Looking for Vids

[nibw]

I'm looking for old commercials from Ames, Bradless, CC, Jamesway, etc in high quality (at least VHS).
Esp. interested in going out of business commercials from these.

Any suggestions or anyone have some out there?

[gu4ever]

Originally posted by nibw
I'm looking for old commercials from Ames, Bradless, CC, Jamesway, etc in high quality (at least VHS).
Esp. interested in going out of business commercials from these.

Any suggestions or anyone have some out there?

One place to checkout is youtube for older commercials that have been posted by other users. At the top of their site is a search engine to help narrow your search. Here's the link to their site.

http://www.youtube.com/

[nibw]

Yes I know YT well ;) and have found some great stuff on there but am looking for something that is a bit better quality.

[NJxxJon]

VHS tapes at yard sales...lol

[C3Nostalgia]

VHS tapes at yard sales...lol

YouTube and other online sources are fine, but they really do lack quality with the older ads.  Many of them have been encoded and re-encoded so many times that the audio may still be intact, but the video quality has been reduced significantly.  It is better to view the ads from an original analog source like a tape.

Self-recorded VHS tapes are a goldmine for ads!  I have found that because they are not "real" tapes, and people want to get rid of them, you can get a box full for a couple bucks.  People just recorded movies on TV commercials and all, so the ads are intact.  You just need to have time to review through the tapes.  I've found that many used the standard T-120 tape on SLP record setting, so there are three separate recordings on the tape. Just fast-forward through the movies, and use another VCR or other device to dub the commercials to.  I recommend using SP mode when dubbing to not reduce quality further with the dubbing over to another tape.  Or, just have the VCR connected directly into your computer to save time and it won't reduce quality any further.

My setup on my TV consists of a Go Video dual-deck VCR which we purchased from Wards when they were having their GOB sale.  It still has a sticker on the unit for $299.95! (I think we only paid a little over $100 for the unit)  I also have a Zenith single unit which I have wired into my desktop for when I want to do digital transfers.