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Found my old Beta tapes


Shawn

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When I helped my mom move 2 months ago, we found an old box with my name on it.

Opened it up and bingo-there were 1/2 of my old anime beta tape collection!! I thought these were lost about 10 years ago!!

Yesterday the beta machine came in (bought one from an ebay seller) and the fun began

Was going through some of them and, oh man-its great

My collection was 90% recorded off of japanese tv (you have to remember in the 80's, the official tapes for sale were hundreds of dollars-you couldn't just run down to best buy and pick up an entire series for under $100)

anyways some of the highlights include commercials of:

imai macross models

ariii macross models

bandai strike valk

gakken 1/35 mospeada legioss toy

imai mospeada models

gakken ride-armor toy

bandai hcm toys(it includes shots of the lgaim,gundam,and vifam toys)

gundam models (about 3-4 unique versions)

scramble eggs (egg-planes that turned into robots)

machine robo

one for macross dyrl (shown during one of the breaks in southern cross)

the original singers for southern cross and zeta gundam opening/closing songs selling their record singles

and a bunch of other goofy stuff

have lots of southern cross, lgaim, zeta gundam, mospeada, urusei yatsura, dirty pair, cats eye and votoms episodes to name a few

Once I settle back down again i'll get these recorded for everyone here-its a real blast!!

Shawn

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That'll be freakin awesome! I cant wait!

-BEN-MAN-

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B)) Sweet find Shawn.

I found one of my brothers old VHS recordings of Starblazers, Voltes 5, Voltron, and Transformers a couple of months ago.

Old toy commercials were (and still is) the BEST. :lol:

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The first person to post, "What's a Beta?" in this thread will receive 20 lashings with a wet noodle.

Just thought I'd let you all know.

But that's cool, Shawn. Look forward to hearing about them.

:D

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The first person to post, "What's a Beta?" in this thread will receive 20 lashings with a wet noodle.

Just thought I'd let you all know.

But that's cool, Shawn.  Look forward to hearing about them.

:D

Isn't it the ugly veritech that docks to the Alpha?

*dodges noodle*

Kidding, kidding.

Edited by JB0
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LOL! This reminds me of the episode in Cowboy Bebop where half the show was about Spike and Jet finding a beta VCR :D

I Love old toy commercials!

Again I have to bring up the fact that Kawamori wrote that episode... At least Shawn didn't have to swim underwater to get his player...

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went through a couple more tapes for commercials

imai orguss models

arii orguss models

arii southern cross models

LS southern cross models

Bandai Ultraman

some radio control 'bio-robo'

Gunze Sangyo Dorvack powered armor

then I hit an orguss episode

after the opening it said 'sponsored by takatoku toys'

needless to say I was thinking 'please please please tell me the commercials were left in'

Back then, tapes were expensive. It was very common for people to cut out the commercials

Well they were left in on this one! The first break was the arii orguss models

then the middle break hit

takatoku baby!

got the 1/40 takatoku orgoroid toy

and...

...

the takatoku 1/55 super valkyrie commercial! The fast packs get lowered onto the fighter via these little chains (its a simulated space hangar scene)

then it does this 7 stage transformation while the background music is Minmei's Shao Pai Lon...LOL

its one of the ones shown in the macross movie preview book

love this stuff :)

S

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Reminds me of when I was in high school. I had a friend who was telling me all about this show he was in love with called Robotech (which I only knew of through the toys and flipping through the RPG book). He finally convinced me to watch the show was about to loan me his tapes, when he asked me, "You've got a beta player, right?" To this day I still have never seen Robotech.

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Shawn,

Take that to your local cable company. Alot of them will let you use their studio equipment after a short class on how to do so without messing it up. You should be able to remaster the stuff somewhat, and put it on a CD ROM or better yet, DVD!.

I would gladly pay for a copy of all that cool nostalgic stuff on a DVD.

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what is this thing you call Beta? (sorry, i'm too young to remember :lol: )

Beta is the OTHER VCR format.

Offering higher image quality in smaller cassetes, it fell to the larger, lower-res VHS anyways.

...

I think the big thing that killed it was you could get more time in a VHS tape than a Beta one, but I don't know for sure.

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what is this thing you call Beta? (sorry, i'm too young to remember  :lol: )

Beta is the OTHER VCR format.

Offering higher image quality in smaller cassetes, it fell to the larger, lower-res VHS anyways.

...

I think the big thing that killed it was you could get more time in a VHS tape than a Beta one, but I don't know for sure.

Not so much that as Sony wouldn't let people sell Beta tapes with porn on them. So we got stuck with a lower quality product. And I don't remember Betas myself, but you can buy VHS tapes in all sorts of lengths. Or at least you could (as was previously stated, the tapes were really expensive).

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This I have to see. I don't know why, but I always love old toy commercials. Now if only somebody would find the old GI Joe and Star Wars commercials.

I have a tape of Smurfs and Chipmunks from 1983 with Star Wars toy commercials. It has the Jedi Rancor commercial. B))

"How bout some wine?"

"No thanks! I've got better things to do."

"and that's One To Grow On!"

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what is this thing you call Beta? (sorry, i'm too young to remember  :lol: )

*SPLATCH*

*SPLATCH*

*SPLATCH*

*splish* :ph34r:

Dang, the wet noodle broke. Oh, well. :lol:

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lol!  Beta.....my parents old Beta is still working, so it and all our tapes are in my bedroom now.  Our Wal-Mart carried blank Beta tapes for while, but no longer.  And yeah, old commericals are great :)

Yeah, we bought a Beta player back in like '81 or '82. We still have the thing. Only had to get it fixed like twice. Great VCR, actually. Recorded "Robotech" every day because it started at 3 pm and I didn't get out of school until 3:20.

Mom & Dad still have the Beta, along with a cupboard full of tapes. I'm gonna have to check all of those out next time I'm home. I think we even have the original CBS broadcast of "Star Wars" still on tape.

Ah, Betamax...how I miss thee...

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And I don't remember Betas myself, but you can buy VHS tapes in all sorts of lengths. Or at least you could (as was previously stated, the tapes were really expensive).

Yah.

But a larger cartridge means more room for tape.

Beta had less room to stuff tape into, and being higher-resolution, they used what they did have faster.

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  • 2 weeks later...
lol!  Beta.....my parents old Beta is still working, so it and all our tapes are in my bedroom now.  Our Wal-Mart carried blank Beta tapes for while, but no longer.  And yeah, old commericals are great :)

Yeah, we bought a Beta player back in like '81 or '82. We still have the thing. Only had to get it fixed like twice. Great VCR, actually. Recorded "Robotech" every day because it started at 3 pm and I didn't get out of school until 3:20.

Mom & Dad still have the Beta, along with a cupboard full of tapes. I'm gonna have to check all of those out next time I'm home. I think we even have the original CBS broadcast of "Star Wars" still on tape.

Ah, Betamax...how I miss thee...

my friend did that too. made me copies of robotech when I wa sin highschool. years before it was rereleased. it was one of th ehighlights on my highshcool life.

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And now I bring you all The Fear:

My father is the Last Beta Diehard - still uses the format exclusively. He has 2 players (and a local electronics repair joint willing to maintain them), as well as a huge closetful of commercial and personal cassettes. Scary as all hell....

Still remember a Jeopardy parody from somewhere:

"There are nine of these in the Solar System..."

"What are 'video stores that still rent in the Beta format'?"

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