I would like to hear how other fans have organized/converted their episode collections. I still have all the episodes on VHS sitting in my childhood bedroom closet (except for ONE tape that was lost, with Gunslinger, Lassie, & I Accuse My Parents – so only Lassie is really “lost”) – the task of converting them is SO daunting! How have people gone about this? Or is it ok to just leave them on VHS forever – is there a time limit on video quality of that? I’d love to hear people’s suggestions.
Well, to start with, here’s my shelf.
All the Rhino sets are together on the top right. The rest are in DVD slimline cases, in order, starting with the KTMAs at the top left and ending with episode 1013 on the second shelf on the right. The Shout! Factory disks have been removed from their sets and filed, in episode order, among the recorded DVDs. The third shelf is Cinematic Titanic, (prerecorded) RiffTrax and Film Crew DVDs along with miscellaneous stuff. The bottom shelf is CDs with RiffTraxes on them. Scattered on top of them and jammed on the right are bad movies for riffing later.
My collection was once much larger in terms of bulk. Back then I had every episode from season 2-10 on its own VHS tape at SP speed. I taped the season 2-6 eps during the wondrous summer of 1995, when Comedy Central ran every episode, in order, at midnight, on a nightly basis. What a boon. My original season 1 tapes were three episodes per tape, EP speed — back then who knew they’d be so precious?! I was looking to save tape in those days!)
The result was about 200 VHS tapes (some of which dated back to 1990)! I moved several times after I assembled it. Packing it up and carefully moving it was a nightmare.
Eventually the jumble of unlabeled or only partially labeled tapes became too much and I bought a Seiko label printer and special spine labels (I still have a couple of boxes of spine labels somewhere, though the label printer broke a long time ago) and made neat labels with the spaghetti ball on each one. Only a few are left–check the third shelf on the right, next to Bender, to see what they looked like.
A few years ago DVD recorders finally got cheap enough and I broke down and bought one, and began the long process of converting every single dang episode that wasn’t on DVD. I chose DVD+R, by the way. I’m just a positive guy. :-) DVD experts are free to tell me if I chose incorrectly. The process took months but I finally got it all done. As part of the process, the first thing I did with each tape was fast-forward it to the end and then rewind it to the beginning. I’m told this kind of “wakes it up” and helps it play cleanly. Many of them hadn’t been played in more than a year. However, I should note that doing that caused five or six of them to break off the reel at one end or the other, requiring me to open the tape up and gently use scotch tape to reattach the tape to the reel. I got pretty good at it after a couple of times. Only one tape was actually broken: completely frozen tight and unplayable. It’s at moments like that that we depend on the kindness of fellow MSTies. A good friend sent me a replacement.
I did some quick Googling and the authoritative sites I saw said that VHS tapes are supposed to last 20-25 years under proper storage conditions (in their case, standing on end, not too much humidity, etc.). My oldest ones were about 15 years old and they had not always been very well cared for. Anybody with expertise on the care and feeding of VHS is welcome to chime in.
So, what about you? Tell us about your collection and how you built it. If you started on tape, have you converted to DVD? How did that go? One issue you have to face when you do that is the issue of “include the commercials or not?” I included them, seeing them as a bit of history to be preserved. What did you do?
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I didn’t get into MST3K until it was on Sci-Fi; I only watched it when it was on and didn’t tape them. After Sci-Fi stopped playing reruns I basically went without until I found out about the DAP a few years later. I grabbed them all (KTMA-10, plus the movie) and authored my own DVDs on Dual-Layers so I could get about half-a-season per disc. They currently have a coveted place right next to all the Star Trek series and movies on my shelf (well, all but Star Trek 2009… but that’s another story altogether…)
P.S. Some of you have mentioned this. I also have some tapes from the the early to mid-80s that play perfectly fine (I noticed that the VHS tapes of that era were built a little more sturdy, cause I have some from the early to mid-90s that have already crapped out).
I have a special DVD case for all of my MST, CT and Rifftrax DVDs.
I also have every non-released MST DVD from the DAP downloaded to my 1.5TB hard-drive, and i serve
that up via my PS3.
