What did you do with Your old VHS tapes?

[DISUNC]

We literaly have 100's of VHS tapes, and havent had a VHS player in years.

I HATE to just throw them out(whadda waste of $)....but even the Local Library wont take them anymore.

Anybody have any creative ways of getting rid of these 'icons' of days gone by?

 

[Cantw8]

I gave alot of them to the day care center my kids used to go to

 

[legalsea]

I am building a new addition to my house with them.

Did you know that there are now machines that will transfer your VHS tapes to DVD? I do not own one of these machines, but would be interested to hear from anyone who does.

 

[agnes!]

I don't know, but I like the idea of donating them to a daycare/childcare place, but if no-one around here will take them I don't know what I'll do. DH doesn't want to get rid of them - (think of how much all those tapes, especially the kids' ones cost yikes ). I'd just like some of that shelve & drawer-space *back*.

agnes!

 

[TheGoofster]

I am building a new addition to my house with them.

Did you know that there are now machines that will transfer your VHS tapes to DVD? I do not own one of these machines, but would be interested to hear from anyone who does.

I recently transferred over 300 VHS tapes to DVD (including TV series). I purchased a machine to do it with, and it worked great. BUT, there are some tapes that don't allow you to transfer (mostly Disney). After about 8 seconds into the process, you get an error message telling you that you can't do it. Unfortunately, there really isn't any good way around this (I've heard that if you get a European VCR/DVD recorder, that it ignores this safety feature, but I'm not really sure) I even tried to transfer them on my computer (using a different method), and it still came up with the same error message). But most tapes do allow you to transfer them onto DVD.
I would put bags of old VHS tapes into the trash, and I'm pretty sure that the trashmen would grab them (which was fine by me).

 

[ThreeMusketeers]

We have kept ours. Not sure what we are going to do with them yet. But we still have a VCR/DVD combo. B/c we still want to be able to watch all those old VHS home movies we don't have trannied to DVD yet.

 

[Kat73]

I bought a DVD player that also plays VHS, and kept the movies I love the best. I used to work for Hollywood Video for 6 years, so I had a TON of movies on VHS. All the VHS movies that I don't really need/ now also have on DVD went to my mom. She has an annual garage sale on her street and I can usually get $2 a piece. Whatever's left over she usually donates to the Goodwill.

All my Disney ones are in a box in my storage room. I'm afraid to get rid of them and don't know why- I have them all on DVD.

 

[DISUNC]

I gave alot of them to the day care center my kids used to go to

I just called a local Day Care. They laughed at me (Thats OK I am use to it) She told me I was 5 years too late.

I am building a new addition to my house with them. .

You would think with all the emphasis on recyling, someone would have come up with "something" to do with these. I dont even know if they are recycable.

 

[sdarwkcabemanmy]

Ours are all in boxes out in the garage. We had them in our old entertainment center, but it got donated to the library when DH decided he had to have a newer, less crappy one.

We still have a VCR because our local library still has hundreds of VHS tapes and not many DVDs. So most of the movies I check out for DS are on VHS.

 

[penguin087]

I am in the process of changing them to DVD. I bought a machine to do it. After I transfer it I toss the VHS. It feels great to have a ton of shelf space condensed down to a little book to hold the discs.
You can't do the Disney ones. They are blocked from transfer in some way. It is kind of amazing that Disney thought block this way back before the technology even existed to do it. I have some Disney movies that have to be almost 20 years old. Still can't transfer them.

 

[goofinoff]

We donated the kids old tapes to a daycare center. What about donating some (appropriate ones) to maybe a nursing home or a women's shelter.

 

[DISUNC]

I am in the process of changing them to DVD. I bought a machine to do it. After I transfer it I toss the VHS. It feels great to have a ton of shelf space condensed down to a little book to hold the discs.
You can't do the Disney ones. They are blocked from transfer in some way. It is kind of amazing that Disney thought block this way back before the technology even existed to do it. I have some Disney movies that have to be almost 20 years old. Still can't transfer them.

How much did this machine cost & what is the quality like? Most of our Disney VHS have been replaced with their DVD counterparts so I am not concerned with this.

 

[disneygals]

http://greendisk.com/

 

[cteddiesgirl]

I still have 100's myself. I'm still watching them. I have a dvd/vcr combo. Actually, I have two. One in my bedroom and one in my office.

Back when I started buying dvd's (in 1999), I would sell off the vhs copies of the movies I replaced on dvd. Unfortunately, it's too hard to do that today. Every now and then you can still sell them on half.com or amazon. I've even sold audio cassettes on amazon as recently as last year.

A lot of movies I own on vhs still haven't been released on dvd yet, so those I will not get rid of any time soon.

As for copying your vhs to dvd, yes, many of the old vhs have a copywrite proctection (usually Macrovision) on them. You have to buy a separate device to decode the protection. The one I have requires two different machines to use. I don't even know if they sell them anymore. But the probably do.

 

[scroot]

Those that I don't want to upgrade I keep. Those I have upgraded or don't want anymore I donate to our church's rummage sale. People are still buying vhs tapes by the bag full there and the money goes to a good cause.

 

[storzo]

I put mine up on ebay. I grouped them together by genre or by starring actor or by series if there were sequels. Some sold, some didn't.

 

[ZephyrHawk]

They were a big hit at my last garage sale. One guy pretty much bought me out at $1 per tape.

 

[Zippa D Doodah]

DISUNC, perhaps you could fashion a purse.

 

[DawnCt1]

All of our home movies that are on VHS, I transferred to DVD with our VHS DVD recorder. Those VHS tapes I watched rarely. Good thing. They wear out with use. I am keeping those originals in a cool, dark place in case I need to copy them again. Since I still have a VCR, I kept the old movies that I liked or put some over on DVD. Easy to do, if you are watching them at the time. Then toss those.

 

[FergieTCat]

I have a Panasonic brand VHS-DVD recorder and I love it. It's very intuitive, and I can even copy shows that are saved on my DVR directly to DVD. I highly recommend that brand.