Author Topic: Question For The Folks with the HUGE VHS/DVD Collections (Read 14048 times)

dzinkin · « **Reply #15 on:** May 11, 2006, 06:34:18 AM »

[quote name=\'clemon79\' post=\'118182\' date=\'May 11 2006, 01:27 AM\']
Hell, I've had people do the same thing to me, and I've been quite open about the fact that I don't trade, have never traded, don't plan to start trading, and have never so much as published a SNIPPET of a tape list. And yet some idiots STILL try to swing a deal...that doesn't exist.
[/quote]
A certain individual who currently is not allowed to post -- and is extremely unlikely ever to regain that privilege -- has insisted that the only reason others wouldn't agree with his arguments is that he's the "only person on the Invision board who doesn't trade tapes." I pointed out to him that I haven't traded in years (partly due to time and partly due to medical concerns), that you have said repeatedly that you've never been in the trading circles, and that we're definitely not alone. Said individual's response was to proclaim that my reference to "other fellow traders" on the page of my web site where I give a brief bio proves that I'm still trading -- never mind that the page that's actually devoted to, well, trading says that I'm not. (Somehow he didn't have a response regarding you. :-)

For what it's worth, I was able to get into trading because I'd recorded the following in 1989-91 and kept the tapes...

- Pat Sajak's last NBC WoF
- Rolf Benirschke's first four NBC WoFs
- The first episode of The Pat Sajak Show
- The last LMAD from the 1990-91 run
- Six hours' worth of TJW90

...never expecting that these shows, particularly the last item, would be trade bait years in the future. Who knew?

tvmitch · « **Reply #16 on:** May 11, 2006, 07:54:12 AM »

My start was when I was in tenth grade (Wow! Like Adam, I've been at this for at least eight years!) when I heard rumors that my local barber was on Tom Kennedy's Name That Tune. I went to him and pestered him for a dub...he said the episodes were on Betamax and that he would convert them for me.

He didn't find those NTT eps, but what he did find for me proved to be the beginning of my collection: the entire run of a Bob Goen show called "The Hollywood Game" including the pilot hosted by Peter Allen, who passed away before the show was produced. The pilot was brand new to the trading circuit as it existed at the time, so that's all I needed. (Later, after much cajoling, he found three NTT eps he taped for me, complete with commercial cuts to save tape space!) I had also recorded an odd Pennsylvania Lottery 25th Anniversary special (a Jonathan Goodson production) hosted by Dick Clark in '96... no one else had that, either.

I found a guy named Steve in 1998 who lived across the county and taped a lot of dark-period GSN (which he received on Dish, local cable didn't have GSN until 2002, IIRC) for me in exchange for blank tapes...those dark-period episodes were a huge start to my collection because he inadvertently caught some gems for me.

And some of the talk on here is true: the vast majority of guys who trade and have trading sites are awesome to work with, like Chuck Donegan, Adam, Dave Zinkin (when he traded), Travis Penery from the UK, Chris Powney from Australia, and too many more to mention. There are some tools, though - one in particular who comes to mind - who don't have a shred of simple manners, like returning emails. (But now my collection is far better than the tool I have in mind, so there. Haha!)

One hard and fast rule I think we'll all agree with: stay away from the telephone. I've had two traders find my name on WhitePages or wherever and call me, which is super creepy. Email is just fine, thank you.

One tip I have, and I think it's kind of a good tip if you do what I do...I sell a lot of stuff on eBay. I open up most of my bidding internationally. Sometimes, if the mood strikes, I'll ask the buyer for a few hours of random, taped game shows in lieu of payment. Most people snap at this offer very quickly, and I've never been disappointed with what I receive...some of the best stuff I've received from the UK and Holland came from eBay deals like this...and once, someone from Hungary sent me six tapes when I only asked for two! I'll usually research what's on air in their country and ask them to tape certain shows. Sometimes the buyers refuse, and sometimes they don't have a VCR (you'd be surprised). Most of the time, it works out well if you're looking for international shows, which I love. (And I have a PAL VCR, which helps if it needs converting...most modern DVD players have PAL conversion built-in.)

The Lovely Hayley and I are doubling our residential square footage at the end of this month, which means I'll finally have all my tapes in one location again, instead of most of them sitting at my folks' house. I'm looking forward to getting back into trading...I've been surprised at how much great stuff from the late '70s/early '80s has been turning up lately.

Ian Wallis · « **Reply #17 on:** May 11, 2006, 09:08:19 AM »

I've been at this for 10 years now! (Wow) I was able to launch my first trade because I had an '87 "Dating Game" and '87 "Truth or Consequences" that nobody else had at that time, and also clean copies of the Larson "PYL" episodes. What really helped was having GSN almost from the beginning as I was able to do several trades by recording GSN stuff for them.

