Do used betacam sp tapes have value?

[USSEnterprise]

Hi.

I have several hundred once-used Betacam SP tapes of varying lengths in their cases. Are they worth anything or should I chuck them?

Thanks.

[Eric H]

It depends what's on them.
If it's off the air recordings from the 70's there might very well be some interest in them.

[USSEnterprise]

They are all technical lectures and presentations from the IEEE and AT&T from the 70s to the early 90s.

[Electronic M]

The content may have value if copies of it were not preserved by the IEEE and AT&T.

The cassettes may have value to folks like me who collect outdated recording formats and want a few dozen tapes for each format they own. If the content has no value, then I'd try putting one lot of ~10 tapes at a time on ebay for 5-15$ starting bid per lot and see what they do. Even ~1$ per tape for several hundred tapes is better than 0$ trashing something that is no longer being made.

[Dave A]

If the tapes are truely 70's the ATT tapes may be interesting if they have some of their technical operations documented. ATT was the long-lines of all three networks in the day. On Friday afternoons after the networks went dark after the soaps for the afternoon, ATT would feed a BW program explaining all the weekend NFL timings and patchings for Sunday games.

It was a treat to watch. A bunch of guys in white shirts and ties with shirt-pocket pencil protectors in place explaining every hard-patch from stadium to NY, all the patch points along the way, all the times that a second game should be patched to NY, and all the patches from NY to the regions that would get any game. It went for 20-30 minutes on our feed at my CBS affilliate.

This ATT video from 1967 shows a bit of the ATT video at 13:00 in. (And some looks at early color from the day). And then more on voice/teletype services. This is how it used to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAJpionUxJ8

[ChrisW6ATV]

Betacam has large and small cassettes. The small-format Betacam SP tapes are usable in ED Beta VCRs, and the BCT-90 small-format tape is equivalent to an EL-750 (three hour) ED Beta tape, which was a size never sold as a true ED Beta cassette.

[BetacamSPMan]

Originally Posted by USSEnterprise

Hi.

I have several hundred once-used Betacam SP tapes of varying lengths in their cases. Are they worth anything or should I chuck them?

Thanks.

Betacam SP was not created until the late 80's. It is still a very viable format for youtube. I would be interested in some of your tapes, especially the 90 minute ones and if they were made by Sony.