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That one guy at the thrift store who told me I was storing my tapes wrong
Some older dude saw me stacking my VHS tapes flat at a Goodwill in Phoenix and said I was killing the magnetic layers. I switched to storing them upright a month ago and my old copy of The Rock finally plays through without that skipping sound on scene 3. Anyone else get random advice from strangers that actually worked?
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betty_reed618d agoTop Commenter
Oh PLEASE. Storing tapes flat is NOT going to "kill the magnetic layers." That sounds like something a guy who reads too many VHS collector forums would say just to feel important. Tape degradation is mostly about heat, humidity, and age, not which way you stack them. You probably fixed your skipping issue because you checked the tape path or cleaned the player, not because you turned it sideways. People love to act like little storage habits will destroy things but reality is much less dramatic. Your old copy of The Rock probably just needed a good rewinding before you played it, that is all.
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tara_palmer8d ago
18 hours of playing is pretty extreme even for tape testing. @betty_reed61 did you actually let a tape run that long or was the player in some kind of loop?
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