Im torn. On one hand yes everything is available digitally. On the other I like having hard copies and not thinking about backing up 3 hard drives and random hard drive failure and managing an even larger library on a computer…its nice just to have the media exist. And what happens when our ability to own media disappears (which looks to be a very real possibility).

They do take up space. I may keep the ones I really like and get rid of others.

I easily have over 300. Along with dvds, but im keeping those.

  • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
    22·
    9 days ago

    No. If they are meaningful to you, keep them. If you’re worried about the data failure of them, just watch them once every 10 years and it should renew the magnetic stuff on them.

    I work in a place with a lot of old technology and the general consensus is that magnetic media needs to go through the motions every 10 years to stay healthy.

    but we have had success accessing 25+ year old media. so there’s no scientific line about how long that stuff should survive.

    I do subscribe to the 10 year access rule because not all media was created equal.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
      4·
      9 days ago

      just watch them once every 10 years and it should renew the magnetic stuff on them.

      VHS doesn’t work like that. It’s not digital. It doesn’t rewrite on a read. Magnetic hard drives and tapes don’t rewrite on a read either.

      You need to copy them to renew and VHS is analog so every copy is worse.

      • thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org
        11·
        9 days ago

        the head of the vhs is using magnetic resonates to read the tape, that magnetic interaction is the same thing that tape has always used. it is the same

        edit: the real problem with VHS is the moving tape and how fragile the process is. the tape head can stick to the tape or the tape sticks to the wheels or the vhs cassette rollers sticking

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
          2·
          9 days ago

          Reading does not refresh the data! The head passes over the magnetic domains and that induces a current in the wires in the head.

          That process does not in any way refresh the magnetic domains.

          Yes it is the same for digital tape but at least with digital tape you can read the data and re write it perfectly onto a new tape because of ECC. Simply reading a digital tape doesn’t refresh the data either.

          VHS is analog. The signal read will be slightly weaker than original. That signal will be written onto a new tape as weaker because it is analog. Nothing in the VHS recorder knows what the original was supposed to be.