I was at my parents' house last weekend digging through their attic and found a box of my grandpa's old VHS tapes from the 80s. He used to record local news segments and random TV shows that never got reruns or put online. My dad said he threw out a bunch of them 10 years ago thinking they were junk, and now I'm wondering how much unique footage is just gone forever. Has anyone else found something like that in their family's old stuff?
I was digging through old VHS tapes at my parents' house in Toledo last weekend, just looking for home movies, and I found a 30-second recording of this weird cartoon called 'The Bleep Brothers' that I remembered from when I was 7. The tape was labeled 'kids stuff 1994' and it had this grainy, static-filled clip where they're sliding down a rainbow escalator... I had to rewind it three times to make sure I wasn't imagining it. Has anyone else stumbled across a random fragment of something they thought was lost to time?
I spent months trying to dig up a local ad from 1992 by combing through VHS recordings from a yard sale in Buffalo. Then I found out the same ad was on a DVD-R of a TV special that someone uploaded to archive.org in 2018. The DVD capture was way clearer and had no tracking issues. Has anyone else had better luck with digital formats over analog for lost media?
I grabbed a beat-up VHS tape at Goodwill for 50 cents last month. It had no label, just a sticky note that said 'do not tape over.' I finally watched it yesterday and it was full of outtakes from a TV station in Scranton. Anchors messing up lines, a weatherman losing his wig on camera. Has anyone else found something like this that turned out to be more than just a blank tape?
Had a weird week last month. Found a VHS tape of a local kids show from 1987 at a thrift store in Tucson for $5. I watched it and it was wild, like a low budget version of a network show with puppets that looked kinda creepy. I started posting clips online and someone tracked down the guy who made it. He emailed me and said he hates that show now and wants me to destroy the tape. He said it brings back bad memories of a divorce. But this show is lost media, nobody else has a copy. Ive got people in the group begging me to upload the full thing. So whats the right move? Do I honor his wish and keep it private or do I share it because its historically important and one of a kind. I know someone is going to argue both sides hard. Has anyone else been in this spot where the creator wants their own work buried?
Back in June I was digging through a pile of old CDs at a garage sale in Salem. I paid $2 for a disc labeled "Space Colony 1997" which I figured was just a cheap knockoff. When I got home and put it in my Windows 98 machine, the startup screen showed a version number that didn't match any known release. I posted a screenshot on a retro gaming forum and three people messaged me saying it looked like a prototype that was never supposed to leave the developer's office. Has anyone else stumbled across something that turned out to be a pre release or beta copy of a game?
Spent $45 on an eBay listing claiming to have a rare recording of a banned UK kids show from the 80s. The guy had a whole story about his dad being a TV engineer... turned out it was just a blank tape with a hand-drawn label. I even messaged him and he said "it was a joke, sorry". No refund, no tape, just a lesson learned. Has anyone else gotten burned by these supposedly "golden" finds in old collections?
I spent half a year hunting down a supposedly lost episode of a 90s cartoon called "Gizmo's Garage" after seeing it on a lost media wiki. Found a listing on a niche auction site for $80, seller swore it was the real deal from their old TV station. When it finally arrived last month, I popped it in and it was just six hours of someone's family Christmas dinner from 1994. The actual show never appeared, just some kid opening presents and a cat walking across the couch. I messaged the seller and they claimed they "must have mixed up the tapes" and offered a refund. Took three weeks and a PayPal dispute to get my money back. Has anyone else been burned by sellers who profit off this community's hopes?
I dropped $80 on what was supposed to be a lost Disney short from the 80s, but it turned out to be a bootleg recorded off TV. Anyone else get burned by fake listings claiming to be 'lost media'?
I've been collecting old radio broadcasts and local band demos since like 2015, ripping them to MP3 at 128 kbps because I thought that was good enough for stuff that already sounded rough. Then last month I found a forum post where someone pointed out that you're basically compressing already compressed garbage and losing even more data. I went back and checked some of my earliest rips from a 1997 college radio show I found on cassette and the difference was night and day when I re-did it at 320 kbps. Made me wonder how many other lost media hunters out there are doing the same thing without realizing it. Has anyone else had that moment where you found out your preservation method was actually destroying the quality instead of saving it?
I spent like 3 hours on archive.org last Saturday looking for this obscure folk tune from the 1940s. My granddad always sang it but could never remember the name. I didn't find the song at all, but I stumbled onto a recorded radio play from 1952 that had been labeled wrong in the system. It's a comedy show that only has one known copy in existence according to the comments. Now I'm down a rabbit hole trying to figure out if this was a rebroadcast or a whole different recording nobody knew about. Anyone else ever go looking for one thing and trip over something way rarer?
I was digging through a bin of old tapes outside Cleveland last Saturday and spotted a faded label that said 'Space Pals - Episode 4.' Nobody I know has ever heard of this show, and I can't find any mention of it online. Popped it in when I got home and the quality is rough, but the animation looks like it might be some forgotten Canadian production from 1993. Any other hunters ever run into a random tape that turned out to be something nobody remembered?
I came across two leads on an old Saturday morning show that supposedly only aired once in 1984. One was a VHS transfer from a collector in Ohio, the other was a Betamax copy from a guy in Florida. I went with the Betamax because he said it was recorded directly off the air, no generations lost. It took three weeks to arrive and the picture had some tracking issues, but the audio was crystal clear. Has anyone else had to choose between two formats like that, and did you regret it?