The Deep (c. 1979) T-127 (E-180)
Dances with Wolves (c. 1990) (T-182)

Quite long movies!!!! -- The longest I have @ the moment is 172 Mins (THE GREAT ESCAPE) and its excellent!!

Look @ these 300 minutes tapes,WOW!!!!!!! (It says currently out of stock but Im sure they might get more (If someone sells them))

www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00005K47G

5 hours in SP mode -- WOW!!

That is amazing!

The longest tapes I have are radio shack T-180 recording tapes (=3HRS SP, 9HRS EP) which I used to buy annually to keep up with cable while on vacation in an area that is lucky to have OTA reception....9HRS times 2-4 VCRs makes for plenty to look forward to upon return.

If you look at lengths of Reel To Reel audio tape and the run time breakdown at various speeds, and factor in auto reverse it is staggering how much audio one could fit on a single audio tape.

TDK also made a 180-minute tape. Here's mine.

http://i.imgur.com/jJHkqbFl.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/UWeLg0Jl.jpg

BASF still makes a T-200 length.

I've been buying my new, blank tapes, at the thrifts. I only buy the better quality tapes, by the better makers. I leave the el-cheapo ones for someone else. They're all t-120. Generally, 50 cents each. Even cheaper with my seniors discount. :thmbsp:

I have an 'E-180' tape and I thought it meant 180 mins IN SP MODE!! (I tried to copy a movie I had on another tape to it but it didnt make it (The movie is 142 Mins (I should have realised "E" meant EXTENDED PLAY -- uugghh)))

Keep in mind those extended times are for PAL-SECAM systems that run slower at 50 Hz/25 frames per second. Knock off about 20% of that time for 60 Hz-30 frame per second rate.

Those E-180 tapes got a lot of mistaken attention back in the early 1980s as well when people thought they were "3-hour" tapes. If I remember right, they are about equivalent to a T-130.

E-180 do play for 3 hours--Well, In the UK they do!
E-240 play for four hours SP and 8 LP.....

The Lonesome Dove mini-series was released on a 6+ hour tape in SLP hi-fi.

The longest I ever use is T160.I never tried anything longer and I probably alittle larry on using the thinner tapes in my vcrs .They will have a snack on them like the 120 minute cassettes in the cassette players usually have.

How is the drop out rate with those extra long tapes?

In my movie collection I cant recall what was the length of the tapes are.Thanks for some of the info with the movies.I probably have some of those movies in my collection.Its hard to keep track of 1000s of video tapes.

The later radio snack brand T-180 tapes I used had very few dropouts...They were better than some (the bad day at the factory ones) of the shorter tapes I used in terms of number of dropouts over the complete run time.

I have a box full of DF-300 DVHS tapes here, they are the equivalent to (S)T-150 length (or 150mins in HD recording mode). DVHS tapes were apparently available up to DF-480, or (S)T-240! I think SVHS tapes were available at those lengths too.

DVHS got caught with the same marketing problem as Betamax did. The tape length is based on the recording time for standard definition content, which is the same physical speed as VHS LP mode... making DVHS decks the only JVC built VCRs that records in LP mode. :P

On the old Philips Video 2000 format you could get up to 16 hours on one tape in LP mode (8 hours on each side). Possibly the most of any format?

Wow 16hrs in LP?????

Man oh man....

I've seen 300 minutes V.H.S. cassettes. But I think they are only for P.A.L./S.E.C.A.M., because for N.T.S.C. recording you need a higher speed for the tape.
Din't buy one because it the instruction manual for my 1986-1987 "Panasonic" NV-630 PX V.H.S. V.C.R. it's mentioned that in can record in S.P. mode maximum 240 minutes... (or it is beacuase back then there still wheren't made E-300 V.H.S. cassettes?).

It could be a bad translation of estimated record time based on a standard shorter length tape.

Longer tapes tend to be thinner and more prone to be stretched by decks (some decks were worse than others). I'd imagine that if that was a problem it should be mentioned in the manual. The worst that I can imagine happening if you try one of those tapes is the tape slowly becoming unplayable. I'd record and play back short test recordings on that tape starting at 30 seconds and progressing up to 2 hours if there is no signs of stretching or other troubles after progressing through those tests then odds are there will never be problems.

I would think they would have to be cause there is only so much room in the shell!!

Anyway, I used E-240 cassettes. In N.T.S.C. they woul be T-174.
Yes, longer tape = thinner tape.
I see the longest tape for N.T.S.C. was T-240, which could record 250 minutes (4 hour and 10 minutes) on S.P. mode.

Ya my friend was talking about T 200s on another VBB site Im on,I havent ever seen one...

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/...d.php?t=120048

A D-VHS tape type DF-480 could store 4 hours in analog SP mode or 40 hours of digitally encoded SD content on the PS5 record speed...

40 hours??

Whoa.......

This makes wonder about the tape data capability... well, most big servers stores data in tape cartridges (of server type). For data not instantly being requested.
One single layer DVD is good only for ~2h of digital video content...

A single layer DVD has about 4.7 GB capacity. The duration of the video recorded depends on the bitrate.