This is a reupload from a paper written on Feburary 24th 2024. Without the original additional images

VHS tapes are starting to become a forgotten thing in the scheme of society as we have much better formats today. They have fallen out of popularity but they still old importance as one of the first easily accessible home media formats. Anyone back in the day could make a VHS tape and many of these tapes are becoming lost media. If you have home memories on VHS tapes you should consider getting them digitized for times to come. While it may seem small in the matter to lose a few tapes as they may seem small in the scheme of things it can add up.

Lost media is something not a lot of people think about but we on average do not have a lot of recordings from times before us. On average 70% of silent films are lost according to the Library of Congress . Silent films came out only 100 years ago. Imagine how much video we’ve lost only in this century. Video is a very new format in the ways of media and how accessible its gotten in the last 40 years but still not well archived.

For those unfamiliar with VHS (Video Home System) tapes. VHS tapes were introduced into America in 1977 but were invented in Japan in 1976 by the Victor Company of Japan as a cheap analog format. VHS tapes are magnetic spools of tape where the magnetic part of the tape is kept with a binder within the top coat of a tape. This Magnetic particle is what gives these tapes their ability to record if the binder keeping the tape deteriorates or the magnetic parts of the tape loose cohesion it makes these tapes unplayable along with that mold that eats the binder can also ruin the tape.

This Magnetic format is why VHS tapes deteriorate which is why preserving them has importance. VHS tapes have the downfall of being magnetic means any strong magnet will wipe them of their data completely. Tapes degrade 10-25% over 10-25 years according to (Kodak Digitizing, 2020) this means even when tapes are kept in even the best condition scenes can blur or be totally lost due to time and magnetic decay. Though there are multiple factors such as how a VHS is stored that can play into the possibility of a tape deteriorating faster as tapes need to be kept in a cool stable environment away from humidity to avoid mold. Though tapes that are copies of original tapes 2-3rd generation tapes deteriorate faster.

What generation a tape matters as well as a 2-3rd generation tape or higher deteriorates faster. Copies of pre-existing VHS tapes are never as clear as the master tape. The generation of a tape is how many copies of a copy are made of a vhs tape as everytime a copy is made of a copy it deteriorates worse this is called generation loss.

Generation loss is common in analog formats as outside noise of the mechanics of the VHS tape recorder as they are also magnetic hinder the ability to copy with true clarity. Because of the flaws in Analog copying this means any 2nd-3rd generation tapes and even 4-5th generation tapes the farther the generation the faster the deterioration occurs because of the imperfect copies. Though most tapes do not get copied past the 4th or 5th generation this is because they become more and more unclear therefore unwatchable. These tapes loose their ability to hold their information as well as the original because of the noise of their imperfect copy and recording processes.

Generation loss is common in homemade VHS tapes this is because commercial productions of VHS had master copies in which VHS was produced meaning their tapes had very little loss in the recording process. Though home produced tapes are often the tapes we lose the most as pieces of lost media. Home produced tapes have their own special place for people as it ties into its cultural impact as a format.

VHS as a widely accessible video format meant anyone could make a VHS tape. The home accessibility also gave the ability for families to record all sorts of events from their birthday parties to simply their favorite shows or daytime television they know they can't be there to watch in person to record for later. This format did come with downfalls though VHS is only about 90-120 mins long per tape meaning owning an entire show if it was a long one could be a very expensive investment.

This gave way to piracy and the phrase “Keep Circulating the Tapes” most iconically seen as a phrase at the end of mystery science theater 3000, as at the time VHS was the format this was primarily used for. This idea of keep circulating the tapes is still used today and still important as in some ways it is the only way some media or pictures survive such as when entertainment companies go completely bankrupt, never make a VHS home release or merging such as the recent HBO MAX show Infinity Train.

Streaming while a new way to easily access content is being proven that is it not going to always be available showing the importance of physical media and preserving and archiving media to avoid shows being lost entirely as this show was removed from streaming October of 2023 with no legal way to stream the media with no word of these shows ever returning to a streaming platform. Circulating the tapes and even tape trading websites and forums used to be some of the only ways to watch some forms of television.

While inherently piracy can be seen as a downfall for profit, VHS piracy gave light to fan subtitling. Fan subtitling is important to the modern day impact of a widely popular entertainment to the youth today and that is anime. Anime, though incredibly widespread currently made its way to the west via VHS tape piracy. Many of these tapes though are entirely lost either because of poor storage or disregard when the format was at the end of its lifespan. Currently we have no true predicted amount of how many subtitled tapes we have lost as only about 8000 of them are currently up on Archive.org this is only a sliver of what was actually produced and distributed in the US illegally during this era. Many of these tapes required them to be translated again, which is often the versions of subtitles seen of anime today.

