Post by BuckSkin on Aug 22, 2021 17:13:31 GMT
Growing up in and living in a backwards 4th-world poverty-stricken area, where anyone one might ask was just as ignorant as the asker, the vast amount of wisdom immediately available just by typing in a search bar absolutely amazes me still (so long as one can manage to keep their exorbitant internet bill paid up).
This bit of wisdom has changed my life:
dvdyourmemories.com/blog/how-to-unwind-a-vhs-tape/
The past couple weeks, I have been on a long-put-off pilgrimage to digitize my vast collection of VHS tapes.
In my area, antenna TV reception was a buzzing snowy rolling affair; and, we were always too remote for cable; so, if one wanted to actually be able to see a movie, one either rented it or bought it; it didn't take a brilliant mathematician long to realize that buying was by far the cheaper alternative.
That being said, on tape number three, I ran into a dilemma that, before that bit of simple knowledge was available to me, would have spelled doom for the tape and cost me hours of frustration trying to save it; the tape had somehow gotten twisted from one spool to the other and was tight as a guitar string.
I searched it up on Duck Duck Go and the solution was as simple as poking an awl in that mysterious hole to release the spools so that they could be turned; in less time than it takes to read this, I had the twist removed and the tape playing like new; had I have had that knowledge available to me thirty years ago, I would now have several more tapes to digitize.
On another note, while typing this, I stumbled upon another bit that will save me quite a bit of time in the future; although I hate to admit it, me being the winner of many spelling bees, the computer said that I had misspelled a word; it looked right to me but the machine insisted it was not.
So, I highlighted the offending word, intending to copy/paste it into the search bar; when, at the very top of the right-click menu, I saw the correct spelling of the word --- what a handy time-saver !
This bit of wisdom has changed my life:
dvdyourmemories.com/blog/how-to-unwind-a-vhs-tape/
The past couple weeks, I have been on a long-put-off pilgrimage to digitize my vast collection of VHS tapes.
In my area, antenna TV reception was a buzzing snowy rolling affair; and, we were always too remote for cable; so, if one wanted to actually be able to see a movie, one either rented it or bought it; it didn't take a brilliant mathematician long to realize that buying was by far the cheaper alternative.
That being said, on tape number three, I ran into a dilemma that, before that bit of simple knowledge was available to me, would have spelled doom for the tape and cost me hours of frustration trying to save it; the tape had somehow gotten twisted from one spool to the other and was tight as a guitar string.
I searched it up on Duck Duck Go and the solution was as simple as poking an awl in that mysterious hole to release the spools so that they could be turned; in less time than it takes to read this, I had the twist removed and the tape playing like new; had I have had that knowledge available to me thirty years ago, I would now have several more tapes to digitize.
On another note, while typing this, I stumbled upon another bit that will save me quite a bit of time in the future; although I hate to admit it, me being the winner of many spelling bees, the computer said that I had misspelled a word; it looked right to me but the machine insisted it was not.
So, I highlighted the offending word, intending to copy/paste it into the search bar; when, at the very top of the right-click menu, I saw the correct spelling of the word --- what a handy time-saver !
