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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Weird, I just set up my “official” shelf yesterday. Long gone are all of my VHS tapes which I started recording in earnest around Season 5, 3 to a tape on EP. Keep in mind that 20 years ago, the show was on ALL THE TIME and I would get so sick of some episodes so I couldn’t imagine having them on tape. I bought a few of the Rhino tapes (including Catalina Caper and Amazing Colossal Man which became very rare) and eventually a couple DVDs. Once the show left CC I started to miss all those old episodes so I hit the tape trading sites and got a nice collection of LP tapes with homemade labels. Then I discovered the DAP and other download sites and really started to fill in the gaps. All those burned discs now sit in 2 DVD binders, with some CT and Film Crew mixed in. I skipped the more recent Rhino box sets due to the high price, but I’ve loved the two Shout collections I’ve bought (plus got me a Tom toy) and plan on buying more.
This is a great topic, I’m loving all the ideas. Since I’ve only gotten into MST3K fandom in the last 2 years, I have no self-recorded VHS tapes only a few (Mitchell, Sidehackers, Hellcats, Poopie 1 & 2, etc.) that I found for a buck a piece at a thrift store.
I have several Rhino box sets (including The Essentials), most of the Shout! Factory releases and I have also obtained about 10 fan-made discs that I hand off to Non-Mistie friends when Shout! releases them officially. I also bought the Rifftrax Live! Christmas Shorts DVD, which I am not going to open and watch until Christmas this year along with Santa Claus and SC Conquers The Martians.
Since I don’t have any personal attachment to any episodes (Aside from “Angel’s Revenge” and MST3K: The Movie, which I first saw in my younger years) I was basing my purchases on fan-site reviews. Recently, I’ve been previewing episodes on YouTube before I buy them, which has worked out well.
They all reside peacefully on the middle shelf of my media cabinet/TV stand, except for the VHS tapes, which I keep in a box, because frankly, they’re space hogs.
VHS has a shelf life. The first thing to go (as I have noticed) is the audio track. Next the video goes–the appearance is known as solarizing (sharp light and dark contrasting, with very little b&w or color grading in between). I converted all my VHS to DVD a few years back–and just in time. This is especially true if you recorded them in SLP (6 hours per T-120 tape). You just have to slog through it. It also gave me the opportunity to remove the commercials.
I got ’em all. I had a source for very bad Season Zero tapes, and combined my stuff, cheepnis, Rhino, Shout, and borrowed to complete the set.
I am NOT a collector of anything but lint and MST’s. I’ve got everything converted to DVD plus pre-recorded DVD in little white window sleeves in two mini-crates, with the Rhino tapes and the original DVD boxes stored away in the vaults.
It’s rilly kewel. 004 through 1013, plus some shorts. The actual DVD collection takes up only two 7″X9″ mini-crates, but I’ve got several packing boxes full of VHS originals.
Yeah, it was worth it.
I went through the conversion process from VHS to DVD a few years ago, replacing them with Rhino/Shout versions as they come out. They all went into my Sony 200 disc DVD changer–essentially fills it.
I also framed my MST3K: The Movie LASERDISC (thanks to my wife tracking it down in an Atlanta warehouse) and put it up on the wall, alongside the movie trading card set and the DVD set mini-posters.
MST3K: The Movie LASERDISC trumps my Night of Horror VHS. Sigh.
I too have everything thanks to Rhino, Shout! Factory, Best Brains Inc, and DAP. Episodes K-4 thru 1013 and all the specials, BBI tapes, and TV apperences. (Talk Soup, CBS Morning Show, etc.) My fave memory was when collecting the Rhino VHS’ I came across one of the 3 tape box sets and did not have to double dip. The kicker was it was mispriced at $9.99 and the cashier knew it. She gave me a dirty look but could’nt do anything about it. :grin:
I’m an old fart and set in my ways. I like having hard copies that sit on a shelf (I just generally dig bookshelves and CD/DVD shelves). Plus I’m lazy, so I let other people do my converting for me. My VHS are slowly disappearing (and are in the bookshelf with the books) so my DVD riffshelf has the Rhino/Shout box sets and singles. Home made single episode MST discs (No uniform covers. I do like Josh Ways stuff… maybe I’ll stop my lazy ways and print out those for uniformity)
There’s also all the Cinematic Titanic titles, Star Wait. Film Crew, Legend film commentaries (autographed by Mike) official Rifftrax discs and authored discs stored in clamshells.
