charity shop a while back, and you could see inside part of it they used for storage. It was full of shelves of videotapes.

(**) Or the *more* popular ones that there are a lot of and everyone's seen

The only use for old videotapes is to pick up bits of old presentation to stick on YouTube.

That's it.

Going off track a bit from the OP but I still have some of the following tapes:

Philips VCR (for the 1500)
Philips 2000 format (Philips, BASF and Marantz)
Sony Betamax

I do not however have working machines to play them on - does anyone collect tapes like these?

Of course I also have a stack of VHS tapes which I keep meaning to consider copying...

I, and many others, do.

After all, it ensures we can preserve such treasures as this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjD16L222FQ

Much better quality than the first VHS machine I rented.