I have most episodes on VHS, but not all. I used to record the show religiously from early on (I first started watching at the beginning of season 2 when The Comedy Channel and HA merged into CTV, soon to become Comedy Central. We didn’t have The Comedy Channel before that). I was missing many season 1 episodes, and the odd one or two that I was never able to tape when they were on TV. Most episodes were SLP because I was just a kid and couldn’t afford to buy so many tapes (they were $3 or $4 each back then which was a good chunk of my paper route money considering all the other shows I taped every week), but I started taping in LP near the end of the Comedy Central days. LP was awesome because it kept the sound quality higher (which was SLPs main downside) and still had pretty decent video as well. It was not quite as good as SP, but MUCH better than SLP. The worst thing VCR makers did was remove the LP setting from most of the VCRs they made later on. I also have a few of the Rhino VHS tapes I bought of some of my favorite episodes like Sidehackers, and the original Scrapbook tape from the fan club. All my MST VHS tapes are packed away, but I will never get rid of them. Too many memories involved there. I mean the show spanned my entire life from junior high through college, and was a HUGE part of my life. Those tapes (along with my similar Simpsons VHS collection) were pretty much what kept me going at some points. Putting on a favorite MST episode and laughing my ass off for 90 minutes could help make it a little bit easier to deal with life when it got rough. It wouldn’t feel right getting rid of them now, even if I’ll never need or use them again. Anyway I dreaded the idea of transferring all those VHS to DVD myself, and I knew that I didn’t have all the episodes anyway, or the best copies around, so maybe three or four years ago I found a person on eBay who was selling every non-officially-released episode on DVD for $200. I decided that was a reasonable price considering that other such people with website selling MST DVDs charge around $5 an episode. $200 was worth not having to buy a DVD recorder (which would have probably been at least $100 itself) and do all the work of transferring my VHS tapes, and the person selling the DVDs probably wasn’t making much of a profit for all the discs and work involved in burning them. The quality on all those DVDs is quite good, probably as good as they can get. So I now have those DVDs as well as every officially released MST DVD aside from the limited release “Shorts 3” disc. I also have every episode in Divx format as well, just for the heck of it, and for PS3 viewing. My MST collection is now complete. As for Rifftrax, CT, and other offshoots I have every CT release on official real DVD, and several, but not nearly all Rifftrax DVD releases, and a growing collection of the mp3’s. I also have the original 20th Century Fox Night of the Living Dead DVD with Mikes commentary, and every Rifftrax VOD short they’ve released, most of which reside on my PS3 hard drive for spontaneous random viewing. I have all four Film Crew DVDs as well. And (even though it’s not officially related to MST) I’ve also purchased all the Incognito Cinema Warriors XP DVDs that have been put out so far. I bought the first one out of curiosity, and liked it enough to buy the others.
#30: Same here, unfortunately the DAP files of “Robot Holocaust” and “Gamera vs. Guiron” won’t synch properly on my Mac, so my tape collection isn’t completely obsolete yet. :| So, it’s now just a matter of keeping the Shout Factory releases up to date, but that’s my most expensive hobby.
I started collecting MST on VHS. I had a couple MST3K60H episodes (2nd half of The Giant Gila Monster, 1st half of War of the Colossal Beasts), and then started recording the shows from SciFi (didn’t have Comedy Central then). They ended up intermixed with episodes of Carson’s Comedy Classics and America’s Dumbest Criminals, and a couple eps got taped over accidentally. I currently have about 10 or so VHS episodes in my closet, as well as all the official DVD’s on my DVD rack. I haven’t converted to VHS, though I have re-recorded a couple episodes to consolidate, and cut out commercials (to varying degrees of success).
I have slowly over the years converted my VHS tapes to DVD+R. Sometimes I just get lazy and copy them comercial and all, especially if it is a poor copy, and wait for the day when a professionally made episode is released.
Anybody else notice that the old Rhino tapes don’t have a copy guard on them? So I have copied them all on to DVD and just keep the tapes stored away.
Where did a few of you find the Josh Way covers? I’d like to check them out.
Another plug for Josh’s excellent DVD covers:
mst3k(dot)joshway(dot)com
They’re the best! (Which hasn’t stopped them from modifying them…)
Oops. Hasn’t stopped ME from modifying them, that is. (I’ve changed the spine, tinkered with the colors, and written some different episode synopses, stuff like that.)
The JoshWay covers are here: http://mst3k.joshway.com
Here’s an example of the mod that I made to them: http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/ii301/eegah/MST0820_edit_sm.jpg
http://pixavid.com/uploads/lbIoTq.jpg
Since space is at a premium at the Alatan household, my collection is split into a few different places. The Rhino and Shout! box sets share a shelf with random loose DVD-Rs as well as loose 45s. (You can see my jazz and soul CD shelf above the MST3K/45s shelf).
I also have a couple of six disc CD wallets containing DVD-Rs of episodes from season five and season eight, respectively. I also have a random wooden disc holder box thing that stores 12 DVD-Rs of random episodes from season one through season three. (All of my DVD-Rs came from Michael Slusher’s site http://www.cheepnis.com).
Finally, my single disc Rhino releases, the movie, and my remaining taped VHS reside in the basement. I know, I know, that is no way to take care of prized possessions, but, like I said, space is at a premium in the Alatan household.
