still using cassette tapes

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Anybody still relying on VHS or audio tapes?

Both.

Have a TV with built in DVD and tape player.
Can play both but can only record on tape.

Works for me.

I was ahead of the curve and the envy of my friends when I began burning my own music CD's in the late nineties ( using free standing CD burners) then a few years ago everyone started buring CD's on their PC's (which I do as well) but even now I still use cassettes for various music hobby related purposes. Still like to play some killer tapes I put together back in the day.

I still use (audio) tapes, mostly because of silly under-underground bands/artists. Because I'm tr00 kvlt.

I still own them, don't use them very much anymore. I need another VCR as mine died. For audio cassettes, sometimes I'll buy albums if I see them cheap at Salvation Army (I got a Thomas Dolby album for 50c) and stuff like that. Also, sometimes college radio here plays marvelous stuff, and I'll record a whole show of college radio on a cassette, just because it's easy. Both of my mother's cars have cassette decks, so it's sort of useful, but lately I got into just using my cassette adapter and phone as an mp3 player.

I still use VHS because you can pick them up for about 20p! I still collect cassettes but I don't currently have a player. I will be getting one eventually.

I only have one cassette right now. It lives in my car. When I'm not listening to it, I've got the mp3 adapter in the tape slot.

No VHS machine, but I do have a Laser Disc machine, and I like it. Remarkable quality for a pre-DVD format. And the video being entirely analog; it doesn't freeze up on you and become a stubborn piece of s**t if there's a small scratch on it like a DVD does.

Another plus is that I can store the LD movies right along with my record collection, as they're almost identical in shape and size. Speaking of old formats...

I have a few hundred cassettes kicking around and almost as many VHS tapes.

I have several hundred cassette tapes as well as VHS, and Beta! I am more comfortable with "old technology" I still buy cds and obscure heavy metal band tapes whenever possible. I only know rudimentary computer stuff and I haven't been able to adapt to the pro tools recording format either. I am a musician and am just happy to use my 4 track recorder! The new breed of video games I'm not into either. I have a working Atari 7800 system and a Flashback 2! The last modern video games I played was the super nintendo system. I'm sort of a technophobe. Well if it works why change it?

i've found that sony DVD machines handle scratched/faulty discs with the least trouble. panasonics are a distant second-best in that regard, and every other brand hangs up on the tiniest disc flaw.
VHS tapes are not too durable, i have lots of drop-outs on some decade-old tapes. i've found that in dubbing them to DVD-R, i've had to contend with lots of snow and dropped frames and other TB garbage. i wish i could afford a video editor with picture repair facilities. i've found that compact [audio] cassette tapes also don't age well, they are prone to developing drop-outs and generally have fugitive trebles after a decade or so, even in good storage conditions [uniform humidity/temperature] indoors. the fugitive trebles are a phenomenon of slow tape speeds [below 3&3/4 inches per second] as well as narrow track widths, this has been known about since the late 60s. also, cassettes recorded on different machines will not always play back properly, they may have relative azimuth errors resulting in dulled/drifting trebles, and if they were recorded on autoreverse decks, all bets are off! all in all, amateur quality analog is a PITA. i've been digital since the 90s and i don't miss wow/flutter, scrape flutter, modulation noise, hiss, roar, clicks/pops, drop outs, azimuth errors et al one tiny bit!
anyways, DATs are even worse, they are a royal PITA! the machines have heads that only last a few thousand hours at most, and which start getting drop-outs at a thousand hours, even with cleaning. both my DAT recorders have kaput heads, luckily i still have a playback-only unit that i can save my remaining unarchived DAT recordings with. even CDRs are not perfect, i am getting increased block error rates in my early 1990s discs, which means i have been somewhat busy migrating the materials from these old discs onto newer discs, with a lot of audio repair work on some of the files. IMHO, digital files stored on non-volatile memory chip media are the only way to go, as long as some too-clever egghead conglomerate doesn't decide to make a designed obsolescence scenario with new OS that aren't backwards compatible. i have to keep a windows 98 and XP computer around for a lot of my old files that will not work with W7.

No, I odn't use tapes, but I do use CDs. Then I rip them on the computer and put the mp3s on my player.

I got rid of all my old audiocassettes several years ago. I never listened to them and was tired of them taking up space in the closet, so I donated them to a recycling center that had a "Free Stuff" room. Most of my VHS tapes went as well, although I saved a few. How could I get rid of my King Kong VHS with battery-powered sleeve? (If you press Kong's chest, you hear a recording of his roar. That's just too cool to throw away!)

i kept everything, just in case.

I still have more movies on VHS than I do on DVD, stacked in our bedroom. Our combination DVD player/VCR gave up the ghost last year, which sort of weened me off of VHS. We still have my wife's old TV/CR (combination TV, VCR player), but since it's small screened, and whatever makes the DVD player plugged into to work now doesn't work, it's sitting idle also in our bedroom, while we watch DVDs on the bigger screen TV in the living room.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I don't own a VCR at the moment, I should probably rectify this.
I've got mountains of audio cassettes though, which I quite happily still play. Some of these are recordings I made off the radio 30 odd years ago.

i am curious- all my cassettes of that vintage sound like they were recorded under a pillow [soft and fuzzy, next to no clarity]- it has long been known that 4-track audio recordings of 1/4" & 1/8" tape widths tape at speeds of 3&3/4 inches per second and less, have "fugitive trebles" after as little as a decade of sitting on the shelf, even when recorded on pro equipment. granted, i didn't have fancy nakamichi or studer decks to make my recordings with, just a basic radio shack cassette deck with basic dolby type B, using basic type I tape formulations, and at the time of recording they sounded decent but gosh, now they all just sound DEAD. not only are they uniformly dull of trebles, but they're chock full of drop-outs as well. my open-reel tapes recorded at 3&3/4 inches per second also suffer similarly [but NOT my 7&1/2 inch per second recordings]. can you tell me if you used fancy machines and fancy tape [like type II or IV] to do your recordings with?

Fancy equipment? No. Back in the early 80's I had an all in one music centre. A nice one, mind, it had a recording level knob.
Fancy tape? At first all I had was the cheapest of cheap tapes given to me by my stepfather, I think he did it as an insult, looking down his nose at my choice of music. They sounded bad then, they still sound bad. When I got money I used to get the best TDK I could afford.
I must admit though, I haven't been listening to them with much concern about the quality, it's just been fun to hear this stuff after all these years. I would rate the sound quality as "not great, but so what", "better than I expected" or "wow, these things still play".