I now have close to 2000 episodes and am very happy with what I've been able to acquire so far. Sometimes it boggles my mind to think what's available out there now as opposed to when I started. I've made a lot of "internet friends" and have had fun doing this (except for the two times I was welshed on, but that's another story).

This summer I plan to buy a DVD recorded and start converting my stuff to DVD. I'm looking forward to watching everything again. The odd thing is that when I first get a tape I watch it all the way through, and have noticed over the years that the only times I ever seem to watch them a second time is when I'm dubbing episodes for someone else. Not really intentional, but just time contraints cause that to happen. It will be neat to see a lot of that stuff again when I start the conversion!

J.R. · « **Reply #18 on:** May 11, 2006, 09:18:10 AM »

[quote name=\'dzinkin\' post=\'118187\' date=\'May 11 2006, 05:34 AM\']
- Pat Sajak's last NBC WoF
- Rolf Benirschke's first four NBC WoFs
- The first episode of The Pat Sajak Show
[/quote]

You have no idea how grateful I am for you recording those particular shows! Especially the 2nd one on the list! ;-)

-Joe R.

SRIV94 · « **Reply #19 on:** May 11, 2006, 11:17:47 AM »

I can't add a lot more than what already's been said, but I started taping GONG eps on GSN for posterity, figuring that once GSN stops airing them, they'd never air them again. Turns out I was right. I then started taping CS and P+ episodes, and it just snowballed from there. I did have a couple of things from original airings (not sure why I managed to save those and not others, but oh well. . .).

I didn't start out trying to do trades (especially considering I didn't have the means to duplicate the tapes). Once I got a dual-deck VCR and thus had the means, I had some casual conversations with a few who had massive collections and got some episodes in return. I don't do a tremendous amount of trading (I'm on the lookout, though).

Doug

gameboy2000 · « **Reply #20 on:** May 11, 2006, 11:29:19 AM »

I have been trading for about a year and a half. I started my collection when we got previews of GSN before a new independent local channel signed on. Also, I won tapes from the game show giveaways at www.gscentral.net. Then I got a second VCR and in a year and a half, my collection has grown from about 100 shows to over 900 shows.

MikeK · « **Reply #21 on:** May 11, 2006, 12:46:50 PM »

I've been on the circuit for almost 9 years, albeit very minimally over the past 5. For me, it started out with Matt Sittel's Dream House Megamix. He collects license plates from across the country. He didn't have a specific type of Ohio plates, a type which was on my first car. Matt got what he wanted, as did I.

[quote name=\'Modor\' post=\'118185\' date=\'May 11 2006, 02:21 AM\']While I'm at it, would anyone want a Snappy? Or is this now a badly antiquated piece of equipment?[/quote]
An antiquated piece of junk it is. The company which made the Snappy, Play, went out of business in 1999 or 2000.

Adam Nedeff · « **Reply #22 on:** May 11, 2006, 01:43:50 PM »

[quote name=\'hmtriplecrown\' post=\'118212\' date=\'May 11 2006, 12:46 PM\']
An antiquated piece of junk it is. The company which made the Snappy, Play, went out of business in 1999 or 2000.
[/quote]

I still use mine. So antiquated, yes. Piece of junk, no. I'm always very happy with the results. Frankly, I'm surprised to find that it works better with DVDs than it does with VHS tapes.

Quote

This summer I plan to buy a DVD recorded and start converting my stuff to DVD.

Well, remember to have some patience about that, Ian. I got mine 2 1/2 years ago and just now finished.

MikeK · « **Reply #23 on:** May 11, 2006, 01:48:22 PM »

[quote name=\'Adam Nedeff\' post=\'118214\' date=\'May 11 2006, 01:43 PM\'][quote name=\'hmtriplecrown\' post=\'118212\' date=\'May 11 2006, 12:46 PM\']An antiquated piece of junk it is. The company which made the Snappy, Play, went out of business in 1999 or 2000.[/quote]
I still use mine. So antiquated, yes. Piece of junk, no. I'm always very happy with the results.[/quote]
Different strokes for different folks. My Snappy went kaput in less than two years, shortly after the company went under. Since then, I've used a PCI TV card. I have had no issues with it over the past seven years.

clemon79 · « **Reply #24 on:** May 11, 2006, 02:09:35 PM »

[quote name=\'Adam Nedeff\' post=\'118214\' date=\'May 11 2006, 10:43 AM\']
I still use mine. So antiquated, yes. Piece of junk, no. I'm always very happy with the results. Frankly, I'm surprised to find that it works better with DVDs than it does with VHS tapes.
[/quote]
Do Snappy's take video capture as well as still-shots? I thought it was just a screen-capture device.