Let’s try this again…
[IMG]http://pixavid.com/uploads/lbIoTq.jpg[/IMG]
“One thing I regret is not being more active in buying the Rhino sets as they were issued. If I had gotten off my duff, I’d have volumes 9 and 10 right now, but hey. It taught me to snap up the Shout! sets ASAP.”
Also, may I once again publicly flagelate myself for buying “The Wild World of Batwoman” and taking it back for a little scratch? Okay, I will. WAP WAP WAP WAP WAP.
I have a lot of movies and tv shows on dvd they take up so much space that I had to rethink how I store them. I have four bookshelves that are six feet tall and three feet wide with five shelves on each one and two bookcases are completely full. I keep “real” dvds in their cases on the shelves and for movies that I record (off TCM mostly) or that aren’t “real” dvds I have long, narrow plastic bins that fit perfectly on the shelves when lined up longways and I can fit five bins on a shelf. I keep the movies in archival quality sleeves and then I can just pull out the bins and go through them. I can fit about 200 movies per bin this way. So to get to my point, I keep all my MST3Ks in one bin. I get rid of the packaging and just keep the movies. I have dividers to show each season and they are in chronological order. I keep the mini posters stuck in the front of the bin since they fit perfectly there. I also have a piece of the Deep 13 set (a chunk of the foam used for the wall) and it sits next to the bin. My Servo and Crow figures sit on my desk next to my lamp.
I came to the show late–during its last year. After a couple episodes, I knew I’d want to have them permanently, so I began to tape them [unhappily, at the low quality setting to get three eps on a tape. I was a grad student, and money was tight.] Despite my tardiness, I eventually got all but a handful of the SciFi eps recorded, then got the remainder via tape traders.
I also began buying the Rhino singles and sets, eventually acquiring all of them, plus, through tape traders again, a handful of unreleased Comedy Central eps.
In 2004 I purchased a DVD recorder, and began the long process of transferring from VHS to DVD.
More recently, I discovered torrents, and, over many months, I finally got all the eps I was missing, plus I redownloaded all the eps which I had taped myself in low quality, since the torrents were usually better than what I had.. These I also burned to DVD, so that finally I had the entire run of the show [except for the KTMA eps] on DVD.
I know some people dislike using torrents, but I have continued to purchase every set from Shout Factory even though I already have the eps from torrents, because I want to support MST3K, and because the professional releases are higher quality. So, I don’t feel bad about having downloaded them.
This link is my non-commercial MST DVD collection. The majority I transferred from VHS myself using Philips 985 DVD recorders. I’ve been through four or five of the recorders and many hundreds of tapes. The very first Philips cost me over $800. More recently I’ve found them used for under $100. I really like their output quality. Much better than newer models. Over the years I’ve had a few friends help with recording and editing. I made the cases myself.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v353/skyroniter/MSTCollection.jpg
The next links are my commercial releases as of December 2008. I’ve bought them all and continue to buy them. Just haven’t gotten around to taking new pictures.
http://www.mst3kvideos.com/Shelf.jpg
http://www.mst3kvideos.com/TopShelf.jpg
The cautions that I’ve heard all my life about storing vhs tapes out of humidity & all that is OVERLY cautious if you ask me. I have beat the $#it out all my tapes for over 25 years and they all still work fine.
I’ve kept them on the spine at least, but thats about all.
I have found that vhs tapes easily outlast dvds. Especially poorly maintained vhs vs. poorly maintained dvds. Even with poorly maintained vhs vs. well maintained dvds, for me, the vhs tapes always are better.
I think all the scare tactics sounded off about vhs tapes are by people connected to the dvd industry and who stand to gain something if you buy dvds rather than vhs tapes.
The only thing better about dvds is the easy storage and less bulky-ness of them.
Otherwise, I prefer my tapes.
I have Mst3k: the movie, The Crawling Hand, Mitchell, The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, The Essentials, Vol1, 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 ,6 (missing 7) 8, (also missing 9) , 10.2, 11, 12, 20Ae, 14, 15, 16, and 17. I also have an official Pod People tape lying in a pile somewhere. I don’t have any of the other Rhino single episode dvds, or any recordings from tv or bootleg copies, as I was not a fan of the show when it was on, and I jus want the official releases. I have them all organized on a shelf in my bedroom. :grin:
Eegah!! Whoa!! I’m am so jealous of your collection!
I have all the Rhino sets, followed by all the SHOUT! sets, then followed by “The Essentials” and then “MST3K: the movie”. My little Tom and Crow figures sit on my desk at my office. I find new and worthy friends every time someone points and says “Oh my God – you know MST3K?”
I still need to get all the RiffTrax stuff.