VHS is a novel thing currently it is often attempted to be recreated by people today. Often VHS like effects are used in the digital horror medium as a way to call back to old horror movies on VHS that often did much better on VHS than in theaters. The low resolution often times adding to the horror aspect of the films. VHS is most of the time pursued by collectors and majority of them are horror collectors. VHS’ low resolution made older practical effects look more realistic as it blurred it in with the rest of its scene with it’s naturally occurring grainy appearance. This aided to the original popularity of some movies and the tapes themselves. Some people do deeply love the look of VHS and the interest in recreating it’s appearance on film stands to its significance to people’s minds back when VHS was in its true limelight. This can be in a horror aspect or entirely just a nostalgia aspect as many enjoy them for simply nostalgic reasons. The effects of even the downfalls of VHS itself became a aspect people adored it for from a cultural perspective.

The lack of preservation of VHS is due to the change in how we have widely distributed media along with the difficulty of preserving them with past technology. Due to the age of VHS tapes most tapes in circulation today have some form of degradation. Many tapes today are not going to last another 15 to 20 years putting a deadline onto this format and all its media still left solely on VHS. It is estimated there are Billions of VHS tapes out there currently meaning there is honestly not even a small fraction of them truly archived. Many people also have no idea VHS media deteriorates or loses its picture eventually meaning many never feel the obligation to preserve the tapes they hold dear. Along with that many people do not realize the cultural importance of their own recordings for future generations.

Archivist’s efforts to save VHS are even sponsored by some universities such as the University of Florida which will buy half inch format VHS for the purpose of archiving them as research materials. There is also a group called the XFR Collective which also focuses on preserving VHS Tapes their focus usually being on people who are not as often documented such as queer, people of color, immigrants and activists. Many tapes being preserved are tapes of local public broadcasts not well recorded or of violence or riots, some tapes even of everyday people’s lives. Any tape can be important to archive and document as this is how we’ll show the people of tomorrow how we’ve lived. MIPoPS is also an organization trying to preserve tapes they’re even helping preserve tapes of native Lushootseed speakers trying to preserve their moments of tapes in the 70s for the next generation. Archiving is a careful work though as many strive to still preserve the privacy of people who do not want their private moments archived for everyone to see.

Archiving is a culturally significant act many call the ticking time clock of VHS’s deterioration a “Magnetic Media Crisis” as the significance of recording people’s everyday lives of the past is slowly reaching its eventual deadline. The danger of this is it will be simply lost forever the deterioration can hit small moments of someone’s lives to entirely lost films and art of people we will never know of again. Many organizations hold events to try to get people aware and interested in digitizing their own personal tapes for either archiving or personal preservation XFR and MIPoPS strive to educate. Archiving such things are a new concept as the first film archive was established only in the 1930s. Ensuring knowledge and culture are preserved are a high priority to any archivist which is why many of them are trying to get the word out.

In the modern day preserving tape is easier than ever as there are a wide array of services to preserve and transfer these tapes or collectives looking to educate one to do it yourself. This means there is no excuse not to digitize your own personal tapes for personal enjoyment or cultural merit to come as it is guaranteed to keep deteriorating otherwise. Once these tapes are gone they are gone forever.

VCD, CD and DVD were the eventual downfall for the popularity of VHS tapes given they last at least a hundred years before needing to be replaced or recopied and lack generation loss. VCDs (Video CDs) were the first to replace VHS tapes given they had double the amount of broadcast quality. VCDs then being replaced subsequently by DVDs we have today these formats lack the data loss and can last up to 200 years in the right conditions. It is a good thing we have better formats to preserve older formats onto the end of the VHS format was always going to come. Change is not a bad thing but remembering our past is an important aspect of moving forward.

VHS is the first home media format meant for the middle class while it was replaced by CD and VCD and then DVD it still remains a format some films have only released on VHS. While that is the way with innovation, preserving what is lost is more important than ever as time ticks on for VHS tapes. There is an untold amount of lost media that it is actually a difficult number to calculate. Preserving VHS tapes is only a small piece in the puzzle but an urgent one given it’s analog format. Most of our human history is simply unpreserved and gone forever and it’s best not to let your own history be gone forever when you yourself are gone. While it may seen inconsequential in the moment it has had big impacts on how we are able to access films, videos and other media paving the way for home video and it doesn’t deserve to be forgotten especially because soon it will be gone forever.



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