I also have an autographed Titans pic hanging above the shelf, along with the Rifftrax Batman & Robin poster (because I’m in the list of writers) next to it. And an autographed Arch Hall Jr CD displayed in all its glory. With the Tom and Crow figurines.
All of Mike’s books (including the pop ink stuff) and Mary Jo’s book, a screenplay by Bill, along with the ACEG and Trace’s comic book (3 different covers, autographed) are stored in the books, bookshelf.
I had recorded only a couple of episodes back in the 90s when all hell broke loose in my life: My cable company did not carry SciFi, the company i worked for threw myself and thousands of other employees out on the street and I found out my wife was cheating on me. Now as I look back, the first issue was definitely the worst of the 3! I soon found myself living alone with no cable (again probably the worst part of that situation), so my daughter-an angel- sent me a 3-pack of MST tapes for Christmas. Got me through a lot of hard times, for sure. Dozens of tapes and 190+ dvds later, I never leave home without one of the dvd carrying cases with me. Like a security blanket!
This thread has been a ton of fun to read [and re-read]! Thanks to all the funny and touching and informative and personal posts, MSTies are the best!
I have my own personal MST3K “cable” channel that broadcasts episodes 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! I converted all the DVDs I own and DAP files I may have obtained, converted them to xvid files about 700MBs in size, and store them all on a 1TB hard drive. I purchased a cheap desktop PC, hooked it up to my home entertainment system, put all the MST episodes on a Media Player Classic playlist; now with the press of a button on my remote control I can watch the Satellite of Love!
I own all the Single Disc Rhino Releases and Volumes 1-6 i just got Volume 7 on eBay and it should be coming in a few days, sadly i didn’t buy most of the Rhino Volumes when they orignally came it because i didn’t want to pay the $60 MSRP for them due to being low on funds which kinda hurts since Volume 9 & The Original Version of Volume 10 are not fetching big bucks due to their rarity.
Anyone know where i can find a copy of The Essentials DVD online with the Infamous Shorts Volume 3 DVD? I was going to order that down the road but that set stopped selling after the Rhino/Shout! Factory switchover.
Update- I have just started to transfer my old VHS tapes to AVIs to watch on my TV with a media player. First done is “The Mole People”. DOWN, DOWN DOWN etc.
I have all the MST3K DVDs as well as most of the Rifftrax and Cinematic Titanic DVDs. I have all the Sci-Fi episodes on VHS in order. Check out the pics below to see the other MST3K stuff I have.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brohaus/4675326749/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brohaus/4675327843/ (Check out the “movie sign” I made about the TV)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brohaus/4675951648/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brohaus/4675329973/
I also have a MST3K: TM poster in my family room.
I just wanted to thank you guys for this thread. It forced me to sort out some of my own tapes to pull the oldest stuff out and starting trying to do captures of it all chronologically.
I have a lot of older tapes in SLP, of course, such were the college days of frugality, but I have all of season 8 not only in SP but captured in great quality in regards to the feed (from a dish instead of cable).
One of the weirdest things that always gets me is that you can really see how cable’s quality in broadcast shifted further and further toward crap as the years went by. My early tapes in SLP sometimes have better picture quality than my more recent SP stuff that I had to get off of regular cable when we moved to San Francisco in ’99. I went through various VCRs as well, and they all had different quality, but in the end it may have been the combination of the fantastic cable I had way back in the early 90s and the VCR I happened to own then.
I find that I am missing two episodes that I’ll go DAP hunting for: ROCKET ATTACK USA and CODENAME: DIAMONDHEAD. My SPACE TRAVELERS is also ridiculously screwed up as well so I’ll hunt that down on DAP if I can.
Since I basically came in at season 2 I never really considered season 1 the first season for my own purposes. I only have collected those as they are released on DVD official releases or as they were broadcast post-season 2 during specials, etc.
