Monday, September 14, 2015
Saving the Scream Queens
Saving the Scream Queens: Why Yale University Library Believes In the Value of VHS: One reason Yale bought this video collection was to preserve rare titles—it’s been estimated that about 40 to 45 percent of content distributed on VHS never made its way into any subsequent digital format.
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5 comments:
That is kind of sad. Is digital more $$$?
Odd that the article nowhere mentions one of the major problems with VHS tapes, and the key reason why I have no nostalgia for the format. VHS presents most post-1953 movies, including the exploitation films referenced here, in the wrong aspect ratio. The films were panned-and-scanned to fit the standard Academy / television frame; there are very few VHS tapes that utilize letterboxing. So the visual presentation of the movies is completely inadequate to convey whatever their qualities might be.
I hadn't thought of the aspect ratio problem. All too true, though.
TV screens were mostly too small then for letter-boxing to be a useful approach. Still, the pan-and-scan approach ruined a lot of stuff. Today, when you can buy a 50" LED TV for fewer dollars (about $650) than I paid for my first color TV (24" diagonal screen) in 1978 ($795), no one would ever bother to pan-and-scan. (And don't ask me why I remember this stuff--I did look up the current price.)
I actually have a few VHS tapes that were never done in DVD; just old stuff I watched, enjoyed & saved at the time, and I'm surprised at the prices I see on them at e-bay.
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