If that's so, and you're working with DVD, why do you need it? Every decent PC-based DVD player (PowerDVD comes immediately to mind, but in checking I see that VLC does too, and that's not only free, but not region-restricted) has a screenshot function built into it, DVD drives are dirt-cheap, and you're guaranteed to get way better results than you would with something that is converting digital to analog and then back again.

LA the DJ · « **Reply #25 on:** May 11, 2006, 02:36:51 PM »

While I don't have a massive collection, I managed to get my start by lucking into some rare content. The Radio/TV station i worked for game me some NATPE tapes that included a MG98 pitchfilm and a pilot for 100%. I posted on ATGS that I had these and would only make 5 trades for these. Thanks to the responses I got, I was able to cover the basics and got a lot of shows I wanted to see (Including an excellent copy of the Larsen eps, pre GSN).
Following that, I had a bit of a strange trade that involved some WWF/WCW eps. and a Dreamcast NES Emulator.

However, that's the only 6 trades I've ever made.

clemon79 · « **Reply #26 on:** May 11, 2006, 02:54:29 PM »

[quote name=\'nWo_Whammy\' post=\'118221\' date=\'May 11 2006, 11:36 AM\']
Following that, I had a bit of a strange trade that involved some WWF/WCW eps. and a Dreamcast NES Emulator.
[/quote]
Interesting. If I knew you could turn Dreamcast software into a game show collection, I could be set for LIFE.

/no, don't ask.

dale_grass · « **Reply #27 on:** May 11, 2006, 03:00:37 PM »

I'm not into tape trading myself, and I have a good idea of how much time people put into bulking their collections by reading this thread. Something else I'd like to know is how much money people put into their hobby (equipment, blank tapes/DVDS, etc.). Is it a budget-buster, or do you get by relatively cheap?

Blanquepage · « **Reply #28 on:** May 11, 2006, 03:37:27 PM »

My collection overview in brief:

My very first trade was back in February 1997 with Mandel Ilagan. I only had 3 tapes of Wheel of Fortune episodes from 1996-97, which didn't interest him. Luckily, he was interested in my copy of the Jeopardy PC game in exchange for a 6 hour tape of shows.
Then in March, my cable company previewed GSN for 3 days...and I taped the entire thing, running the VCR 24 hours each day, sacrificing sleep for it. (Silly 14 year old, I was)

Finally on September 30, 1997, I got GSN and taped it almost compulsively leading to my library's major "boom," archiving both the good (Chain Reaction, Go, Break the Bank) and lousy shows alike (Diamond Head Game, Ruckus, Hollywood Connection). In retrospect, I'm glad I did since it was only 12 days before GSN dumped the G-T library and added all those other shows we would have never seen otherwise.

These days, over 9,000 episodes later, I haven't taped anything from GSN in 3 months and have pulled myself out of the mainstream trading circuit save for on a VERY irregular basis. Instead, I share my library with the masses through The Page O' Clips.

Last March I discovered, completely by chance, an obscure source with connections to some major gems, and now he's been only one of two private collectors with whom I "do business" reguarly. In addition to setting my sights on scrounging around for and acquiring "lost episodes," I'm focusing primarily on transferring the library onto DVD, so far having transferred a measly 500 episodes. Some shows will be expended; I have no use for 150 Wheel of Fortune episodes from 1995 to the present, for example.

The seemingly endless stock of the untransferred tapes are stored in my closet on built in shelves, organized numerically. The DVDs are stored on a bookshelf next to my desk, and the transferred tapes are in boxes, some of which are waiting to be shipped to a couple of traders.

Fin.

--Jamie

Jimmy Owen · « **Reply #29 on:** May 11, 2006, 03:39:22 PM »

[quote name=\'dale_grass\' post=\'118224\' date=\'May 11 2006, 03:00 PM\']
I'm not into tape trading myself, and I have a good idea of how much time people put into bulking their collections by reading this thread.
[/quote]

Nooo, don't bulk your collection!! :0. (That is a little joke for you guys who worked MCR).

Back in the early '80s, I wanted to tape things in SP, but the cost of the tapes ($15-$16 each) made me rethink things and most of my tapes from that era are EP. The off-brand tapes I have from that era are not holding up well, so don't go cheap if you're serious about keeping them. Hoping to get a DVD recorder soon before the tapes fade away.