I’m getting rid of an old Hi8 camcorder and figured I’d throw in the tapes with it, but I want to wipe the contents of the tapes before I do. I don’t have a huge magnet or anything I can use to quickly erase the tapes, so the only option is to record over them using the camcorder. Instead of being boring and just muting it and leaving the lens cap on I figured I might put something vaguely interesting on there.

The camcorder is one of those fancy units where the audio/video outputs can be used as audio/video inputs when the thing is in tape playback/recording mode (VTR). I do have an HDMI -> Composite converter, so I can actually record video and audio together, albeit at 480i with bleeding colors. Alternatively I can leave the lens cap on and pipe audio directly into the microphone jack, which is stereo.

As for what to record, my spouse and I have come up with a few ideas:

  • Vaporwave (generally)
  • Weather Channel Vaporwave (specifically)
  • ~2 hours of the Lo-fi Girl stream
  • Everywhere at the End of Time (broken across 3 tapes)
  • A public domain serial radio drama (Have Gun Will Travel is my vote)
  • Public domain films (Laurel and Hardy or maybe some Charlie Chaplin)
  • Steven Soderbergh’s silent black & white recut of Raiders of the Lost Ark
  • Analog horror of some kind (e.g. Backrooms, Gemini Home Entertainment, Local 58 except it’s way too short)

Aside from that, generally anything that might look better with proper analog distortion is an obvious win. The camcorder can only record at full speed, 2.5 hours per tape, so no way to add extra distortion that way.

Also I do have a capture card and can turn around and re-record whatever I put on these tapes, so if you want to see the results I can show you.

Anywho, what’s your suggestions Lemmy? What treasures can I leave on these Hi8 tapes?