Bally/Williams released a number of promo VHS videos throughout the 90s and they are interesting to watch. We can find many of these on YouTube, but the quality of these can be sub-par as they've been captured years ago. That being said, methods of capturing and preserving of VHS tape material have continued to improve in recent years. If any of you still have some Williams promo tapes sitting around I am one of the few people using a technique called RF level preservation and decoding. What that means is I have a modified VCR and PC setup that allows me to capture the very finest details on the tapes, by way of sampling/digitizing the actual RF signal recorded onto the tape itself played back directly from the tape heads. From that capture, I can then 100% play it back in software and stabilize it with time base correction. That method can recover additional detail, depending on the condition of the tape, and gives a few avenues of tweaking how the image is processed on the software side. The result is often comparable to a pro-sumer level S-VHS machine with a built in time base corrector circuit. A few examples using this software capture and preservation method. Is anyone interested in working with me on doing "full tape-level" preservations of Williams videos?

https://github.com/oyvindln/vhs-decode#readme

https://archive.org/download/scaredsilly-rfcapture/Scared%20Silly%20deinterlaced.mp4

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Edit: Here's what I now have, for your enjoyment!

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/addams-family-pinball-promo-video-vhs-rf-capture:6

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/gilligans-island-pinball-promo-video-vhs-rf-capture:6

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/pingame-journal-100th-issue-volume-1-vhs-rf-capture:b

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/pingame-journal-100th-issue-volume-2-vhs-rf-capture:3

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/pingame-journal-100th-issue-volume-3-vhs-rf-capture:7

Here's a Ford Thunderbird promo video as well if interested.

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/taking-flight-2002-ford-thunderbird-vhs-rf-capture:7

Poll seems promising. If you have one of these videos and want to try this PM me and maybe we can work something out.

It's good for just about any type of material.

Given the generic labels and large style reels, they are probably original. If you need more info feel free to PM me. There are ways to tell if tapes are original or second generation copies by analyzing the actual RF signals.

Any Data East stuff on VHS as well? I've only seen Bally/Midway/Williams.

ForceFlow can you move this to the All Pinball forum? I put it in the Bally/Williams forum but realized there may be other tapes not from Williams out there.

Thank you! If anyone wants to send me a video I'll upload it and share it here after capturing. You'll of course get it back. Just pay me shipping for a single tape, and we can work out prices if more than one.

For my personal videos I use LTO-5 tape storage, M-Disc Blu-ray, and hard drive storage. Hard drive obviously being the least reliable, but most easily accessible. M-Disc literally etches your data in stone.

Is anyone aware of any other volume collection tapes like these?

Here's a Monty Python interview using this method. Looks fantastic. Remember, this tape is just as old (1994)!

I had someone send me some PinGame Journal 100th issue tapes from 2002. Williams staff interviews, promo videos for games, and other misc goodies. Curious to see how those turm out.

Looking good!

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Compare this to the horrible YouTube upload:
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Interesting but not something I'll be using for video preservation (I don't have a Nvidia card anyway). Thanks for sharing.

Here's what I now have, for your enjoyment!

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/addams-family-pinball-promo-video-vhs-rf-capture:6

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/gilligans-island-pinball-promo-video-vhs-rf-capture:6

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/pingame-journal-100th-issue-volume-1-vhs-rf-capture:b

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/pingame-journal-100th-issue-volume-2-vhs-rf-capture:3

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/pingame-journal-100th-issue-volume-3-vhs-rf-capture:7

Thanks to thepinballworks as well for providing the tapes.

I particularly enjoyed the Gilligan's Island video. Multiple sales reps were willing to be on camera for Williams's first dot matrix display game. That was a big deal!

Here's a Ford Thunderbird promo video as well if interested.

https://odysee.com/@Crashdance22/taking-flight-2002-ford-thunderbird-vhs-rf-capture:7

Yep, I've had a few 20+ year old retail CD-ROM and burned CD-R games get disc rot as well. My various retail and home video tapes on the other hand, have held up fine I would say at least 95% of the time. I've seen tapes as old as 1986 play perfectly, like they were recorded yesterday. How many CDs from 1986 still play?

Also if you have any old arcade footage you want me to take a look at send me a PM. I love reliving those says too.

Anyone else notice this less than year old Attack from Mars already had a GI string out in the backbox? Mmmm, big fat toasty resistors...

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