I did find that I have a LOT of MST3K specials on VHS that I should go ahead and cap and maybe YouTube them; but not label them properly since it seems that Comedy Central will have YouTube pull even a promo from a 15 year old airing if you put in “Comedy Central” to the name of the video. Kind of sucks since I have a lot of great season 6 promos on tape.
I found that I also have the HUGE Gamera complete airing on two tapes (the one time they did an airing of all of one type of MST that I can recall). Also I have an MST3K “Chain Reaction” they aired and a good chunk of 1995 Turkey Day and possibly another Turkey Day via a friend.
I should have counted the tapes. There are at least 150 or so. I have two VHS players and two Analog to digital capturing devices. One of the VCRs was a very little used SuperVHS. No proper remote, but it hardly needs it. Also, the one analog-to-digital capture device is incredibly dumb in that it won’t work on SLP for composite video out (the other works just fine and the “support” at Grass Valley tried to convince me that SLP was “non-standard” and “only used for surveillance” etc. – the kid helping me has probably never actually USED a VCR) so I am very thankful someone gave me for free that SuperVHS with S-Video out because that Grass Valley device will only capture SLP via S-Video. (My other device is a DAC video converter and is six years old and did SLP over composite straight out of the box – there’s nothing special about doing that like Grass Valley claims. Also, Grass Valley does NOT state on their devices that SLP tapes can only be captured via S-Video, so they are still on my “never buy again” list.)
And if anyone does want keep circulating the tapes in regards to my missing episodes… well, gmail me at the username here. :)
Doh, forgot to mention that I have already converted about 30 episodes (a couple subsequently released to DVD) that were favorites such as IT CONQUERED THE EARTH, FUGITIVE ALIEN and SAMSON VS THE VAMPIRE WOMEN. GIRLS TOWN and DADDY-O are a couple of others that were converted pretty quickly.
MST3K is one of the few things that when DVDs are released, I buy them, no questions asked. As soon as there is a pre-order I hit the button (through click-through from here to support you guys). SO far, honestly, they’ve done pretty damned good at the released given the complicated issues of rights involved. It’s so funny to look at things like season 3 and season 8 and see HUGE chunks of stuff that have not been released and might never be released in MST3K format (things like Gamera and the sequels and any of the other classic 50s stuff that they did in season 8).
Since I came into the show when it was on Sci Fi Channel I didnt get any episodes on tape (didnt think to tape any during the Sci Fi years either) So it was a good thing my love for the show got revivved a few years ago since so much stuff is on DVD now.
Here is My MST3K DVD collection so far
Rhino:
Vol. 1
Vol. 2
Vol. 4
Vol. 5
Vol. 7
Vol. 8
Vol. 10.2
The Essentials (also have the Manos single)
Eegah!
Mitchell
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die
Shout Factory
Vol. 14
Vol. 16
Vol. 17
Next up on the Rhino end I plan on getting Volume 12 and Red Zone Cuba, hopefully before Vol 18 comes out July 13th.
Kind of a dead thread, however I just wanted to jump in, as I’m fairly new to the whole MST3K thing. I never once saw it on TV (live in Canada, not sure if it was even shown here). My first time watching it was a friend lent me the VHS of Pod People. I loved it and soon rented all the single episodes from my local haunt. A few years later, I started downloading whole episodes, much to the fury of my internet provider (this was 2003, and they wanted me to pay a premium for dling more than 5 GB a month, yeah right). I usually just watched them once and deleted them to make more room on my HD. Then a few years passed when I didn’t think about MST3K much, but I recently got back into them when SF started putting out the new boxes. I was lucky in finding someone else’s complete Rhino collection on ebay (including the original Vol. 10 and the single Gila disc) for $400, which I think is cheaper than new, with only a few little dings on the cases. I bought both the SF sets with the Crow and Servo toys, so now I’ve only a few sets to buy. Since I have so many to watch, I probably will be satisfied with the official DVDs for a while. Maybe I’ll check out the ‘never to be released’ episodes through trading one day. So far, I’m loving it.