Nichibei site

[Keropi]

Nichibei the cel seller is no longer around right? How long have they been gone?

I've been going over the last of my VHS tapes. I still have about 175 left - many of them are just raw Japanese tapes. A couple of tapes had some cels on them from websites back when I was using a WebTV. They are from 1997-1998 and Nichibei was one of the places on it. I think Anime Assault was on it too. If I knew then what I know now I probably have bought at least a couple more Tenchi cels and a Lodoss War cel for sentimental value. I don't think I clicked the Lodoss War category though so it was probably already sold by that time (private seller).

Six of my eight VCRs have died. Only two of them still work. Most of them have died from the belts become old and loose. I need to finish copying VHS tapes before it becomes even more difficult to buy a VCR that works decently.

Those old Pioneer logos that came on before the Tenchi anime started make me feel nostalgic.

[Pixel]

I don't know anything about the cel vendor, but it seems like the stopped making VCR's about a year and a half ago or so. It is possible to find VHS/DVD-combo units combos. Some of the combo recorders even had a digital (ATSC) tuner, but those are very few and far between.

I sort of miss the old VHS VCR. I still have one, two actually. One of them goes all the way back to the 80's. I have no idea if either works.

While video quality was at times questionable, at least the tapes themselves felt sturdy. Optical discs sometimes make me feel like the could get scratched just because I looked at them the wrong way.

I still remember NES game cartridges being called "Nintendo tapes." It would take me a few years to understand why that happened.

And then, there are the "Intendo tapes."

[Keropi]

I will save the cel video because Nichibei's site is about the first site I seen that sold anime cels after I got on the internet. I think Right Stuff had some cels on their site too, but their cels were sort of an afterthought compared to everything else on their site so they were not good quality cels.

They still sell used VCRs on Amazon, but I was hoping to finish copying my tapes before all of my VCRs died. I don't think I'm going to make it at the rate they are going. It's hard to tell how long those used VCRs will work. Ideally it would be nice if someone replaced the belt with a new one, but I don't expect them to do that.

With VCR tape you had to worry about mold. A couple of my tapes were stuck together with mold. The tapes did last a long time though. The tapes take awhile to rewind and the tape sometimes comes off the spool when it hits the end of the tape. I still have some blurry and bad quality fansub tapes just to laugh and remember how bad they used to look. That Inuyasha digital to VHS tape transfer looked horrible too. The subtitles are almost below the bottom of the screen.

[Pixel]

VHS tapes certainly had their share of problems. I don't recall dealing with mold myself, but I can certainly see how it could happen.

I still remember seeing old VHS cassettes of Kiki's Delivery Service and My Neighbor Totoro in WalMart in the mid-late 90's. Little did I know, that was perhaps the leading edge of anime gaining mainstream recognition in the West.

Being VHS tapes, I expect they were English dubs, but I don't really know. I didn't really think much about them then.

Even though I've never seen either movie, I never forgot the tapes. For some reason, it is really getting to me to think about the BluRay sets of these same titles sitting on the shelves almost 20 years later (probably as I type this) of the WalMart SuperCenter about 2 miles from the "Discount City" where they sold the VHS tapes.

I never expected to wax nostalgic of a couple of VHS tapes containing movies I've never even seen.

[Keropi]

I got one of the later Kiki's Delivery Service tapes. It was the Disney dub. Inside it was a coupon to buy a broom at a discount. They had a promotional tie in with the anime to buy a broom. I saved that coupon somewhere.

If the VCRs weren't going bad I was planning on saving about twenty VHS tapes and one VCR, but with the belts being such a weak point, I don't think that it's worth doing now. I still have my laserdisc player and a few anime LDs. I wonder if they have laserdisc rot yet? I wonder if I could burn those to DVD too?

[Pixel]

So Disney's relationship with Ghibli goes back that far? I actually didn't know that, but it would explain how Miyazaki's worked gained traction in the West back during the VHS days.

I'd hang on to the coupon. That's the kind of thing people throw away for junk. Who knows how many of them are left even now.

I'd tought about mentioning LaserDiscs. Congratulations, that's an intriguing format to own. There's a fellow on Youtube, I think he goes by "Technology Connections". He has all kinds of cool stuff on there, and a number of videos on LaserDisc and the players.

As to recording them to DVD, it partly depends on if the LD's are copy-protected. There are forms of copy protection that pre-date DVD, with MacroVision being a particularly famous example. If the source disc and player both work correctly, and there is no copy protection, you should be able to use a working DVD recorder (a consumer DVD Video Recorder, as opposed to a PC DVD-Burner).

