I was watching a documentary on the tv last night narrated by the wonderful Sian Phillips. She of course played Livia, the scheming murderous wife of the Roman Emperor Augustus.
It reminded me that it was my all time favourite drama and, as I still have the tapes, would love to watch them again.
I had a look on Amazon FR but the offerings were not clear as to what I wanted. One description said it must be VHS-C but the rather poor illustrations did not look quite right to me.
Does anybody know?
BTW, many of the original main actors are still alive, including Brian Blessed as Augustus. The last time I think that I appreciated his talents, nowadays he has made a whole career of shouting very, very loudly, and I have to rush to the mute button if I have enough warning.
Any old VHS player will do…BUT your TV will need to have a SCART input (to match the one on the VHS machine), which many modern ones don’t.
You could websearch for a VHS player that has an HDMI output, as all modern TVs will have an HDMI input.
Another option is to find a VHS machine that has a coax output (like a TV aerial socket), but that will require a ‘modern’ TV that still has a SD (Standard Definition) tuner built in. I’m not sure if any VHS machine will produce the HD signal that a modern TV will expect.
A scart to hdmi converter. I’m in the market for one myself for my DVD player. You’ve spurred me into action. €35 in leclerc. Much less online.
It’s a small box with scart in and hdmi out. Be careful not to buy HDMI in scart out, if you go that route.
VHS-C was a version of VHS designed to use a small cassette specifically for camcorders. You can buy converter shells to allow VHS-C to be playable on a standard VHS deck.
That was what I saw, a small cassette, which sounded a warning. I wondered if there was something I could stick my normal sized cassette into to play it through a connection to the tv. Non of the descriptions seemed to suggest that.
There is no scart on my tv (but there is an HDMI input) but I do have a smaller one which was bought for Fran which I believe does have.
But the biggest problem is I can’t see if the articles pictured are for playing a large VHS cassette, never mind the existance of the correct connections.
Buying the DVDs, yes, but I would still have to find a way to play them on the tv. I am famous for not throwing anything away, because it might come in handy one day, but I did used to have 2 TVs with slots for cassettes, and I threw them away. It doesn’t help to be proved right for once.
I wonder if it’s on YT? Worth a look.
It is, the full series, but probably not in English. What appears to be the most complete is I think in German, but I expect there are English subs. Still, free.
Britanniche, is that German?
What a fool I am to mistrust YT. Just started to look at the first of what appears to be all the episodes, and it is in English with English sub-titles.
Not counting my chickens but it seems that I have lots of real drama to entertain me for quite a while.
Toshiba were recently making a VHS and DVD machine which was designed so that you could play a VHS tape and copy it to DVD. I think that machine had an HDMI output so it would work with your setup.
Thank you Brian but as you see above I may have the answer, for free.
Had a look at your link, but that is to transfer to a DVD and I don’t have a DVD player. And what about the price almost €450 plus €90 for delivery, though with having prime presumably I wouldn’t have had to pay that.
Hopefully I can watch it on YT on the telly. No doubt loads of adverts but I can stand them, I either read them if in French to practice my reading speed, or read my Kindle while I wait.
I was hooked on it, I could almost taste the evil of Livia, fascinating. And all in order to make sure her bloodline continued down the years. But of course it starts with an old and close to death Claudius, setting out to write the history of his family, and he means to hide it very securely so no-one then alive can read it, but then speaks to himself the classic line, ‘someone 19 centuries from now will find it, and know the truth’. So there we were, in 1976, finding it and reading it.
Watched the 1st episode in one sitting while having a bite of lunch. Delicious. Both.
You’re right though - watching on YouTube is a whole lot easier (and probably better picture quality).
VHS tapes tend to play back best on the machine they were recorded on - playing an old tape on a newer machine may produce a streaky picture (and scan lines at the top and bottom) as often the tape heads won’t be aligned the same as the original machine.
