Our treasured videocassettes

 

What do librarians do when they retire? They index their living rooms. Media in various formats are now all indexed in files based on which box they are in. At some point I realized I would have to view the old videocassettes to see what is on them. My old descriptions on the boxes had things like 90s tv or Nixon. I decided to view each one individually, looking for treasures and help put details on the listings.

Unfortunately I had not played the video player in a few years. What with Netflix and Hulu and all I rarely play DVDs, not to mention old videocassettes. The machine would not turn on. I dusted it, moved it to another plug and no luck. Finally I bought another videocassette player on EBay. When I got it a few days later it seemd to be in good shape. 1992, Sony, good reviews. Unfortunately it would not take my video RCA plug. I went to You Tube and found a video on my model and looked for answers. One guy recommended I buy a BNC to RCA plug converter. I went to Amazon and bought that and a two RCA plug to one RCA plug converter since the machine only had one audio output jack. 

I got the converter jacks and lo and behold, they worked, and I could watch my old videos. Oops. Many of the videos are in poor shape. Many will have a black picture for minutes at a time before suddenly turning to a passable image. The audio seems to have held up better. A word to the wise. If you have 1990s era videos of families or First Communions on video make sure to look at them and then convert them to DVD or digital as soon as you can. 

It is fun to look at old homemade videos. We wonder why our younger selves decided to push record and stop when they did. Some of the choices are interesting, if not all. So far I have seen the opening of the library handicapped elevator covered on local cable in 1992. I saw the Rodney King incident and followed the event, riot and speech by George Bush I. Football games, kids singing Christmas songs. Bill Clinton visiting a kindergarten. Interviews with Nixon, Jerry Brown, John and Yoko. The history of MacSorleys is on one video. Michael Palen in Peru. Of course my family at Thanksgiving is fun. I never realized I had such a loud family.