Finally got the shelf ready. MST3K Collection is in the middle, with some DVDs I made on the bottom with the CDs. http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/150/f/3/DVD_Collection_Shelf_by_Starsteam01.jpg
I didn’t start collecting until the end of the sci-fi era. Until then, the only thing I had was “This is MST3K” that I had taped when it aired. So, I started taping whatever was still airing on Sci Fi and chasing down the videos. It was around this time that I started downloading the DAP releases (at that point still only as .avi files).
So, now I have every commercial DVD release with the exception of the original Vol 10, the Giant Gila Monster and any flavor of The Movie. I *do* have the movie on video tape, as well as “The Amazing Colossal Man”, “MST Scrapbook” and “The Last Dance – Raw”.
As for how I order them, it’s episode # for the single DVDs (with “Essentials” slotted into SCCtM’s slot since I have Manos as well), followed by the box sets (20th Anniversary tin excluded – it’s on the “special collection shelf”) and then the Best Brains DVDS (Triple Decker & Host Segments 1).
I then have the post-MST projects in release order: a homemade Edward the Less DVD, Mike’s Legend DVDs, the Three Stooges material, Rifftrax, The Film Crew & Cinematic Titanic. (Star Wait is in with the Star Wars collection.)
Video tapes rest comfortably on top of the DVDs in the space under the shelf above.
On top of the shelving unit that houses MST3K, Doctor Who, Star Trek, Godzilla, etc. sits Tom and Crow, alongside the U.S.S. Enterprise, the U.S.S. Reliant, Godzilla, Gamera, the Doctor, two Cybermen and the TARDIS (actually, the “Trial of a Time Lord” VHS set).
As for the rest, the VHS tapes I recorded have been replaced by a huge 200 disc CD wallet filled with DAP CDs and DVDs. Some of the DVDs for which I have designed case art have been placed in alongside the Rhino single DVDs.
Oh, and for consistancy’s sake, the DVD cases I have designed are based on the original Rhino design.
I have only one up available for download, K10 – Cosmic Princess.
You can get it (and ‘Edward the Less’) here:
http://www.edwoodonline.com/GRAFX/MST3K.html
Wow. A weekend discussion topic without any snarky/dismissive posts!
I’m in the same boat as DrZaat @ #65:
I know some people dislike using torrents, but I have continued to purchase every set from Shout Factory even though I already have the eps from torrents, because I want to support MST3K, and because the professional releases are higher quality. So, I don’t feel bad about having downloaded them.
In addition to owning all the Rhino/Shout! DVD sets I have the 35 DVD set (approx. 150gb) that I downloaded via torrents. Each disc is 6 episodes at 700+mb (except the last two which are all specials/shorts/alternate versions like “Turkey Day”), which is low, but most are ripped from VHS sources so I doubt I’m missing much (am I?). The main thing it provides is convenience. This makes watching the series in order much simpler. I burnt these all to DVD (my player accepts DVD-R’s) but lately I’ve just been watching them on my computer from a hard-drive where all the files are stored.
Torrents are also the best way I’ve found to watch Rifftrax. I buy some Trax and donate regularly, but the folks out there who have done the hard work of synching/removing Disembaudio’s lines/posting the files have really made RT enjoyable for me. I must have over 50 .avi/.wmv files of the “big budget” RT projects. No need to rent or buy these crappy movies. (Some may disagree… like, George Lucas, James Cameron, etc.)
So to those people contemplating converting their VHS collection to DVD, I say, “Save your time and money and learn how to download.” CC/SyFy/BBI will not come banging on your door to arrest you.
This is a great discussion! I’m a newbie MSTie, so I never watched the show when it was on, meaning I don’t have any episodes recorded off of tv.
The MST3K DVDs I own are:
-Vol. 4
-Vol. 7
-20th Anniversary Edition
-The Essentials
-The Movie (Universal dvd)
-Beginning of the End
-The Crawling Hand
-Eegah
-I Accuse My Parents
-Mitchell
-Red Zone Cuba
I keep all of my MST3K DVDs on their own shelf (if I owned any other TV shows on DVD they would also go on that shelf). My copy of The Movie is with my regular DVDs. My MST3K VHS tapes are with my videos.
The MST3K VHS tapes I have (which are Rhino releases) are The Amazing Colossial Man and Shorts Vol. 3. I bought Clowns in the Sky I & II on iTunes and downloaded them to 2 CD-Rs. I also have The Amazing Colossial Episode Guide and a MST3K The Movie T-shirt. I don’t own any Cinematic Titanic DVDs (in fact I’ve never seen any CT DVDs or performances). I don’t own any Film Crew DVDs (the only Film Crew I’ve seen so far is Hollywood After Dark). I don’t own any Rifftrax DVDs, but I’ve bought a lot of Riffs. I only store the ones I haven’t listened to on a USB drive, the others I delete after watching them (but I can download them again so I do that to save room).
