In the realm of music production and instruments, there’s often an association between vintage gear and “character.” The modern stuff is great for pristine exactness, but there’s something people find attractive about the imperfections in the old gear; unpredictable behaviors in analog circuits, old janky digital to audio converters, the “sizzle” 12-bit samplers add, myriad flavors of tape artifacts/effects. Today’s flaws are tomorrow’s je ne sais quoi‘s.

I’m thinking there’s a similar thing going on with other vintage technology. Blu rays or streaming will give you perfect 4K visuals, but the perfection makes the delivery mechanism invisible. Old VHS tapes and machines, their imperfections made them feel like they’re part of the creative process rather than a pass-through.