Revenge of the VHS tape

Like everything else retro from vinyl to the Nokia 3310, VHS tapes have been making a comeback for some time. If half the internet consists of cats, the other half consists of 1980s VHS horror film covers. Until recently VHS tapes were given to charity shops or chucked in the bin; eBay is now awash with rare 1980s horror titles and select Disney films worth hundreds of pounds (according to The Sun and BuzzFuze, anyway).

As featured on Eye on Design recently, Vault of VHS goes one step further (or back) and showcases the cases of blank VHS tapes. The cases usually contained bold graphics and gradients. For quality, my preference was always the TDK EHG (Extra High Grade) tape (which came in a plastic rather than card case), reserved for recording the likes of Godard, Truffaut and Bunuel from Channel 4 seasons of films.

Vault of VHS features American cases but the ones above are a few of my old UK case spines. I still own a fair variety of video tapes, including VHS, VHS- C, U-Matic, Video8, Hi8, Betacam and MiniDV, none of which I can actually play any more. Which I’m not at all sorry about – editing with two video machines was a painful experience; editing with 16mm film was more fun. And when iMovie, Premiere and Final Cut Pro came along, it was like a dream come true.

Previously on Barnflakes
The top ten most valuable CDs
Homeless Movies DVD out now!

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