The Gamer's Quarter

OtakupunkX · . Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 730

I spent most of last night at my friend Tony's house, as my friends and I are converting the unused first floor of his mom's 3 story house into a place to hang out since we've been spending way too much time at the nearby Starbucks (in fact, we're there so much that two of my friends even got romantically involved with some of the people that work at that Starbucks).

Anyway, after we finished moving stuff into the first floor (futons, shelves, ghetto-coffee-table/ironing-board and the like), we looked around Tony's garage for other interesting, unused items we could move into what we're calling "The Den".

That's when we found a Betamax player and a bunch of related Betamax equipment.

We don't really know what we're going to do with it, as we don't have any Betamax tapes. Hell, I was the only one there who even knew what Betamax was. What should we do with it though? I'm the only one who actually wants to keep it, everyone else thinks we should sell it to an antiques store or something (you know, since they have Betamax players there and all), and I have hopes of having some kind of ghettoed-out, Betamax film fest of some kind.
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TOLLMASTER · nippon ichi PR man Joined: 15 Feb 2005 Posts: 187

I wonder if there are betamax camcorders still around? Probably not cheap, even being useless, I'm guessing.

I would record a time capsule in Betamax. The payoff of a future generation finding a neat-o, but totally fucking unviewable, video from the past will be great enough for it to be worth it occuring after your death.

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

The quality of Betamax is much higher than that of VHS. I use to have a friend that had a bunch of old horror movies on betamax and they looked really good. Betamax got some really strange releases when it was popular, so if you went looking on ebay for a collection you would probably get some stuff that would be awesome to play in the background of a gathering for hilarity. Also, betamax tapes are heavy, so shipping will be a bit expensive I imagine.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

GSL · Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 10:57 pm Post subject:

What Shaper said. Betamax is sorta like Laserdisc; obscure and a little rare and the choice of movies is pretty funky (one-half "Why the hell did they release this?" and one-half "Holy crap, this came out on [obscure video format]?!"), but the quality is most excellent.

Keep an eye out in thrift stores like Goodwill, Value Village, or the Salvation Army as well as yard/garage sales--most people regard Betamax as the 8-track of video, so with a little searching you could net some decent finds. They might even be in good condition!

Winged Assassins (1984) · Posted: Sat Dec 02, 2006 11:38 pm Post subject:

Awaiting Betamax / PS3 comparison.
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Wall of Beef · Posted: Sun Dec 03, 2006 12:29 am Post subject:

I thought that this was still widly used for News broadcasts. Am I wrong?!

km · . Joined: 25 Nov 2006 Posts: 16

OtakupunkX · . Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 730

So I found a catalog I can order that has listings of Betamax titles I can buy from some place in Virginia. I think I might go for it, because I haven't heard anything too bad about it.

Also, TOLLMASTER, that time capsule idea is pretty genius. If I can find a beta camcorder I totally want to do that.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Rud13 · . Joined: 01 Jul 2005 Posts: 130

Nana took my post.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Actually, everytime I think of VHS that scene where the guy is talking about VHS and has that "antique" video equiptment pops into my head (from Bebop).
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

dongle · . Joined: 25 Nov 2006 Posts: 290

shoot your own stag films

Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

* no deer harmed in the making of this film
_________________
“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

OtakupunkX · . Joined: 23 Mar 2006 Posts: 730