The Rifftrax riffs and shorts that I’ve bought (there’s a lot!) are:
-Kittens: Birth and Growth
-Spider Man
-Spider Man 2
-Spider Man 3
-The Room
-Drawing for Beginners: The Rectangle
-Halloween
-Saw
-Avatar
-Battlefield Earth
-Twilight
-The Twilight Saga: New Moon
-Transformers
-Transformers 2
-Titanic
-Jurassic Park
-Paranormal Activity
-Terminator 3
-Terminator: Salvation
-Road House
-Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer (“Rudolph I need you tonight!”)
-House on Haunted Hill (Three-Riffer Edition)
-Night of the Living Dead (Three-Riffer Edition)
-Teenagers on Trial
-The Tale of Moose Baby
-Flying Stewardess (free at Rifftrax: Plan 9 show)
-Christmas Rhapsody (free at Rifftrax: Xmas shorts show)
-Nestor: The Long Eared Christmas Donkey (free at Rifftrax: Xmas shorts show)
-Batman and Robin
-The Star Wars Holiday Special
-Cooking Terms
-Alcohol Trigger Films
I keep most of my stuff on three shelves. On the bottom shelf is Rhino and Shout volume-releases, together with a nice view of the Shorts-collection on VHS. On the middle shelf I have some toys :). On the top shelf I’ve put some VHS-tapes (none recorded, as I live in Sweden and MST3K never aired here), The Film Crew, Cinematic Titanic and RiffTrax. Third left is a promo copy of The Movie, still wrapped in plastic :)
All my other stuff, like posters, photos and magazines I keep in storage in my closet. I wish for an extra room…
Have a gander at my shelves: http://rtfm.nu/imgup/1275295864.jpg
I have all the Rhino sets and single-episode releases, all the Shout Factory sets, all 4 Film Crew dvds, a few dozen vhs tapes in boxes, A few official Rhino episode tapes, 3 rifftrax shorts compilation dvds and the legend films releases of Carnival of Souls, Plan 9 and Night of the Living Dead with Mike Nelson solo commentaries. They’re in many boxes and small crates, definitely not in episode order. I’ve got too much stuff piled up to really organize it the way I want to.
I’ve got all my movies stacked onto three shelves. Bottom shelf is filled to the brim with Rhino and Shout-releases, middle-shelf has a few toys, and top-shelf is filled with VHS-tapes (including a fun screener tape of The Movie!), Legend Films, The Film Crew, Cinematic Titanic and RiffTrax.
All other stuff like magazines, photos and other memorabilia is safely stored in my wardrobe :)
Have a gander at the shelves: http://rtfm.nu/imgup/1275295864.jpg
Let’s see I have all the Rhino sets [including the Vol. 10 and Vol. 10.2], all the Shout! sets with Vol. 18 prepaid. All the rest are on grey market dvds. All the stand alone dvds and currently working on getting the vhs releases. I have the brain that would not die, Eegah, angels revenge, the unearthly, poopie I and II., scrapbook and MST3000 The Movie —promotional screener copy —- sweet!
Also got bloodhook [vhs], all of CT and Film Crew and all the dvds from rifftrax minus the the three stooges and original non mistied versions of the greem slime [demo], invaders from the deep [ktma01] and revenge of the mysterions [ktma02]
I have all the shout! And rhino DVD releases…
Many more episodes on VHS but I’ve transferee almost all of them to DVD…
What I usually do is convert the DVDs to iPod videos and watch them on the ole iPhone
Got several eps off of YouTube ! Thanks to all the misties out there uploading them!
There are still alot I haven’t seen… But I’m working on it… Been watching regularly since season 4.5
I am laughing and crying at the same time after reading these comments. I, too, had two full file boxes of VHS tapes, all numbered, that contained my MST collection. I also had my own catalog of episodes listed both alphabetically and numerically, indicating which episodes were on which VHS tape. I thought I was the only one who was so obsessive about this little puppet show that I carried the tapes through three home moves. They were truly among my most-prized possessions.
When my grown son (also a MSTie) left home I was so depressed that I couldn’t watch any episodes for about three years. But two years ago–after my mom died–I gave myself permission to replace my entire collection on DVD. Gary at http://www.mst3kvideos.com dubbed all the episodes that are not Rhino or Shout Factory episodes. (Thanks again, Gary!) Got all the boxed sets and one-offs through eBay or Shout Factory or Amazon.
