Oldest Extant Off-Air VHS/Beta Tape You Have

What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not commercial) VHS or Betamax tape you own?

I have a VHS tape of news coverage of Reagan's shooting in March 1981 (I didn't tape it myself, but got it in a trade). Transferred to DVD-R some time ago, but the original still plays just fine after 25 years. I'm sure at least a few of you have something even older, even if you've long since copied it to other media.

> What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not commercial)
> VHS or Betamax tape you own?
>


I don't have anything older than that..The oldest thing I recall having is a number of Christmas themed music specials from the likes of Roger Whittaker, Ricky Van Shelton, Irish Tenor John MacNally, Riders In The Sky and others taped from the Nashville Network in 1990 or so..These were originally broadcast in the 1988-90 period. About the same time I taped a Tennessee Ernie Ford 50th year in Show Business special tribute on TNN and his 3 "I Love Lucy" episodes as "Cousin Ernie" In afternoon showings on WOIO-19 when they were in their early days as a FOX affiliate..Around 1990-91 I taped a WJW-8 (CBS) syndicated showing of the Thanksgiving Cartoon "Mouse On The Mayflower" with Ernie Ford, Julie Sommars and Eddie Albert.

> > What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not commercial)
> > VHS or Betamax tape you own?
> >
>
>
> I don't have anything older than that..The oldest thing I
> recall having is a number of Christmas themed music specials
> from the likes of Roger Whittaker, Ricky Van Shelton, Irish
> Tenor John MacNally, Riders In The Sky and others taped from
> the Nashville Network in 1990 or so..These were originally
> broadcast in the 1988-90 period. About the same time I
> taped a Tennessee Ernie Ford 50th year in Show Business
> special tribute on TNN and his 3 "I Love Lucy" episodes as
> "Cousin Ernie" In afternoon showings on WOIO-19 when they
> were in their early days as a FOX affiliate..Around 1990-91
> I taped a WJW-8 (CBS) syndicated showing of the Thanksgiving
> Cartoon "Mouse On The Mayflower" with Ernie Ford, Julie
> Sommars and Eddie Albert.
>

Oldest stuff I have are some NBC David Letterman shows, episodes of The Equalizer, Hawaii Five-O reruns and some movies from the summer and fall of 1985 (when I bought my first VHS machine and went a bit nuts taping things!)

> > > What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not
> commercial)
> > > VHS or Betamax tape you own?

I think I bought my first VHS recorder in the early 80s & have a copy of The Dark Secret Of Harvest Home as a 3-hour mini-series. It was originally shown in the late 70s so I obviously taped a later showing. Also the Jack The Ripper mini-series with Michael Caine that probably goes back to the later 80s. Both are out of print on VHS & the full Harvest Home version was never released. They're both available as PAL DVDs for some reason, but not in the US. I have every episode of Twin Peaks also. Any other movies I taped I ended up replacing on VHS or DVD.

Also, I didn't tape it myself but I bought a VHS copy of the TV movie Who Is The Black Dahlia on eBay. I think it was originally aired in the 70s & it was obviously taped off TV but I didn't mind it as it was a good copy & the only way to get it & I've always been interested in the case. There's a new Black Dahlia movie being released later this year so I wouldn't be surprised if this one is released on DVD to coincide with that.

> > > > What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not
> > commercial)
> > > > VHS or Betamax tape you own?

I have a couple movies off CHCH from early 1985. My father taped some movies off that channel back then, when we got our first VCR.

My late grandparents had a VCR before that, but their tape collection was destroyed a few years ago. They may have had things from early 1980.<P ID="signature">______________
From WNBC-TV New York this is Liiiiive at Fiiiiive!</P>

It's since been transferred to a DVD+RW, but the first videotape I had from January 3, 1987 had most of the following still on it:

"WWF Saturday Night's Main Event" from Hartford (aired by NBC on 1/3/1987)
"NFL Super Bowl XXI" from Pasadena, CA (aired by CBS on 1/25/1987).

My oldest audio tape is dated April 16, 1987.<P ID="signature">______________
The 2006 New York Yankees...on to title #27!</P>

I have the Dallas/Minnesota "Hail Mary" game from 12/75. It had to have been taped off the air since there's a TOH ID for KHOU in Houston (the commercials are cut out). Obviously, this was dubbed from a prmitive VCR of some kind (this was before Beta even, right?).
The oldest physical tapes I have are a couple of "Battlestar Galactica" eps.

> What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not commercial)
> VHS or Betamax tape you own?
>
> I have a VHS tape of news coverage of Reagan's shooting in
> March 1981 (I didn't tape it myself, but got it in a trade).
> Transferred to DVD-R some time ago, but the original still
> plays just fine after 25 years. I'm sure at least a few of
> you have something even older, even if you've long since
> copied it to other media.
>

The oldest thing taped off air is all the WKRP episodes, when ch. 3 WSTM in Syracuse ran them at 5:30PM in 1984 or so. I inherited those tapes from my cousin. That batch also came with NBC's 60th anniversary from 1986. They include "newsbreaks" with Tom Miller, who went on to anchor the old NBC overnight news service in the early 90's (under the name Tom Donavan). He's still anchoring somewhere. Anyway.

I've never asked my brother how old his tapes are -- he bought a VHS recorder in 1978, and I know his wife went crazy recording things!

BTW: anyone know how I can get my hands on NBC's 50th anniversary special from 1976 -- all 4.5 hours of it?