EDIT: To be clear, if your LD, VHS cassette, or other source was recorded with MacroVision protection, you should expect a consumer DVD recorder to flat out refuse to record it. Try to outfox it, and it may respond by burning just a tiny amount to the disc, then refusing to record any more of it. In either case, you should also expect it to very smugly inform you of the refusal, and that copying from a protected source is prohibited.

I'm afraid composite video may be the best you can do, so the video quality wouldn't be the best. On the other hand, you might find a DVD Recorder with S-Video input, assuming your LD player can output S-Video, but that would probably be the max video quality.

Just as an example, here is a picture of a VHS VCR/DVD Recorder combo.



If you look closely, you should be able to see a Record button under both the VCR and DVD tray. This one does not have a tuner however, digital or otherwise. You shouldn't need one for your purposes.

You can also buy just a DVD Recorder like this, without the VCR. It looks a good bit like a standard DVD player, but of course will have things like the Record button on it.

If you decide to go this route, pay attention to which blank DVD formats are supported by the recorder you chose, as there are several. Not all recorders support all blank DVD formats.

I think DVD+R is considered slightly better for archival purposes, but I'm not totally certain. Avoid the re-writeable DVD formats for long-term archiving, they tend to be harder for DVD drives to read properly.

I have one extremely important tip regarding DVD video recording-When you are happy with a recorded disc, make sure to have the recorder finalize the disc! The instruction manual should tell you how to do this. Once finalized, the disc will no longer be writeable, and ideally DVD players will see it as if it was a manufactured DVD-Video disc. Without this step, other DVD players (and recorders even) will very likely NOT be able to play the disc!

I've had several recordings go bye-bye because I forgot the finalize a DVD, and the recorder unit failed where I couldn't finalize them.

It is safer to assume that only the DVD Recorder in which a disc is originally recorded will be able to finalize it, and only that DVD Recorder will be able to play it as long as it remains un-finalized.

That's a lot to take in, but most of it is based on my own experience.

EDIT: About MacroVision - Disney seems to have used it on every VHS tape they published, so I would assume that Kiki and Totoro will not be copiable from VHS using the method described above.

EDIT: I see that the unit above seems to have an S-Video input. If I was looking for a DVD recorder, I think I'd go for one with S-Video input if my source device could output S-Video.

EDIT: It is possible to use a PC to record video from analog sources. This requires a video capture card/device, a DVD burner (if your want to make DVD's), proper software for both, and a lot of patience. Yes, as far as I know PC video capture hardware is supposed to respect MacroVision. They pretty much have you any which way on that one. Any PC capture card that might (might) be old enough to ignore MacroVision is probably too old to work in a newer PC.

[Keropi]

Thanks for the information.

I have a DVD burner unit and a copy protection device. I've been able to copy everything except for Snow White. That was my sister's tape that she left behind after she passed away. Well, no big thing. The stuff I'd prefer to copy the most is the stuff that I can't find anywhere even if I bought it. I have that segment leading up to Ali lighting the Olympic torch for example. The replays didn't show it as well as when it happened the first time live. I have video clips of me playing games that are too old to play now. I've already copied my camcorder tapes. I made multiple copies of those because I expect the burned DVDs to go bad over time. Some of the video of my burned DVDs from 2003 became pixelated so it is degrading.

I have an analog TV in the backroom so I had to get an RF Modulator to see the tapes playing on that TV. Tapes with Macrovision may have copied to another tape, but they can't be burned to DVD because the Macrovision was transferred also. That's where the copy device helps. My DVD Burner doesn't show much onscreen until I finalize it so it's easy for me to remember to do it.

[Pixel]

Ah ok. Sorry, I guess I just assumed wrongly that you weren't familiar with this stuff. As the family tech guy, I keep up with a lot of it.

We've had two DVD recorders, and they both would each play the disc they had recorded un-finalized.

I didn't mention removing MacroVision, as I figured you mostly wanted un-protected content copied. Removing copy-protection typically requires one to be fairly determined about finding the means to doing so.

I also knew that MacroVison would be copied over by devices that ignored or weren't bothered by the signal, resulting in (ironically enough) copy-protected copies.

As for archiving video-by chance have you heard of M-DISC? It's supposed to be a long-term writeable DVD (and apparently BluRay) Disc. According to Wikipedia, the manufacturer claims recordings in that media will last 1000 years. It requires a DVD or BluRay Drive that supports M-DISC for burning, but my understanding is the resulting discs can be used in regular DVD drives (not sure about players).

One thought would be to record to a standard DVD-R, then copy that over to an M-DISC. I don't think M-DISC's are cheap though.

I thought I would throw it out there, might be worth checking into.

[GuyvarIII]

I'm not sure... but, I think 'Nichibei' became 'Soul Of Tokyo'