In the past two years I’ve watched the whole series in order twice, from the KTMA episodes through Season Ten. The sound is SO much better on the DVDs than it was on my scratchy VHS tapes (although I actually do miss those corny ads that were on the Comedy Central episodes).
I just recently got up the courage to get rid of my 80+ VHS tapes. I felt guilty, especially after all the enjoinders to “Keep Circulating the Tapes.” I’m so relieved to discover that I’m not the only obsessive out there!
It is great to hear all these stories. I have the Rhino sets, singles, Shout! sets, Film Crew singles, a CT DVD, and a handful of Rifftrax movies in a modest Ikea DVD/bookcase. The Rhino VHS’s and only 3 tapes i made myself are in storage.
The major compilation, though, is my iPod with attached speakers. Thanks to a poster here, i converted the DVDs to mp3s and just listen to the sound of the shows (riffs+movies). Since i found i often like to listen to the show while doing other things it is awfully convenient to have them all queued up in one iPod!
Everyone’s talking about discs for their non commercially available episodes… what a huge use of shelf space!
I store all my discs (commercial and DAP made) on a 2TB HDD… streams out to my media center (running XBMC)… every episode in the show’s history that fans have access to all instantly available.
Being a fan from waaay back, I have every MST ep ( many favorites I have multiples of either to loan out to friends or ‘just in case’ the primary one for viewing goes bad on me.) …
Further, as I originally had them on VHS, and then converted to DVD, I still have the old VHS stored away.
All this wonderment takes up A LOT of space.
It`s a damn good thing that I own my house and have an understanding wife.
Back when the show ran on CC, I was recording the eps on a JVC vcr that had some tracking issues if you ever put it in another vcr (ep mode had a line of static on the tape, SP mode had half the screen taken over by static). So when I got my dvd recorder to dub off my eps, I used the original vcr I used to record them on. Sure, since the original recordings, I still had a few issues with tracking (you know how tapes go), but I was able to dub off my collection in about 6 months. Whenever the new box set comes out I replace my dub offs and send them to my parents’ house, in case I wanted an emergency episode. All of my dvds have colored cases, depicting which season they are. Some colors are used more than once, just as long as 2 consistant seasons are not the same color.
Wow, I can’t hold a candle to most of the people on here it seems. I did some checking and I have precisely half the Rhino DVDs (volumes and singles) in my collection. Nothing notable unfortunately (volume 9, fer instance) since I didn’t start collecting until the Rhino sets had started going out of print, although I recently pulled down a copy of volume 4, which has my two favorite episodes (Space Mutiny and Overdrawn at the Memory Bank) in it. I do have all the Shout Factory sets, Film Crew DVDs and Mike’s pre-Rifftrax NOTLD and Plan 9 releases.
I do have a complete collection that I burned myself some years back, but at the time I didn’t care about compression so it’s not pretty looking. I’ve been meaning to do it over again so they can at least look nicer, and I think I have the raw files lying around somewhere. I’ve been trying to come up with a more efficient way of pre-syncing Rifftrax, so hopefully I’ll expand that part of my collection soon. I don’t like torrenting the things, even though I do buy the tracks and own the films I’m getting them for. Feels like cheating.
I own every MST3k episode released by Rhino and Shout Factory [‘cept for Vol 14 & 15, which I still need to pick up], and the rest via Cheepnis’ DVD-Rs. I ACCUSE MY PARENTS is the only episode I need to upgrade to DVD [I also have the elusive AMAZING COLOSSAL MAN VHS].
I recently took all the Rhino discs out of their [ugly] boxsets and put them in slimcases [with those lovely JoshWay covers] so everything can be in proper super-geek chronological order:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v607/gojiluv/TravisMST3kCollection.jpg
Lessee…
I built the bots (Crow, Servo and Gypsy) and have them in my living room.
I have most of the Sci-Fi era episodes, “The Amazing Colossal Man (never released on dvd) and all of “Tom Servo’s Favorite Host Segments” on tape. I have all of the Rhino single episodes and sets, all of the Shout! Factory sets, all of the Rifftrax dvd’s, all of the Cinematic Titanic dvd’s and all of the Film Crew dvd’s. I also have all of Mike’s books and Kevin’s book plus the episode guide, the internet guide, a few of the calendars and a bunch of postcards and articles torn from magazines. Am I a geek now?
My DVD’s are sorted as follows: Blu-rays in alphabetical order (both movies and TV series), DVD movies in alphabetical order, MST3K and its spinoffs in numerical release order (except Rifftrax, which are alphabetical by movie), then finally, other television series.
I have my standalone Rhinos, then box sets, together. The Cinematic Titanic, Film Crew, then Rifftrax DVD’s come next. (I have every CT release, one Film Crew, and a few Rifftrax. I have every official MST3K release except “The Essentials”.) MST3K: The Movie is alphabetized with my regular movies, oddly enough.