Oldest in my file was off our family's first VCR - the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

I think the oldest thing I have on tape is a movie off of PBS. It was aired on KUHT Channel 8 in Houston. The movie was "The Lathe of Heaven." This had to be around 1979 or 1980. It was recorded in SP on TDK Super Avilyn VHS tape on a RCA recorder top loader. Of course it was recorded in mono. I am looking at it right now. The audio goes in and out, which is not a good sign. I fast forwarded to the end and the audio seems fine. The movie had a copyright of 1979. A short show called The Breakfast Table followed. It also had a 1979 copyright. The slide ID came on with the voice of Howard Reynolds. Howard is currently on KKRW 93.7 The Arrow.

Around that time, I recorded "The Martian Chronicles" starring Rock Hudson. I believe it was on NBC. I have it in a box around here somewhere admist many more.

> I have the Dallas/Minnesota "Hail Mary" game from 12/75. It
> had to have been taped off the air since there's a TOH ID
> for KHOU in Houston (the commercials are cut out).
> Obviously, this was dubbed from a prmitive VCR of some kind
> (this was before Beta even, right?).


Betamax was released in the U.S. in 1976, but was available in 1975 in Japan. Even if someone bought one there (military, traveler) and brought it over, the channel scheme for the built-in tuner wouldn't have been the same as U.S. (For example, Japan has TV channels in what is our FM band).

I'd bet someone taped it with a U-Matic machine, which by 1975 were pretty common at TV stations and institutional settings (schools, etc.), then later transferred it to VHS.

I think it would have been neat (and showing a lot of foresight) if some early VCR adopters had taped for posterity a few random examples of a complete prime-time evening, complete with IDs and promos, bumpers, local and network ads, etc. Would be a fascinating bit of nostalgia -- what an evening of TV looked like in 1976 or whatever. I know some Brits did that with the early Philips VCRs over there in the early 70's, so they have some nice "complete evening" examples of their TV back then.

> What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not commercial)
> VHS or Betamax tape you own?

...my oldest dates from the weekend that I got my first VCR in January 1986. It's of that Saturday evening's runs of "Sneak Previews" on KTCA/2 Minneapolis, "At the Movies" with Gene Siskel & Roger Ebert on WGN-TV/9 Chicago (the program on which the trend of targeting kids for advertisments of Rambo-type toy weapons was critiqued) and the Sunday afternoon repeat of the ABC News history special "45/85" on WQOW/18 Eau Claire...<P ID="signature">______________
King Daevid MacKenzie
WLSU Wisconsin Public Radio, La Crosse
heard weekly on http://www.radio4all.net/
"Kill Ugly Radio." FRANK ZAPPA</P>

> Betamax was released in the U.S. in 1976, but was available
> in 1975 in Japan. Even if someone bought one there
> (military, traveler) and brought it over, the channel scheme
> for the built-in tuner wouldn't have been the same as U.S.
> (For example, Japan has TV channels in what is our FM band).

VHF channels, to be more precise. Japan's UHF channels are the same as the US, except that they're one channel lower -- for example: their channel 13 is our channel 14.

> I think the oldest thing I have on tape is a movie off of
> PBS. It was aired on KUHT Channel 8 in Houston. The movie
> was "The Lathe of Heaven." This had to be around 1979 or
> 1980. It was recorded in SP on TDK Super Avilyn VHS tape on
> a RCA recorder top loader. Of course it was recorded in
> mono.

Yeah, we had a top-loading JVC, which I still have upstairs in a closet, only for capturing audio files as it does not work properly for use with a television anymore. It was designed for use with an early video camera, as the actual recorder could be detached from the tuner/timer section. All our home videos were made with that machine.<P ID="signature">______________
From WNBC-TV New York this is Liiiiive at Fiiiiive!</P>

> What's the oldest still viewable off-air (not commercial)
> VHS or Betamax tape you own?

My oldest is a recording of the TV movie "The Lathe of Heaven" recorded from the Tacoma PBS affiliate (KTPS, channel 62, now KBTC on channel 28) in the summer of 1980.

> I'd bet someone taped it with a U-Matic machine, which by
> 1975 were pretty common at TV stations and institutional
> settings (schools, etc.), then later transferred it to VHS.
>

Ah, I remember those...reel-to-reel, right? There was one at my high school, 20+ years ago.

> Yeah, we had a top-loading JVC, which I still have upstairs
> in a closet, only for capturing audio files as it does not
> work properly for use with a television anymore. It was
> designed for use with an early video camera, as the actual
> recorder could be detached from the tuner/timer section.
> All our home videos were made with that machine.
>

Sounds like a Curtis Mathes VCR/Camera combo my grandfather had between 1984 to about 1989. The top-loading VCR used to detach from a base you left on or near your TV and went into a bag with connections for your video camera. Kind of cumbersome, but it worked.
<P ID="signature">______________
The 2006 New York Yankees...on to title #27!</P>

> > I'd bet someone taped it with a U-Matic machine, which by
> > 1975 were pretty common at TV stations and institutional
> > settings (schools, etc.), then later transferred it to
> VHS.
> >
>
> Ah, I remember those...reel-to-reel, right? There was one at
> my high school, 20+ years ago.
>

I can remember my high school having some sort of video cassette based VCR in 1975. What type qould that have been?

> > I'd bet someone taped it with a U-Matic machine, which by
> > 1975 were pretty common at TV stations and institutional
> > settings (schools, etc.), then later transferred it to
> VHS.
> >
>
> Ah, I remember those...reel-to-reel, right? There was one at
> my high school, 20+ years ago.


No, U-Matic was (and is) a 3/4" videocassette system developed by Sony in circa 1971. It was the first practical videocassette format, and the Betamaz was more or less a scaled-down version of the same technology. It produced good video that, run through a time-base corrector, was acceotable even for broadcast, and the earliest ENG (Electronic News Gathering) systems were U-Matic. At one time, most TV stations had such equipment, and thousands of schools as well.

The reel-to-reel system (EIAJ) predated U-Matic by many years.