I transferred most of my videotaped episodes (which came straight off Comedy Central and Sci-Fi via DirecTV) onto DVD about five years ago. These are together in one of those carrying books with plastic sleeves. The transfers came out amazingly well. I don’t have every episode by any means, but I have quite a few.
My movie storage, by the way, is in a large closet designed to work as a walk-in coat storage and kitchen pantry. The movies take up one wall, while food is stored on the other. So it’s all out of sight. Pretty cool.
I have every episode stored in my Novicorp HX368. When bored at my workstation I will “scroll up the cinemas” and select Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I wasn’t aware of the show until it went to Sci-Fi, so I taped all those, and I used to buy CC episodes from bootleggers. Nowadays, I just buy the official DVDs and get the rest online.
Yeah i’d say my “digital” collection has become about 50 percent of my collection in more recent years. Still have all my original tapes and try to keep them in a big tupperware container…though i have a bad habit of not putting them back after watching. I started collecting the best lookin and some of my favorite episodes in DAP form many years ago and they’re on burned CDs all over the place too. Lots of stuff on Hard Drives also. I never really cared much or could afford to collect all the Rhinos (Past a few of the VHS sets) though i’m starting to regret it after renting a couple volumes from the library. And I never got any DVD singles past Egah and The Brain.
BTW…the few episodes I recorded off local television here in KC, when the show was syndicated for that short time, are my most cherished. I had a pack of T-180 high quality tapes and was recording them in EP at the time. The quality looked closer to LP and could fit 4 whole episodes on them, sometimes 5 if i squeezed out enough commercial. Sadly, they look well in the EP/SLP quality (or worse) now after playing them for years. :|
There was something weird but cool about watching the episodes with the old local late night commercials. I wish it lasted longer though.
I have two giant Ikea bookshelves of DVDs and BluRays in my living room, and MST3K takes up a full shelf. All of the Rhino and Shout Factory box sets (I bought the Rhinos as they came out, and in retrospect I’m very glad I did), plus the Rhino stand-alone DVDs, the original vol. 10 and the 10.5 disc squeezed inside it, and I’ve got the Crow statuette on one side of the shelf and the Tom Servo on the other. No bootlegs on the shelf or anything (though I have some, from DAP, sitting in the basement). Cinematic Titanic is filed under “C”, not placed with the MST3K’s (I haven’t really gotten into Rifftrax). Alas, I have relegated the OOP Amazing Colossal Man VHS tape to the basement, where VHS tapes are exiled.
But for a while I was trying to get all my Rhino boxes signed, so Vol. 1 is signed by Joel, Vol. 2 by Trace, Vol. 3 by Kevin, Vol. 4 by Mary Jo, Vol. 5 by Mike, Vol. 7 by Frank (I made him sign the picture of the TV on the front of the box), and Vol. 9 by J. Elvis (since he’s in Women of the Prehistoric Planet). If I can ever hunt down Bill Corbett, Paul Chaplin, and Jim Mallon, I’ll consider that quest complete.
DVD-R is the more universal format for burning your own DVDs. DVD+R can give certain DVD Players trouble. I would recommend transferring VHS tapes to DVD as soon as possible. The shelf life quality of VHS is short (plus every time a VHS tape is viewed, the quality is reduced) and DVDs won’t start to have a reduction in quality for about 75 years.
I agree with those who say don’t bother with the arduous process of transferring all your VHS tapes. I recorded every episode of seasons 2-7 on VHS when the show originally aired and when I got a DVD recorder, one of the first things I did was transfer my favorite episodes to DVD. After making about 10 discs, I discovered the 150GB 35 DVD torrents referenced above and it is so convenient and nice I boxed all my tapes up that I had painstakingly recorded over 6 years and and threw them in the garage. Now the whole collection sits on my linux server that streams to my ps3. For the record, I buy new CT releases when they come out to support them and the CT folks were nice enough to autograph my episode guide and The Essentials DVD package when I saw them last year in Seattle.
Like many here who started watching the show during those hazy VHS days, I collected eps of the show via sitting down and taping, actually going through the pain-staking process of editing commercials out. The downside to this was missing the first joke after the return from an advertisement, but it made repeat viewings all the more easier. I still have every tape I ever used to record episodes, and I keep them away from direct sunlight in a drawer. I don’t have the time and where-with-all to transfer them to dvd-r…to me it’s no big deal as long as the quality is watchable, which 99% of my tapes still are. Besides, I only watch eps yet to make it to dvd every so often; in fact it’s the only reason I still own a VCR!
As for my DVDs, I recently purchased a huge display case made by the Atlantic furniture company, which allows you to adjust your shelves to also place VHS tapes, CDs, Blu-Rays, or any knick-knacks you have. I have all the Rhino single dvds, sets, and Shout Factory sets lined up in proper set # order, along with the un-mstied versions of certain movies, and the Gamera vs. Barugon movie that included a dvd-r mst version. Despite the enormous size of this unit, I cannot fit all of my VHS copies due to the fact that I also have my CDs, Blu Rays, and (non MST3K-related) dvds filling up most of the remaining space. I also keep my Servo, Crow, Godzilla, and Jet Jaguar figures on the very top; it’s the perfect size for such childish things!
I started watching MST back in 1995 when I was fifteen. It took me a couple viewings before I realized, “Hey! I should be taping these!” Ahhh, youth. . . . I taped with no discretion; I filled up 8 hour tapes in the SLP mode, usually with commercials, in whatever random order they aired episodes on CC. I remember the Turkey Day marathons to be joyous periods. I filled up many tapes, and loaned out quite a few, and sadly, some of those loaners never returned. *On a side note, in 1998, when I met my future ex-wife, I was rifling though her families video tape shelf and much to my surprise, there was a missing MST tape of mine, that ended up at her place through a friend of her brothers who got it from a friend of my friend. I’m convinced that one of the reasons I was fated to meet that woman was to get back my lost dubbed copy of “Bride of the Monster.”
Anyway, around the time of season 9 I said to myself, “I should be taping these things in EP mode, to preserve quality.” So that’s what I did, I started taping episodes in EP mode, a single episode to a tape, and usually with commercials. I also started the process of dubbing my already taped episodes to single tapes, utilizing a VCR-to-VCR set up. I was obsessive with it for awhile, and by the time I got outta high school, I purchased tapes of complete seasons 1 and 2, and random episodes here and there, from a dude on the internet. They were three to a tape so I, of course, re-dubbed them to single tapes. In the end, I had 100+ VHS tapes with single episodes sitting double stacked in a little bookshelf that I moved around with me all through college. To up the nerd factor, I labeled each tape “Experiment #whatever,” followed by the episode title. It wasn’t a complete set of episodes, but I was happy with it.
While in college, I purchased the Rhino sets, Vol.1-4, as well as the Essentials Collection; I still own these and they sit on my shelf next to my Kids in the Hall 1-5 and Freaks and Geeks sets. I always intended to catch up with the MST Box Sets, but alas, I never have. My collection stayed dormant as it was through my college graduation in 2005. I was too poor to get anything new. My obsession was reignited a couple years ago when a friend introduced me to DAP Central. “Holy Crap,” I thought, “It’s all there. All of ’em. In one spot.” We commenced downloading; I had to use my friends computer as I did not have one at the time (archaic, I know!) and the process was slow, but I now have Complete Seasons KTMA-Season 5, and Experiments #601-610, #623-624, #701-704, all on 22 DVD-R discs, six eps per disc, plus two discs of a buncha bonus stuff, like Shorts Vol.1-3, Summer Blockbuster Reviews, behind the scenes, and interviews. They are all in avi file format and they play on my DVD player and my (new) computer. The discs rest in a black case that sits next to my TV, ready at a moments notice. I also still have all my other episodes on VHS tapes (seasons 6-10) sitting on the same shelf I’ve had for a decade+.
The downloading filled in lots of holes in my collection, namely the bulk of seasons 3 and bits of 4 and 5. It was a blast to see eps I had never seen, namely Fugitive Alien, Outlaw, and Master Ninja. All in all, I now have a copy, one way or another, of every episode except two: #620 Danger! Death Ray! and #909 Gorgo. I will probably continue downloading soon; I’ve recently moved to Portland OR, and I don’t have a DVD burner myself (I know, how archaic!). But it’s good to have goals, you know? Even if those goals involve owning every episode of your favorite TV show.
LET YOUR FREAK FLAG FLY!!!!
oH, and Watch Out For Snakes.
Pride of my collection, “The Amazing Colossal Man” on VHS, still sealed in shrink-wrap. Rhino used to have an MST3K VHS “club” where they would just ship a tape every 8 weeks or so. Show was still on CC/Sci-fi back then.
I have several of those Rhino VHS releases still unopened. Most of those, if not all, have since been released on DVD.
Lastly, have all the Rhino / S!F released DVD sets [opened] and all the Rhino single DVD releases [sealed] except for “Beginning of the End”. Still need to track that one down.
I simply hire Ernest Borgnine to come over and tell me in great detail about each episode before going to sleep in the evenings…why bother with VHS or DVD?
Graboidz, I like your humor (#90,99). Good comments!